Yuma High School Library Media Center Collection

Management Policy

Yuma High School Mission Statement

Students learn, teach, and achieve through a rigorous and relevant environment in order to become career and college ready.

Yuma High School Library Media Center Mission Statement

Yuma High School Library’s mission is to ensure that students are effective users of information by providing intellectual and physical access to materials in all formats. The YHS Library provides instruction to foster competence and stimulate interest in reading, viewing and using information and ideas by working with other educators to design learning strategies to meet the needs of individual students.

Introduction

This policy is a public statement of the guidelines used by the Yuma High School Library Media Center to select and manage its collection.

Patrons

The patrons of Yuma High School Library Media Center are first and foremost its students and its faculty. The library also serves the parents and guardians of the students as well as the school staff.

Access

Yuma High School will make every effort to allow access to all students, parents, and staff regardless of race, religion, disability, or economic standing. The YHS library media center will be open before and after school.

All patrons are given access to print and non-print materials. These include the latest technologies funding will allow such as internet, software, multimedia equipment, and online resources.

Responsibility

According to the School Library Bill of Rights, “School libraries are concerned with generating understanding of Americans’ freedoms and with the preservation of these freedoms through the development of informed and responsible citizens.” To this end, the responsibility of the school library is:

A. To provide materials that will enrich and support the curriculum, taking into consideration the varied interest, abilities, and maturity levels of the students served.

B. To provide materials that will stimulate growth in factual knowledge, literary application, appreciation of reading, aesthetic values, and ethical standards.

C. To provide a background of information this will enable students to make intelligent decisions in their daily life.

D. To provide materials on opposing sides of controversial issues so that young citizens may develop the practices of critical reading and thinking.

E. To provide materials representative of the many religious, ethnic, and cultural groups and their contributions to our American heritage.

F. To place principle above personal opinion and reason above prejudice in the selection of materials of the highest quality in order to assure a comprehensive collection appropriate to the users of the library.

G. To appreciate and take into account the requests and wishes of students, faculty, and staff in the selection of materials for the library’s collection while still maintaining high standards.

Selection and Evaluation of Materials

Materials should support and be consistent with the district's general educational goals and the individual educational goals and objectives Yuma High School.

Materials should be selected to support and enrich both the curriculum and the personal needs of our students and faculty, taking into consideration diverse interests, abilities, socioeconomic backgrounds, maturity levels, and students' extracurricular interests. Materials selected should encourage an appreciation for both informational and recreational reading, viewing, or listening.

Care will be taken to select materials meeting standards of high quality including:

Educational significance Physical format Presentation, including special features, such as indexes, table of

contents, illustrations, photographs, maps, charts, graphs Readability Patron interest Authenticity/accuracy in factual content Artistic quality or literary style Technical production/construction that is well crafted, durable,

manageable, and attractive Represent opposing points of view on controversial issues,

encouraging individual analysis Appropriate and effective literary style for the subject matter and its

intended readers or viewers

Materials will be considered relating to their overall purpose and their direct relationship to instructional objectives and/or the curriculum. Materials will be purchased in a variety of formats with efforts made to incorporate emerging technology when they meet the criteria outlined above. Gift materials will also be evaluated by the criteria outlined above and shall be accepted or rejected in accordance with those criteria. Once accepted, gift materials become property of the library and are no longer subject to dictation from the previous owner.

Procedures for Selection

The librarian will be responsible for the selection of materials. In coordinating this process, the librarian will:

A. Use reputable, unbiased, professionally prepared selection aids. Among the sources which may be consulted are:

Booklist Horn Book Kirkus Reviews Library Journal School Library Journal Follett Titlewave Other sources as appropriate

B. When possible examine items to be purchasedC. Consider recommendations from faculty, administrators, students, and

parents

D. Judge gift items by standard selection criteriaE. Purchase replacements for worn, damaged, or missing materials basic

to the collection.

Intellectual Freedom, Controversial Materials, and Censorship

The library supports the principles of intellectual freedom inherent in the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. One of the library’s major philosophies is to provide an opportunity for students and teachers alike to gain information, insight, and understanding on the various points of view on controversial issues. The library stands for freedom of communication, intellectual activity, and thought. Therefore, it does not add or withdraw materials from the collection at the request of any individual or group without proper and routine consideration.

Major controversial issues include race, sex, politics, literature, and economics. In selecting material in any of these areas the following criteria are given consideration:

A. The materials on controversial issues should be representative of a particular point of view and a sincere effort made to select equally representative materials covering contrasting viewpoints.

B. The material does not unfairly, inaccurately, or viciously disparage a particular race or religion. A writer’s expression of a certain viewpoint is not to be considered a disparagement when it represents the historical or contemporary views held by some persons or group.

C. The race, nationality, or political views of an author should neither prohibit nor mandate inclusion of his/her work.

D. Materials on religion are chosen to explain rather than convince and are selected to represent the fields as widely as necessary for the school’s purposes.

E. The selection of materials on political theories and ideologies, or on public issues is directed toward maintaining a balanced collection of various views.

F. In literary work of established quality, the use of profanity, violence, or the treatment of sex is not an adequate reason for eliminating the material from the school library.

G. Materials on physiology, physical maturation or personal hygiene should be accurate and in good taste.

H. Materials should be evaluated as a whole. The purpose, style, and theme should overshadow any isolated, offensive action. The masking, clipping, or any other alteration of an individual work should be avoided.

I. The inclusion of controversial materials does not imply endorsement of ideals contained in such materials by either the Yuma Union High School District or the YHS Library.

The Yuma High School Library welcomes books and other resource materials from individuals and organizations, but reserves the right of placement or rejection. The materials, if accepted, must meet the standards and criteria set forth by this collection management policy. Once accepted, materials become property of the library and are no longer subject to requests, appeals, or orders from the previous owner.

Challenged Materials

The review of questioned materials will be treated objectively, unemotionally, and as an important, but routine, action. Every effort will be made to consider objections made against material in the library’s collection. In cases where objection is expressed, the best interests of the students, the school, the curriculum, and the community will also be considered. Since differences of opinion do exist in our society, the following procedure will be observed to recognize those differences in an impartial and factual matter.

A. The librarian who receives such a request will use a courteous and objective approach. The complainant may be shown reviews of the material in question, if such reviews are available. They may also be shown any available recommendations or requests for the purchase of the material, if the library had received any.At this time, the student’s freedom to read should be emphasized. It will be noted that if a parent or guardian does not wish their student to read a specific material, it is the right of the parent or guardian to supervise their student accordingly. However, the intellectual freedom of other students should not be limited.The librarian should offer to re-evaluate the material, but is not obligated to remove the material from the shelf at this time. Hopefully the problem will be resolved at this level.

B. If no agreement between the librarian and the complainant can be reached, the complainant should complete the “Request for Reconsideration” form (see attached). It should be signed by the complainant and identified so that a proper reply can be made.

C. Upon the completion of this form, the questioned material will be withdrawn from circulation. At this time, the questioned material will be read, evaluated, and discussed by a library committee and convened by the principal and the librarian.

D. The committee will review the questioned material and all critical evaluations available. General acceptance of the material shall be checked by consulting authoritative lists in light of the collection management policy of the school. A thorough review of the questioned material will be conducted. Passages will not be taken out of context and the material will be evaluated as a whole.

E. The final decision of the committee will be implemented by the principal and the librarian. The complainant will be sent a copy of the evaluating report and decision.

Collection Maintenance

The library’s collection is constantly evolving in order to remain current, relevant, and aesthetically pleasing. Therefore, the collection will be periodically examined by the librarian for the purpose of weeding (or discarding) outdated, damaged, or uncirculated materials. Materials may also be removed for repair or to be replaced if budget constraints allow. Materials chosen for removal will either be given to faculty members who desire them for classroom use, auctioned in bulk boxes, thrown away, or recycled.

REQUEST FOR CONSIDERATION

YUMA HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY

INITIATED BY

DATE_______________

NAME_____________________________________

TELEPHONE_______________________

ADDRESS___________________________________________________________________

REPRESENTING

SELF_________ or

ORGANIZATION’S NAME_______________________________________

MATERIAL QUESTIONED

BOOK

AUTHOR____________________________________________________

TITLE_______________________________________________________

COPYRIGHT DATE__________________

AV MATERIAL

TYPE OF MEDIA (i.e. DVD, CD)___________________________

TITLE___________________________________________________________

PUBLISHER______________________________________________________

COPYRIGHT DATE___________________________

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PLEASE RESPOND TO THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS.

IF MORE SPACE IS NEEDED, USE AN ADDIONAL SHEET OF PAPER.

1. Have you read or seen this material in its entirety? _________________________

2. To what do you object? Please cite specific passages with page numbers.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

3. What do you believe is the main idea of this material? __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4. What do you feel might result from the use of this material? __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

5. What reviews of the material have you read? __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

6. For what other age groups might this be suitable? _________________________________________________________________________

7. What action do you recommend for this material? __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

8. In its place, what material do you recommend that would provide adequate information on the subject? __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

SIGNATURE________________________________________

PRINTED NAME_____________________________________

DATE________________________

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