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New City Library |
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New City Library |
The American Library Association affirms that all libraries are forums for information and ideas, and that the following basic policies should guide their services.
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Libraries should challenge censorship
in the fulfillment of their responsibility
to provide information and enlightenment.
4. Libraries should cooperate with
all persons and groups concerned with
resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.
5. A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged
because of
origin, age, background, or views.
6. 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 June 18, 1948.
Amended February 2, 1961, June 27, 1967, and January 23, 1980
by the ALA Council
Library collections of videotapes, motion pictures, and other non print formats raise a number of intellectual freedom issues, especially regarding minors.
The interests of young people, like those of adults, are not limited by subject, theme, or level of sophistication. Librarians have a responsibility to ensure young people have access to materials and services that reflect diversity of materials sufficient to meet their needs.
To guide librarians and others in these issues, the American Library Association provides the following guidelines.
Article V of the Library Bill of Rights says, “A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.”
ALA’s Free Access to Libraries for Minors: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights states:
The “right to use a library includes free access to, and unrestricted use of,
all the services, materials, and facilities the library has to offer. Every
restriction on access to, and use of, library resources, based solely on the
chronological age, educational level, or legal emancipation of users violates
Article V.”… Parents – and only parents – have the right and the responsibility to
restrict the access of their children – and only their children – to library
resources. Parent or legal guardians who do not want their children to
have access to certain library services, materials or facilities, should so
advise their children. Librarians and governing bodies cannot assume the
role of parent or the functions of parental authority in the private relationship
between parent and child. Librarians and governing bodies have a public
and professional obligation to provide equal access to all library resources
for all library users.
Policies which set minimum age limits for access to videotapes and/or other audiovisual materials and equipment, with or without parental permission, abridge library use for minors. Further, age limits based on the cost of the materials are unacceptable. Unless directly and specifically prohibited by law from circulating certain motion pictures and video productions to minors, librarians should apply the same standards to circulation of these materials as are applied to books and other materials.
Recognizing that libraries cannot act in loco parentis, ALA acknowledges and supports the exercise by parents of their responsibility to guide their own children’s reading and viewing. Published reviews of films and videotapes and/or reference works which provide information about the content, subject matter, and recommended audiences can be made available in conjunction with non print collections to assist parents in guiding their children without implicating the library in censorship. This material may include information provided by video producers and distributors, promotional material on videotape packaging, and Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) ratings if they are included on the tape or in the packaging by the original publisher and/or if they appear in review sources or reference works included in the library’s collection. Marking out or removing ratings information from videotape packages constitutes expurgation or censorship.
MPAA and other rating services are private advisory codes and have no legal standing*. For the library to add such ratings to the materials if they are not already there, to post a list of such ratings to the materials if they are not already there, to post a list of such ratings with a collection, or attempt to enforce such ratings through circulation policies or other procedures constitutes labeling, “an attempt to prejudice attitudes” about the material, and is unacceptable. The application of locally generated ratings schemes intended to provide content warnings to library users is also inconsistent with the Library Bill of Rights.
*For information on case law, please contact the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom.
See also: “Statement on Labeling” and “Expurgation of Library Materials,” Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights.
Adopted June 28, 1989, by the ALA Council; the quotation from Free Access to Libraries for Minors was changed after Council adopted the July 3, 1991, revision of that Interpretation.
[ISBN 8389-7351-5]
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| Updated June 11, 2008 |
