Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) Ruling by United States District Court For The Eastern District Of Pennsylvania
page 36 of 209 (17%)
page 36 of 209 (17%)
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which an item will be used. Reference librarians are trained to
assist patrons without judging the patron's purpose in seeking information, or the content of the information that the patron is seeking. Many public libraries routinely provide patrons with access to materials not in their collections through the use of bibliographic access tools and interlibrary loan programs. Public libraries typically will assist patrons in obtaining access to all materials except those that are illegal, even if they do not collect those materials in their physical collection. In order to provide this access, a librarian may attempt to find material not included in the library's own collection in other libraries in the system, through interlibrary loan, or through a referral, perhaps to a government agency or a commercial bookstore. Interlibrary loan is expensive, however, and is therefore used infrequently. Public librarians also apply professional standards to their collection development practices. Public libraries generally make material selection decisions and frame policies governing collection development at the local level. Collection development is a key subject in the curricula of Masters of Library Science programs and is defined by certain practices. In general, professional standards guide public librarians to build, develop and create collections that have certain characteristics, such as balance in its coverage and requisite and appropriate quality. To this end, the goal of library collections is not universal coverage, but rather to find those materials that would be of the greatest direct benefit or interest to the community. |
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