Library Board of Trustees Agenda and Packet 2022 05 12

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Foundations of Intellectual Freedom from the American Library Association Libraries: An American Value Libraries in America are cornerstones of the communities they serve. Free access to the books, ideas, resources, and information in America's libraries is imperative for education, employment, enjoyment, and self-government. Libraries are a legacy to each generation, offering the heritage of the past and the promise of the future. To ensure that libraries flourish and have the freedom to promote and protect the public good in the 21st century, we believe certain principles must be guaranteed. To that end, we affirm this contract with the people we serve: • We defend the constitutional rights of all individuals, including children and teenagers, to use the library's resources and services; • We value our nation's diversity and strive to reflect that diversity by providing a full spectrum of resources and services to the communities we serve; • We affirm the responsibility and the right of all parents and guardians to guide their own children's use of the library and its resources and services; • We connect people and ideas by helping each person select from and effectively use the library's resources; • We protect each individual's privacy and confidentiality in the use of library resources and services; • We protect the rights of individuals to express their opinions about library resources and services; • We celebrate and preserve our democratic society by making available the widest possible range of viewpoints, opinions and ideas, so that all individuals have the opportunity to become lifelong learners - informed, literate, educated, and culturally enriched. Change is constant, but these principles transcend change and endure in a dynamic technological, social, and political environment. By embracing these principles, libraries in the United States can contribute to a future that values and protects freedom of speech in a world that celebrates both our similarities and our differences, respects individuals and their beliefs, and holds all persons truly equal and free. Adopted February 3, 1999, by the Council of the American Library Association The Freedom to Read Statement The freedom to read is essential to our democracy. It is continuously under attack. Private groups and public authorities in various parts of the country are working to remove or limit access to reading materials, to censor content in schools, to label "controversial" views, to distribute lists of "objectionable" books or authors, and to purge libraries. These actions apparently rise from a view that our national tradition of free expression is no longer valid; that censorship and suppression are needed to counter threats to safety or national security, as well as to avoid the subversion of politics and the corruption of morals. We, as individuals devoted to reading and as librarians and publishers responsible for disseminating ideas, wish to assert the public interest in the preservation of the freedom to read. Most attempts at suppression rest on a denial of the fundamental premise of democracy: that the ordinary individual, by exercising critical judgment, will select the good and reject the bad. We trust Americans to recognize propaganda and misinformation, and to make their own decisions about what they read and believe. We do not believe they are prepared to sacrifice their heritage of a free press in order to be "protected" against what others think may be bad for them. We believe they still favor free enterprise in ideas and expression.