Library Policies

Greetings!

I received an email this past week from a librarian who had a question about policies. She commented that she was surprised by some of the books that she found in the library and also was surprised to NOT find certain books in the library. Recently at her school a couple of parents questioned books that their children checked out from the library. In discussing this with her principal, they decided to form a library committee to set up some standards for choosing books for their school. She then asked me if I had some kind of policy that they could use as a template instead of starting from scratch.

I responded to her and sent her the policy we use here at Rogers.

I thought that there might be a number of you who are new to your school or may have missed this information I sent a couple of years ago. I recommend that you do set up a library committee. You should include the principal, the person responsible for the library and a parent who is interested. Small schools could include both teachers since they would both need to know this information, and possibly the school board chairman. Large schools might include the librarian, a teacher from the upper grades, a teacher from the lower grades, the principal and a parent. Try to keep your committee small, three to five members, if possible. Since I am at a larger school, my committee consists of my assistant librarian, my principal, and an ad hoc teacher at the grade level the book is meant for.

When the committee first meets, talk about what you want your library to look like and go over a sample policy. I will include my policy and you can tweak it to fit your school. You can also search the internet for the library policies from other schools if you would rather.

I then recommend that you do a quick weeding in your library. Go through and pull anything that you feel may not be appropriate for your school. Use the Library Selection policy to guide you as you remove books. This should just be a quick weeding, and maybe take an hour or so. Before you actually discard the books, have members of your committee actually read them to determine if they are indeed inappropriate. I heard about a grandfather who browsed the school library catalog and sent word that there should not be any magic books or books about witches in the library and he was appalled to find both of these kinds of books in their library. Reading titles only could pull books like “The Witch of Blackbird Pond” which is a wonderful book that is NOT about witches. Searching the catalog for “magic” would bring up books with sleight of hand tricks. So, please check each book you have pulled or look through them to make sure they are really not appropriate for the library.

Now is the time to put your policies into place. I believe it is important to have a Reconsideration Policy. This is the policy to use if a parent or guardian complains to the school about a book that they feel should not be in the library. Have the parent fill out the form and then take it to the Library Committee for discussion. Be consistent with this. It would be tempting to take a look at the book, immediately tell the parent, “You’re right. I’ll take it out of the library immediately.” Likely you will know right then that the book should be removed, but I strongly recommend you have every parent who questions a book fill out the Reconsideration Form. Otherwise you will hear from them, “Why do I have to fill this out? You didn’t have Mrs. Smith fill one out.” If everyone fills the form out, it is your policy. You aren’t playing favorites; everyone is treated the same. This also keeps Grandpa from eliminating “The Witch of Blackbird Pond” on a whim.

The committee should meet to discuss each Reconsideration Form and then inform the parent of the decision.

I used to just pull any book that a parent complained about simply because I knew that the book should not be in our library, but a few years ago I found the Reconsideration Form and put that policy into place. I have yet to use this policy, but it is ready in case I need it.

I hope this is a help to you. Please let me know if I can help or answer any questions.

Have a great week.
Audrey