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Keywords

library policy, book challenges, request for reconsideration, academic libraries, Kansas libraries

Abstract

Sound collections policy is essential for the efficient creation and management of any collection (Johnson, 2018). This is true in general from a purely practical viewpoint but becomes increasingly important philosophically in a time when there is a huge increase in challenges to specific library materials (ALA, 2024).

Academic libraries have traditionally considered their role to be to provide materials for study from a wide variety of viewpoints with often conflicting understandings, and although they have a long history of using collections policy to guide their acquisitions (Johnson, 2018) they have much less experience of requiring policy to fend off challenges to selected materials. Bell (2022), however, suggests that academic libraries need to be more prepared to face materials challenges in the light of emerging censorship trends occurring at the individual level as well as within state legislatures.

This paper explores the prevalence of collections policy in the public, four-year academic institutions in Kansas and, in particular, looked to see if there is policy information provided on requests for reconsideration of library materials. It also looked at how much of this policy is easily accessible online and therefore immediately available to members of the university and others. The paper concludes with suggestions for strengthening existing policy in this area as well as other preemptive actions that can be taken to ensure the integrity of library collections against threats of censorship.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

References

American Library Association. (2024, March 14). American Library Association reports record number of unique book titles challenged in 2023. https://www.ala.org/news/press-releases/2024/03/american-library-association-reports-record-number-unique-book-titles

Bell, S. (2022, April 27). What Can Academic Librarians Do About Material Challenges? https://www.charleston-hub.com/2022/04/what-can-academic-librarians-do-about-material-challenges/

Johnson, P. (2018). Fundamentals of collection development and management (4th ed.). ALA Editions.

Moran, B. B., & Morner, C. J. (2017). Library and information center management. (9th ed.). Libraries Unlimited.

Podrygula, S. (1994). Censorship in an academic library. ACRL College & Research Libraries News, 55(2), 76-83. https://crln.acrl.org/index.php/crlnews/article/view/18861/21678

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