- Statement of Purpose
As part of its mission, the Metropolitan Library System is committed to developing and maintaining a collection of content and resources that supports smarter learning, smarter working, and smarter living. These concepts are nurtured through the exercise of inclusivity, shared experience, and diversity of thought that are foundational to purpose of the public library, and are underpinned by the Library's Core Values, which govern the policies established by the Commission and the practices set by Library staff.
To this end, the Library will select and maintain a balanced collection of print, non-print, and digital content expressing a wide variety of viewpoints to serve the diverse interests and needs of all Oklahoma County residents. Collection development and management policies reflect the Library’s vision. This policy will:
- Communicate the collection philosophy to library customers
- Identify responsibility for the collection
- Provide criteria for the selection, management, and expanded access to content
- Responsibility for the Collection
The ultimate responsibility for building, maintaining, and managing the Library's collection rests with the executive director, who may delegate specific responsibilities to staff members with professional expertise and experience. Suggestions from the public are encouraged and are evaluated by the staff based on the Library’s Selection Criteria. The executive director may establish special collections on an as-needed basis to meet the interests and needs of the communities it serves.
- Selection Criteria
Each item shall be considered for inclusion in the general collection based on its own merits and its relation to its intended audience. All additions to the general collection, whether purchased or donated, shall be evaluated using the following criteria:
- Appeal to the interests and needs of individuals in the community
- Current trends and timeliness
- Literary, artistic, or graphic presentation
- Reputation or qualifications of the author(s) or creator(s)
- Local demand, interest, impact, or significance
- Accuracy, authenticity, thoroughness, and documentation
- Appropriateness of format(s) for library use
In order to provide customers with access to a broader collection than could be made available locally, the Library participates in interlibrary lending networks to share a wide range of resources with other cooperating libraries. Interlibrary loan is an adjunct to—not a substitute for—collection development and maintenance.
- Collection Maintenance
- To maintain an active, current, and useful collection, library staff assesses materials systematically throughout the year to determine their relevance to the public, the statements of this policy, the collection as a whole. In addition, the physical condition of items in the collection is continuously assessed to ensure an attractive presentation.
- Criteria used in evaluating whether an item should be removed from the collection may include condition, usage, available shelving space, and whether the item continues to meet the Selection Criteria.
- Access
- The Library will provide access to information across the broadest spectrum of disciplines and points of view. By collecting and acquiring publications and related materials representing the widest diversity of ideas, the Library expects to include items which reflect controversial, unorthodox or even unpopular ideas. Neither the Metropolitan Library Commission nor the Library’s staff will, either directly or indirectly, ban or censor any material that otherwise meets the stipulations of this policy. The presence of an item in the Library’s collection does not indicate any endorsement of its content by the Library, the Commission, or the staff.
- Library material will not be labeled to restrict access, and no materials will be separated from the main collection except rare and scholarly items of great value to protect them from damage or theft.
- While the Library's collection is available to all customers, decisions about the suitability of any materials for minor children will be the responsibility of their parents or legal guardians. Except as otherwise stated within this policy, the Library assumes no responsibility for restricting any customer’s access to items in the collection.
- Pursuant to federal and state statutes, the Library will not purchase, borrow, or otherwise provide access to any material deemed illegal in the state of Oklahoma.
- Reconsiderations
The Library will reconsider the selection or placement of any item within the collection when a customer completes and submits the Reconsideration Form (available at any library or online). The executive director will send a written response to the individual initiating the request.
- Special Collections
As determined by the executive director, special collections may be maintained separately from the general collection for a variety of purposes, including, but not limited to improved access to specific topics, preservation of fragile material, or as part of a collaborative or cooperative agreement with an external organization. By their very nature, these collections attempt to keep materials preserved for an indefinite future. All considerations for the proper display, storage, use, and maintenance of these collections are made with this principle in mind. Special Collections are regularly examined to determine if they continue to support the mission of the Library and if necessary reservation activities are sustainable.
H. Disposing of Withdrawn Items
Physical items in good condition, withdrawn from the collection will become the property of the Friends of the Metropolitan Library System.
- Procedures
The Metropolitan Library Commission authorizes the executive director to establish procedures to administer this policy.
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Comments
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Now that paperbacks are searchable (and partially catalogued), I'd like to see them also be holdable (and so would our customers!).
When it comes to reserving paperbacks, I think we should either do it efficiently or not do it at all.
I agree! We should either fully catalog the items and allow them to be reserved by customers, or not purchase them at all. If we are really putting members first, we need to make a decision on this. It is frustrating for both members and staff trying to locate the items and send them to the members that want them. Members find it frustrating that they can't place a reserve on the item they want, and staff have had to come up with their own special routing procedures to send the material to the member who wants the item.
I don't see anything in this policy about music CDs (maybe I'm overlooking it), but I understand that we don't purchase any CDs with a parental advisory for explicit lyrics. I would like to see us end this practice. We have movies with explicit language and books with explicit language in our collections, why not music? If necessary, we could restrict checkout of explicit content to adult cards only (although I don't really see the necessity of this, since we don't do it for books).
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I agree that we should purchase unaltered music CDs, however it's never bothered me to place the same age restrictions on movies as a theater or video store or Wal-Mart checkout counter, so it doesn't bother me to do so with CDs. Books don't have ratings. A child can purchase Fifty Shades of Grey in print anywhere, but has to show ID for the movie.
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While I realize that many artists create music knowing that there will be a "clean" version released to radio, and often likely take that into account, reworking certain words and phrases to fit the differing format, I believe that "clean" versions of albums created without artist input and consent (albums that merely mask words digitally or "bleep" them) are clearly censored albums. It could be argued that different versions of albums created BY the artist do not represent censorship, as the artist was technically in control of the situation. But I do believe, at the very least, they are compromised versions. The MLS supports pretty clear anti-censorship guidelines in our philosophical documents, and I believe we fairly support them in every way but this one.
I don't feel that censorship is the same thing as restricting access - I think it's acceptable to limit juvenile access to materials that have been assigned ratings from accepted outside sources (such as the MPAA), but parents should always have the final say on their children's access to those materials. We shouldn't limit this access unless the parent requests we do so. We do not act in loco parentis. But, in a way, purchasing only the clean versions of albums is us acting in loco parentis for ALL of our members. We are not giving our members the right to choose what they will be exposed to.
That having been said, I believe MLS, in the interest of not supporting censorship, should only purchase "stickered" versions of any albums. I believe these versions represent the original artistic intent of an album. Even if an artist creates a radio-friendly version of a song, this is always done as a commercial compromise - I say this because I think it stands to reason that if the radio-friendly version WAS the preferred artistic vision, an artist wouldn't also create an explicit version of the same album. It wouldn't make commercial sense. Like Adele revamping "25" to add dozens of swear words simply to cater to the market of music fans who, what, NEVER listen to music unless it contains swear words? That market doesn't exist.
The argument for the artistic purity of explicit albums is also represented by the principled stand of bands like Green Day, creators of some of the most critically acclaimed and popular music of the 21st Century, against releasing censored versions of their own albums. This stand AGAINST censorship means that MLS does not stock any of this band's landmark musical works, because it conflicts with our (seemingly) PRO-censorship stance in this one area.
As a procedural compromise, I think, since MLS has a designation of "RDVD" for adult DVDs, perhaps we should also have a designation or "RCD" for any albums designated explicit. This would limit the checkout to adult cards or non-restricted juvenile cards. This would allow adults personal access to the most artistically pure versions of albums they desire to listen to, as well as allow parents the right to choose to grant their kids access, AND show MLS stand against censorship in the only way we are currently not "practicing what we preach" on the topic. We currently don't even allow people a choice when it comes to music, and if that's not censorship, I don't know what is.
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I don't really understand the purpose of our movie restrictions. If we truly want to reach more households updating our movie selection would really help us. I also think we don't even follow our own movie guidelines. For example we carry several comic book movies which fit none of this criteria as they aren't even specifically based on one comic book, more loosely based on a series of a works or a particular character, I'm not saying we shouldn't carry them but don't understand why an obvious exception is being made in this case. Right now my only option for people is to have them ILL which could take weeks to get here, or to have them get a reciprocal card with Pioneer whose movie selection is far better. I just think it's sad that we have huge gaps for our customers (especially teens and young adults where things like Anime are really big right now) for no apparent reason. To me there isn't a justification for this limitation.
I would also like to point out we are very behind in comic books and manga as well. I was trying to recommend to a customer several popular manga series and we had none of them. As far as comic books it seems like we get the first volume of several series or a random volume in the middle but never the complete collection. It seems like we are losing opportunities to get people reading these comic books (a gateway for many teens and younger readers) because we only have a middle volume or a first volume so they don't really see the point in starting a series they either can't finish or can't start at the beginning. I think part of this could be solved with adding digital comic books in our collection which sell for very little if you invest in older titles.
To me it seems like if we want to increase market penetration we need to compete with both streaming services (like Netflix, Hulu, and Crunchyroll) and reading services (like Marvel Unlimited and Comixology Unlimited). Currently our collection doesn't even come close.
I do notice that we are starting to get a lot more "indy" titles in, IE Image books, but I have also ran across that sometimes we get a copy of one volume of the series and then a completely different version of the collected volumes for the rest. For example, Y: The Last Man Vol 1 and then getting Y: The Last Man Ultimate Collection Vol 2. As a member of the comic reading community, I know the frustration and the confusion that comes when even missing a single issue.
I completely agree that we are doing a disservice to our members for having one or two volumes of a book and then not having the rest of the series, something that I have come across in the system back in the 2000s when our graphic novel selection was very low.
Plus, I know it is more of a cataloging issue to address, but sometimes the way a series is cataloged makes it hard for us employees and members to try and locate.
I've noticed the increase in image titles as well, which is great for already established readers, but just our standard superhero books are pretty lacking. We don't have any Black Panther even though the movie is set to come out and honestly our books revolving around female characters are pretty lacking as well. There are no supergirl titles for adults, 1 batgirl and slightly more wonder woman. We have Ms. Marvel but no Captain Marvel and the list continues. We are just missing very prominent characters. We have several JP and readers about the characters, even the occasional children's comic (supergirl and teen titans go) but are just severely lacking for multiple characters. It's especially hard because it seems like we have several comics that are oriented around male characters in the superhero department but far less for women character.
I had a member yesterday mention how hard it is to actually find our graphic novels as well. We have them scattered in genres and some by character, Batman and Superman if they are collected editions with multiple authors, and then by author. Which kinda runs into a problem when the writing team changes.
I am all for more female and mainstream characters. Given the accessibility of the titles though. I do know that some books that would be awesome for our collection are hard to come by due to printing. And it seems DC and Image are a lot easier for us to get rather than Marvel.
We have all of ours together at RE in one location. They are separated by shelves as to age group and normal location but are all in one bay. I guess I just need to learn more about the way our vendor process works. I mean if titles that are still in print and readily available on our end as consumers aren't available to purchase for the library then that's just a bummer I suppose. I still think that it's odd that we have a volume 1 of batgirl (which isn't even a true volume one) but don't have two or three considering how well it circs.
As far as comic books/graphic novels/etc. go, I see this less of something to be implemented in the policy and more of something to discuss with selectors. If you have recommendations, PLEASE talk with the librarian in charge of that collection at your library, get in contact with one of the selectors, or even just submit some requests! I know there's been some intensive work on developing both our physical and digital comic/graphic novel collections lately, but some of these materials don't have professional reviews, aren't available from our vendors, or get missed just because they're not mentioned in review media. I will, however, promise that the Materials Selection department considers every single recommendation (and is very strongly pro-girl power) so I advise you to reach out!
I could see that being an issue. Maybe then we need to update our review policy. There are comic book reviews out there and whole magazines dedicated to this purpose even when it comes to previews. I know some of the books are hard to come by as far as not being in print so that really can't be helped at this point. I've done some recommendations, we'll see how those go. I did notice we got in a new 52 Supergirl comic so that was pretty nice. My main concern has to do with the timeliness of comic events and having to read one to understand another. We're just now getting issues from DC's new 52 that launched four years ago and now DC rebirth has started. I think this just leads people to go elsewhere because they can't use our services to keep up. I certainly understand if its a vendor problem there isn't much to be done. Maybe its time to look to the review policy. If we can get all of these Harlequin romance novels in, I think we should be able to find a way to get in comic books.
I wish there was a way for staff to recommend titles for purchase - other than the public "Suggest a Title" or having to find out which collection my suggestion would fall in and then trying to find which person is in charge of that collection. For example, Ms. Marvel is in one collection, Squirrel Girl and Moon Girl are in a couple of different sections.
I recommend comic books like mad for our collection, and for the most part, they get purchased. I just wish I didn't have to use my reserve list to do it.
Oh, and please consider Spider-woman and Spider-women.. **hint, hint** ;)
Maybe some Spider-Gwen and Wonder Woman as well? ;)
I requested the first volume of Spider-Gwen and we got it!! Tomorrow I'm planning on recommending my autumn list of comic books, which will include Spider-Gwen volume 2. :) I'm a Marvel girl so I'm not that familiar with DC. I did recommend the DC Bombshells series (which we *just* got in!!) but, besides that and a couple others, I'm at a loss! LOL
If you want to be added to the holds for a suggestion you make, the way to do it is through the Suggest a Title feature on the LS2Pac. If you are offering a title for consideration for the system and not personally interested in it, then send an email. We get lots of suggestions that way. You can send an email to the general Materials Selection email address: [email protected]. We'll figure out which selector should get it. I recommend that you send lists at various intervals instead of one title at time. Please provide us with as much info as you have, i.e. author/illustrator, publisher, series, etc. We will evaluate them along with other new titles. We are making an effort to add more graphic novels to the collections this fiscal year. Thanks for your interest in our collections!
Thanks for the info! So far, I've been interested in everything I've recommended, but this is really great to know!
I agree! We have several members that would love to have access to more movies and graphic novels (American comics & manga). While ILL is an option, it doesn't allow members to meet their information needs expediently. The Principle of Least Effort is often exhibited when people decide it's too big of a hassle to try to get what they want from the library in terms of providing information and waiting for their desired material. We should not take a back seat to Redbox in terms of ease of use.
I would like to make a comment regarding material selection criteria for movies. Currently the criteria are:
◾Be of present and potential relevance to community needs
◾Provide insight into human and social needs
◾Provide high quality performances
◾Be produced with technical skill
◾Be an outstanding example of artistic expression
◾Be an important cultural artifact
The criteria seem fairly subjective and exclude a lot of the popular movies that our members come in looking for. While we certainly have members looking for classics and movies of high quality, many are simply seeking enjoyable entertainment and they are confused why we don't have new releases, and DVDs of popular TV series. This is further confusing to them when they know these items are available at Pioneer. Metro has a great opportunity to supplement what people view on Netflix by providing access to movies that aren't available to stream. This is especially true of TV shows that are expensive to view online, like shows on HBO or Starz.
I find it interesting that the criteria for movies are different from the criteria for books. We don't put such restrictions on books (we know well that it is often the books that aren't exactly high literature that circulate the most! Twilight *cough cough* :) ) According to our core values, members come first which implies that their information needs come first too. I would love to see the movie criteria "liberated" to meet the needs of members instead of what we deem is appropriate entertainment. I think that our visual materials collections would circulate much more.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide feedback!
I am not sure if this would be the best place to put this comment, but I did not see the policy where it was covered. I think that this policy review process would be a great time to revisit the matter of there being a "Family Talk" section. In all honesty, this section and how it is implemented is directly against ALA standards. By separating these books and physically putting them a certain amount of feet high, so that they will be out of the direct line of sight and even reach for many children, is censorship by inhibiting access to the materials. The subjects of books that are placed in this section are highly variable by library or even by who is currently in charge of the section with no strict rules (at least that I have found) of what all must be put in this area. In this way, it is already ineffective, and I think the perceived societal "need" of this being a section has diminished significantly. In short, I think it should be abolished and these materials allowed to be shelved back in with the rest of the children's books.
Yes! There are also some inconsistent cataloging issues that may be inadvertently interpreted as gender discrimination/bias by members. A book on puberty for girls with autism ("What's happening to Ellie? a book about puberty for girls and young women with autism and related conditions) is in the Family Talk section but the equivalent boys book by the same author (What's happening to Tom? a book about puberty for boys and young men with autism and related conditions) is in the ANF section.
This creates a situation where women's bodies are categorized as "off limits" and potentially "dangerous" whereas male bodies are not. I realize this was probably just an error somewhere in the technical process but having a Family Talk section opens us up to these kinds of situations where someone or some entity is making decisions about restricting access to materials.
There is also inconsistencies with cataloguing through out topics. I just checked in books about manners and I had one that was considered "Family Talk". I flipped through it and the only "questionable" content would be monsters taking a bath.
I remember both those books, What's happening to Ellie? and What's happening to Tom?, and I'm almost positive those were both supposed to be JNF.
We've got two more in that series (see also What Tom likes and What Ellie likes) and I just love them! They provide some really important knowledge that I would never, ever, ever have asked my parents about in a million years. I agree they should be where kids can find them discreetly and not in some super-embarrassing, hard to access Family Talk section.
ETA: I'm a Cataloging Tech. Probably should have mentioned that. :)
All the books in that series are JNF except for one copy of Ellie, which is in Family Talk at BI. Libraries shelve materials wherever it works best for them, but in this case it does seem like the books should match and not be singled out on the basis of gender. I'd say maybe ask your manager what they had in mind there?
At any rate, everything is copacetic on the cataloging end.
Thanks for pointing that out! I'll see what I can do to get Ellie moved to the JNF.
Yes, the Family Talk section is currently bound to certain subject headings. The guidelines for this section did seem to encourage library staff to identify additional titles to include in that special collection. If we absolutely must retain Family Talk, I believe we should solely identify materials using the subject headings. Otherwise we are encouraging library staff to take on the mantle of censor and act "in loco parentis" by deciding what is and is not appropriate for all children. Many staff have already pointed out how the existence of this collection seems a stark diversion from the guiding principles of our profession, and other policies within the library.
Here are the current family talk subject headings:
Family Talk Area for all Easy, Reader, Tween Fiction and Tween Nonfiction in the following topics:
Child Abuse
Child Abuse-Prevention
Child Sex Abuse
Child Sex Abuse-Prevention
Domestic/Family violence
Drug Abuse
Substance Abuse
Medication Abuse
Alcoholism
Homosexuality
Premarital Sex
Extramarital Sex
Sex Instruction
Some of us were absolutely against the "Family Talk" section from the very beginning, myself included. I don't have time right now, but you may be able to dig through the minutes of some of the committees that were responsible for developing the guidelines, to get more background info on this. I know it was approved by the Commission, but I'm not sure what intra-library group developed the guidelines. I'm sure MSL played a role and maybe the Ad Team (as it was known at the time.)
I was wondering what people's thoughts on the JNF/TNF distinction were. I don't know about other people, but we have had a few members confused by where the two different collections are housed. While this policy does explain the distinction between the collections, there is room for overlap. Why did we make a distinction between JNF/TNF or ANF/JNF?
I was here when Family Talk was initiated, back in the 1990s I believe, and odd as it sounds, at the time it was the best way of preventing something much worse. At that time, there was an organized group trying desperately to sanitize our collections of anything that they considered unpleasant. Also around that time, Sally Kern was proposing that all public libraries be forced to put this kind of material into a locked area inaccessible to anyone under the age of 18, or lose all state funding. The pendulum has swung away from some of that scrutiny, thankfully.
I don't think anyone really "liked" the idea or particularly "wanted" to do it, but the thought was to voluntarily do a little to avoid being coerced to do a lot more.
The original concept with Family Talk was that each location had to have about 100 titles in the area. A certain number were identified by MSL, and the rest were to be selected at the library level. The idea was always to keep the systemwide selection as minimal as possible, and to allow for the different community standards that exist between our libraries.
The number of titles designed Family Talk by MSL has dwindled over the years.
I think the concept is worth revisiting now.
Thank you for the background Pauline. I think it's really helpful for staff who weren't here at the time. As librarians, none of us want to limit access to any materials just because some people find them offensive. This just shows how our policies are impacted by external influences, as we are a recipient of public funding. The Library fought to keep the materials out in the open, just unfortunately "Family Talk" was as close as they could get. Hopefully the environment has changed enough to revisit Family Talk, but we won't know until we begin reviewing this policy.
Not to belabor the topic, but I believe Family Talk was a result of the King and King controversy from March, 2005. After a parent found a copy of that book (a fairy tale about a marriage between two princes) in the children's section, they complained to Rep. Sally Kern because Oklahoma voters had recently defined marriage as a bond exclusively between a man and a woman. She introduced a bill in the legislature to remove state appropriations for the Department of Libraries which would devastate smaller and rural libraries which rely almost exclusively on ODL for funding. To be fair to the censors, they did not ask for the books to be removed entirely, but rather placed in the adult sections of the library. It took about three months of negotiations - with hundreds of people showing up at commission meetings - before the compromise was reached. We got to keep the books in the children's area and the censors got to limit access.
For anyone who wants to know more, we've got the commission minutes in the Oklahoma Room. Look at March 24, 2005 and April-August, 2005 to see the petition from concerned citizens, Kern's letter to the director, and more documents or search the Oklahoman around that time. Even better, ask an MSL veteran. Under the circumstances they did a heckuva job, saving small libraries from devastation yet keeping the books at least in view of children. Like Pauline said, we've quietly minimized the Family Talk shelf over the years through attrition.
There are a number of policies that seem stupid or wrong but they all have a story (for example the RDVDs came about because of a TV news ratings stunt that turned into public furor). I'm excited to see them all under review but it may not be as simple as the stroke of a pen to resolve them.
For those of us who are perhaps a bit too lazy to go to the OK Room, is there any chance you'd be willing to post a story or two over on the staff forum? I think it would be a really valuable service for those of us who weren't here! You know what they say, those who don't know history... uh... I forget the rest.
I just got here in 2011 and am learning some of this for the first time. I did already know about the Tin Drum kerfuffle, which was pretty hard to miss living here in the late 90s. But I only saw that from the outside -- I'd love to hear what it was like working here then.
Simple is better
V.Format
The library system selects materials in formats that are most appropriate to meet community needs. These formats include:
A.Microform (the spelling of this word needs to be corrected, if it hasn't been already. :) )
Hi Diane!
This is actually an outdated version of the Materials Policy. We welcome your input in the review process-- Janet shared a revised/updated draft just this week, which is available here for your review: http://my.metrolibrary.info/drupal/policy_procedures/review/proposed-cha....
As for microform, we double-checked and the format type is spelled correctly. Thank you for helping to make sure we've got things straight!
Have a great weekend,
-Meg