Selection Policy
The County of Los Angeles Public Library serves one of the nation's most culturally, economically and socially diverse regions. The Library selects materials which best serve the needs of its varied and complex public.
The Library makes available a broad and relevant collection for information, education and recreation, in formats that include over 7,700,000 books, magazines, videos, cassettes and compact discs.
The Library makes a positive effort to provide materials of interest to people of differing ages, ethnic groups and lifestyles, in English and other languages.
The Library affirms the public's right of access to a broad spectrum of reading, listening and viewing materials. In compliance with the American Library Association's Library Bill of Rights and its Freedom to Read Policy, the Library makes available sound factual data and honest opinion representing all points of view on topics of public interest and importance.
Method
The County of Los Angeles Public Library selects materials based on recommendations from the public, reviews in the media, examination materials from publishers, and the subject knowledge and expertise of library staff.
Librarians purchase materials for each community based on their knowledge of the diverse needs of their customers and the local library's collection. Resource centers and special collections enhance the Library's ability to provide information.
No materials are excluded or removed from the library on the basis of the author's race, nationality, or political, social, or religious beliefs. Materials dealing with controversial views are judged as entire works, not on isolated passages or sections.
The Library selects materials that are pertinent, representative of divergent needs, and responsive to customer demand. The Library provides current materials as well as standard authors, titles and subjects.
Criteria
The County Library staff considers these and other factors in selecting materials:
- Accuracy and impartiality
- Appropriateness for age
- Availability of the subject in the Library
- Cost
- Currency of information
- Inclusion in standard bibliographies or indexes
- Permanent value as a standard work
- Physical durability, attractiveness and technical merit of the format
- Popular interest or demand
- Quality of organization, readability and style
- Relevance
- Reputation of the author, publisher, or producer
- Social significance
- Uniqueness or special features
Formats
The Library purchases many types of materials:
- Books
- Magazines and Newspapers
- Cassettes
- Books on Cassettes
- Compact Discs
- Videos
- Laserdiscs
- Software
- Microforms
- Pamphlets and Maps
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.
- Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resistant abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.
- A person's right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.
- 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, 1980
Reprinted with permission from the
American Library Association 1992
