Policies

COLLECTION GOALS

The purpose of the Dennis Public Library’s collection is to provide modern, quality library resources necessary to meet the evolving informational, educational, recreational, and personal needs of the diverse community it serves within the limitations of budget, space, and availability. Materials are collected that are appropriate to the library’s role as a town library and as a supporting member of the Cape Libraries Automated Materials Sharing (CLAMS).

Collection goals are to provide:

• Print and non-print materials that support the library’s role as a community resource for information and cerebral recreation.
• A broad range of materials and information resources with consideration of access as well as ownership.
• Children’s materials that fosters a lifelong interest in reading and learning.
• Collection priority is given to:
• Current materials
• Works of broad popular appeal for the independent user
• Breadth over depth (Materials on a wide range of subjects are sought rather than exhaustive collections in any one area; within specific materials, general treatment is sought rather than specialized or scholarly studies.)

SELECTION RESPONSIBILITY

Ultimate responsibility for the Dennis Public Library collections resides with the Director. Library staff makes selection decisions for the Library’s collections using judgment, expertise, and available selection tools.

SELECTION CRITERIA

Materials are available for all ages and reading levels and in a variety of formats. They are identified and selected using a number of sources, including professional and commercial media-reviewing periodicals, catalogs, data that shows demands within the CLAMS system, and professional discussion when considering new, non-print offerings. Selectors take into account the contents of the Library’s current collection, patterns of use, and individual patron requests.

GENERAL CIRCULATING COLLECTION – Collection Development polices for special areas of the library collection:

Fiction Collection:

New acquisitions for the Fiction Collection focus mainly on current popular titles. Because of the large volume of fiction published, only a representative selection is purchased with emphasis on major authors and the most popular examples of a genre.

Requests for materials influence the number of copies added to the collection. Works of genre fiction are selectively purchased to reflect community demand for them. Short story collections, first novels receiving favorable reviews, and experimental works are selectively collected.

Nonfiction Collection:

The Nonfiction Collection concentrates on timely and accurate materials that provide useful information. When available, materials offering different opinions and viewpoints are collected. As new fields emerge, the library attempts to respond with timely additions. When choices exist, selection is based on readability, clarity, and appeal to the generalist rather than the specialist.

Self-Published Fiction and Non-Fiction items:

The Library may accept a donated copy of a self-published book if it is written by a local author, about Cape Cod, or fits the scope of the Library’s collection and meets the selection criteria. Self-published materials may be purchased using the same parameters. To maintain the vitality of the collection, materials are weeded when circulation reports show no patron activity or interest in an item over time.

Periodical Collection:

Magazines and newspapers are selected on the basis of quality and audience appeal. The Library provides representative periodicals in a wide range of subjects of reference value and recreational interest.

Music CD Collections:

Music CDs are available for both adults and children. The Library’s small adult collection offers a variety of musical genres and performers that have wide audience appeal. Due to its size, items are frequently evaluated and deselected as newly released titles become more in demand. Children’s CDs are purchased for entertainment and educational purposes, encouraging an appreciation of the musical arts and learning.

DVD Collections:

DVDs are the Library’s standard format for video. Collections are available for both adults and children, and these collections feature selected titles for recreational, informational, and educational purposes; they include in demand high-grossing theater releases, favorite classics, television series, and non-fiction areas of interest.

Cape Cod Collection:

The Cape Cod Collection consists of Fiction, Mystery, Nonfiction, and Reference Sections. Breadth of the collection includes stories and topics related to the geographic locations of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket.

Children’s and Young Adult Collections:

Fiction and Nonfiction materials in the Children’s Collection reflect the needs and interests of children from infancy through age 11. The emphasis is on materials that entertain, stimulate the imagination, develop reading ability, and enable children to learn about the world around them. The Collection includes materials at an adult level on the subjects of parenting, child development, reading, and other areas specific to the educational and recreational needs of young children.

The Young Adult Collection offers fiction and nonfiction materials in both text and graphic formats for ages 12 – 18. As a bridge between the Children’s and the Adult Collections, the Young Adult Collection focuses on popular YA fiction and non-fiction that have youthful appeal, support academic learning, and foster reading for enjoyment and lifelong learning.

Responsibility for the reading choices of children and young adults rests with parents or guardians. Caregivers are advised to particularly note the suitability of books and consider a child’s or young adult’s age and sensibilities.

RECONSIDERATION OF LIBRARY MATERIALS

The Dennis Public Library acts as a forum for information and ideas. As such it upholds the First Amendment to the Constitution and intellectual freedom as set forth in the Library Bill of Rights, the Freedom to Read Statement, and the Code of Ethics adopted by the American Library Association. (Copies are appended to this document and are considered integral to this policy)
Individuals who challenge the selection of a given item should be directed to the Library’s Collection Development Policy and, if still not satisfied, may fill out a Request for Reconsideration of Library Materials form. The Director will review the request and, in consultation with library staff, respond to the patron’s request within a reasonable time period.

GIFTS

The library appreciates gifts of materials or money and accepts them with the following provisos:

• The same criteria apply to the incorporation of gift materials into the collection as does for the selection of purchased materials.
• The library reserves the right to administer both materials and monetary gifts with a view to the best interests of the library.
• The library will not become a depository or custodian for materials of great monetary or historical value.

DESELECTION

To maintain the vitality of the collection, materials are regularly withdrawn. The same criteria used to select materials are applied to those being withdrawn from the collection. The following criteria identify materials that can be removed from the collections:

• Outdated in content or appearance
• Poor physical condition
• Duplication of titles when demand no longer exists
• Updated, newer, or revised materials are available to replace a given item ∙ Circulation reports show no patron activity or interest in an item over time
• Copies are readily available through the CLAMS network
• (The library does not necessarily replace materials that are lost, damaged, or worn out.)

COLLECTION EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT

Evaluation of all collections is ongoing. Collections require continuous evaluation to ensure that the library is fulfilling its mission to provide materials that meet patron interests and needs. Evaluation tools such as circulation reports, collection turnover rates, shelf allotments, and volume counts are studied to determine how the collection is being used and how it should change to respond to patron usage. Patron input is also considered when evaluating the collection.

Adopted by the Dennis Library Board, June 14, 2018; Follow up November 14, 2019

APPENDIX

LIBRARY BILL OF RIGHTS

The American Library Association affirms that all libraries are forums for information and ideas, and that the following basic policies should guide their services.

I. Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.
II. Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.
III. Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.
IV. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.
V. A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.
VI. Libraries which make exhibit spaces and meeting rooms available to the public they serve should make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use.
Adopted June 19, 1939, by the ALA Council; amended October 14, 1944; June 18, 1948; February 2, 1961; June 27, 1967; January 23, 1980; inclusion of “age” reaffirmed January 23, 1996.

FREEDOM TO READ STATEMENT

The freedom to read is essential to our democracy. It is continuously under attack. Private groups and public authorities in various parts of the country are working to remove or limit access to reading materials, to censor content in schools, to label “controversial” views, to distribute lists of “objectionable” books or authors, and to purge libraries. These actions apparently rise from a view that our national tradition of free expression is no longer valid; that censorship and suppression are needed to counter threats to safety or national security, as well as to avoid the subversion of politics and the corruption of morals. We, as individuals devoted to reading and as librarians and publishers responsible for disseminating ideas, wish to assert the public interest in the preservation of the freedom to read.

Most attempts at suppression rest on a denial of the fundamental premise of democracy: that the ordinary individual, by exercising critical judgment, will select the good and reject the bad. We trust Americans to recognize propaganda and misinformation, and to make their own decisions about what they read and believe. We do not believe they are prepared to sacrifice their heritage of a free press in order to be “protected” against what others think may be bad for them. We believe they still favor free enterprise in ideas and expression.

These efforts at suppression are related to a larger pattern of pressures being brought against education, the press, art and images, films, broadcast media, and the Internet. The problem is not only one of actual censorship. The shadow of fear cast by these pressures leads, we suspect, to an even larger voluntary curtailment of expression by those who seek to avoid controversy or unwelcome scrutiny by government officials.

Such pressure toward conformity is perhaps natural to a time of accelerated change. And yet suppression is never more dangerous than in such a time of social tension. Freedom has given the United States the elasticity to endure strain. Freedom keeps open the path of novel and creative solutions, and enables change to come by choice. Every silencing of a heresy, every enforcement of an orthodoxy, diminishes the toughness and resilience of our society and leaves it the less able to deal with controversy and difference.

Now as always in our history, reading is among our greatest freedoms. The freedom to read and write is almost the only means for making generally available ideas or manners of expression that can initially command only a small audience. The written word is the natural medium for the new idea and the untried voice from which come the original contributions to social growth. It is essential to the extended discussion that serious thought requires, and to the accumulation of knowledge and ideas into organized collections.

We believe that free communication is essential to the preservation of a free society and a creative culture. We believe that these pressures toward conformity present the danger of limiting the range and variety of inquiry and expression on which our democracy and our culture depend. We believe that every American community must jealously guard the freedom to publish and to circulate, in order to preserve its own freedom to read. We believe that publishers and librarians have a profound responsibility to give validity to that freedom to read by making it possible for the readers to choose freely from a variety of offerings.

The freedom to read is guaranteed by the Constitution. Those with faith in free people will stand firm on these constitutional guarantees of essential rights and will exercise the responsibilities that accompany these rights.

We therefore affirm these propositions:

1. It is in the public interest for publishers and librarians to make available the widest diversity of views and expressions, including those that are unorthodox, unpopular, or considered dangerous by the majority.
   Creative thought is by definition new, and what is new is different. The bearer of every new thought is a rebel until that idea is refined and tested. Totalitarian systems attempt to maintain themselves in power by the ruthless suppression of any concept that challenges the established orthodoxy. The power of a democratic system to adapt to change is vastly strengthened by the freedom of its citizens to choose widely from among conflicting opinions offered freely to them. To stifle every nonconformist idea at birth would mark the end of the democratic process. Furthermore, only through the constant activity of weighing and selecting can the democratic mind attain the strength demanded by times like these. We need to know not only what we believe but why we believe it.
2. Publishers, librarians, and booksellers do not need to endorse every idea or presentation they make available. It would conflict with the public interest for them to establish their own political, moral, or aesthetic views as a standard for determining what should be published or circulated.
   Publishers and librarians serve the educational process by helping to make available knowledge and ideas required for the growth of the mind and the increase of learning. They do not foster education by imposing as mentors the patterns of their own thought. The people should have the freedom to read and consider a broader range of ideas than those that may be held by any single librarian or publisher or government or church. It is wrong that what one can read should be confined to what another thinks proper.
3. It is contrary to the public interest for publishers or librarians to bar access to writings on the basis of the personal history or political affiliations of the author.
   No art or literature can flourish if it is to be measured by the political views or private lives of its creators. No society of free people can flourish that draws up lists of writers to whom it will not listen, whatever they may have to say.
4. There is no place in our society for efforts to coerce the taste of others, to confine adults to the reading matter deemed suitable for adolescents, or to inhibit the efforts of writers to achieve artistic expression.
   To some, much of modern expression is shocking. But is not much of life itself shocking? We cut off literature at the source if we prevent writers from dealing with the stuff of life. Parents and teachers have a responsibility to prepare the young to meet the diversity of experiences in life to which they will be exposed, as they have a responsibility to help them learn to think critically for themselves. These are affirmative responsibilities, not to be discharged simply by preventing them from reading works for which they are not yet prepared. In these matters values differ, and values cannot be legislated; nor can machinery be devised that will suit the demands of one group without limiting the freedom of others.
5. It is not in the public interest to force a reader to accept the prejudgment of a label characterizing any expression or its author as subversive or dangerous.
   The ideal of labeling presupposes the existence of individuals or groups with wisdom to determine by authority what is good or bad for others. It presupposes that individuals must be directed in making up their minds about the ideas they examine. But Americans do not need others to do their thinking for them.
6. It is the responsibility of publishers and librarians, as guardians of the people’s freedom to read, to contest encroachments upon that freedom by individuals or groups seeking to impose their own standards or tastes upon the community at large; and by the government whenever it seeks to reduce or deny public access to public information.
   It is inevitable in the give and take of the democratic process that the political, the moral, or the aesthetic concepts of an individual or group will occasionally collide with those of another individual or group. In a free society individuals are free to determine for themselves what they wish to read, and each group is free to determine what it will recommend to its freely associated members. But no group has the right to take the law into its own hands, and to impose its own concept of politics or morality upon other members of a democratic society. Freedom is no freedom if it is accorded only to the accepted and the inoffensive. Further, democratic societies are more safe, free, and creative when the free flow of public information is not restricted by governmental prerogative or self censorship.
7. It is the responsibility of publishers and librarians to give full meaning to the freedom to read by providing books that enrich the quality and diversity of thought and expression. By the exercise of this affirmative responsibility, they can demonstrate that the answer to a “bad” book is a good one, the answer to a “bad” idea is a good one.
   • The freedom to read is of little consequence when the reader cannot obtain matter fit for that reader’s purpose. What is needed is not only the absence of restraint, but the positive provision of opportunity for the people to read the best that has been thought and said. Books are the major channel by which the intellectual inheritance is handed down, and the principal means of its testing and growth. The defense of the freedom to read requires of all publishers and librarians the utmost of their faculties, and deserves of all Americans the fullest of their support.

We state these propositions neither lightly nor as easy generalizations. We here stake out a lofty claim for the value of the written word. We do so because we believe that it is possessed of enormous variety and usefulness, worthy of cherishing and keeping free. We realize that the application of these propositions may mean the dissemination of ideas and manners of expression that are repugnant to many persons. We do not state these propositions in the comfortable belief that what people read is unimportant. We believe rather that what people read is deeply important; that ideas can be dangerous; but that the suppression of ideas is fatal to a democratic society. Freedom itself is a dangerous way of life, but it is ours.

This statement was originally issued in May of 1953 by the Westchester Conference of the American Library Association and the American Book Publishers Council, which in 1970 consolidated with the American Educational Publishers Institute to become the Association of American Publishers.

Adopted June 25, 1953, by the ALA Council and the AAP Freedom to Read Committee; amended January 28, 1972; January 16, 1991; July 12, 2000; June 30, 2004.

CODE OF ETHICS

As members of the American Library Association, we recognize the importance of codifying and making known to the profession and to the general public the ethical principles that guide the work of librarians, other professionals providing information services, library trustees and library staffs.

Ethical dilemmas occur when values are in conflict. The American Library Association Code of Ethics states the values to which we are committed, and embodies the ethical responsibilities of the profession in this changing information environment.

We significantly influence or control the selection, organization, preservation, and dissemination of information. In a political system grounded in an informed citizenry, we are members of a profession explicitly committed to intellectual freedom and the freedom of access to information. We have a special obligation to ensure the free flow of information and ideas to present and future generations.

The principles of this Code are expressed in broad statements to guide ethical decision making. These statements provide a framework; they cannot and do not dictate conduct to cover particular situations.
I. We provide the highest level of service to all library users through appropriate and usefully organized resources; equitable service policies; equitable access; and accurate, unbiased, and courteous responses to all requests. II. We uphold the principles of intellectual freedom and resist all efforts to censor library resources. III. We protect each library user’s right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or received and resources consulted, borrowed, acquired or transmitted.
IV. We respect intellectual property rights and advocate balance between the interests of information users and rights holders.
V. We treat co-workers and other colleagues with respect, fairness, and good faith, and advocate conditions of employment that safeguard the rights and welfare of all employees of our institutions.
VI. We do not advance private interests at the expense of library users, colleagues, or our employing institutions. VII. We distinguish between our personal convictions and professional duties and do not allow our personal beliefs to interfere with fair representation of the aims of our institutions or the provision of access to their information resources.
VIII. We strive for excellence in the profession by maintaining and enhancing our own knowledge and skills, by encouraging the professional development of co-workers, and by fostering the aspirations of potential members of the profession.

Adopted at the 1939 Midwinter Meeting by the ALA Council; amended June 30, 1981; June 28, 1995; and January 22, 2008