LIS510 lecture 8

1. Thomas Krichel 2005-03-16 LIS510 lecture 8

2. library policy • Rubin says, quite rightly that library policy is a part of information policy. • He spends the majority of the chapter talking about intellectual freedom. This is a topic that is a bit overrated, IMHO. • Before that so important topic he has some others.

3. Organization of materials policy • Most libraries organize their materials according to subject classification schemes. • In the United States, the most widely used are • Dewey Decimal Classification • Library of Congress Classification System • This part of activity will be covered in the next lecture.

4. collection policy • It answers questions such as • what subjects should be collected • in what depth should each subject be collected • what types of formats and what balance between them • what cooperative agreements should be formed • it does not answer questions such as • who are the library users • what is the mission of the library

5. collection policy use • as a planning tool for allocating • staff • money • as a guide for the selection process • as a tool to try to insure consistency of the collection across time and staff • as a means to train new staff • as a statement to the public • as a defense if challenged

6. selection criteria • authority • appropriateness • timeliness • physical characteristics • collection fit • demand • content • special characteristics (e.g. indexes, teacher’s guide, translations)

7. selection for electronic resource • If they are available in open access, they do not need to be collected. • If they are not, much the same criteria as before apply. Special criteria such as the one’s advised by Rubin are not useful.

8. circulation policies • These policies govern the circulation of material. Topics include • short loan • renewal • what materials do not circulate • fines

9. reference policies • There can be restrictions on reference • time limit • type of question asked • no homework • no contest answers • There can be an emphasis on instructional reference, away from looking for the answer on behalf of the patron.

10. preservation policy • This is technically very difficult. • Acid paper crumbles. • Paper can burn. • Microfilm is old fashion and not convenient to access. • Digital preservation is difficult. • Massive digitization remains costly.

11. intellectual freedom • There has been an enormous fuss made about this. • There have been isolated attempts to bar a whole host of materials from libraries. • Librarians have generally tried to promote the free circulation of ideas, whatever these ideas may be and whoever is holding them. • However there are some moral dilemmas.

12. obligations to restrict access • obligation to act with respect to one’s values. example: incitement of husbands to philander. • obligation to preserve, protect and maintain values of the local community. example: pictures of bare-faced women. • obligation to protect children form harm • obligation to protect the library from harm

13. obligation to open access • obligation to protect the right of patrons to free access to ideas • democratic society is based on informed and educated citizens. • This supposedly comes from the first amendment. Rubin claims that there is a corollary right to receive expressions. I doubt that this is the case. You will only get those expressions you and/or your community have paid for, or that are freely available.

14. first amendment text Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

15. obligations to increase access • obligation to educate children • an important battle, Island Trees v. Pico, happened right here on Long Island. Island Trees School Board ordered the removal of nine books from junior high and high school libraries which were considered anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic and filthy. Students at the schools sued claiming a denial of their First Amendment rights. The Supreme Court ruled that school boards could not just remove books from libraries simply because they didn't like the ideas in them. • Palmer School hosts events celebrating the judgment

16. other obligations to provide access • Obligation to preserve the values of the profession. ALA orchestrates campaigns on that matter. • But in reality it is quite hard for the individual librarian. They can only provide the “best” stuff, and by deciding what the best is, they implicitly limit the non-best material. • Most think that sex, violence and foul language don’t belong into the library.

17. Web filtering • This is a more recent topic under the umbrella of freedom of information. • Libraries that have provided Internet access are under pressure children don’t use it with the result of exposure to pornographic material. • Self-regulation of the contents industry has not worked up to now. • Much of this has been done with dedicated filtering software.

18. filtering software • There are two approaches • text-based: prohibit access to sites containing certain words • URL-based: blocks access to addresses that are known to given URL • Overall, both methods work poorly. • Methods and lists are secret, which is one reason why they work so poorly.

19. ALA information policies • ALA wrote a library bill of rights in 1939, changed last in 1980. It is reproduced is the book. • Point 5 “age” is particularly controversial. • There are “freedom to read” (1953) and a “freedom to view” (1979) statements. • As explained by Rubin these positions are fairly extremist.

20. ALA positions • free access to minors, including the adult material • opposition to charging for library services • oppose filtering • protect the privacy of the patron • confidentiality of circulation records

21. Thank you for your attention! http://openlib.org/home/krichel