A. Generally
The Preston County Board of Education recognizes the importance of school library-media centers and is continuously striving to place centralized school library-media centers and certified librarians in all county schools. The board shall annually allocate in the budget an amount for library supplies and materials which shall be distributed to the schools on a per pupil basis.
B. LIBRARY BILL OF RIGHTS*
The American Library Association affirms that all libraries are forums for information and ideas, and that the following policies should guide their services.
1. Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the orgin, 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 and doctrinal disapproval.
3. Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and elightenment.
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 orgin, age, backgrund, 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.
SOURCE: American Association of School Librarians and Association for Educational Communications and Technology, Information Power: Guidelines for School Library Media Programs, United Stated: ALA and AECT, 1988
C. The Mission of the School Library-Media Centers
2. To provide physical access to information.
3. To provide learning experiences that encourages users to become discriminating consumers and skilled creators of information.
4. To provide leadership, instruction, and consulting assistance in the use of instructional and information technology.
5. To provide resources and activities that contribute to lifelong learning.
6. To provide a facility that functions as the information center of the school.
7. To provide resources and leaming activities that represent a diversity of experiences, opinions, social and cultural perspectives supporting the concept that intellectual freedom and access to information are prerequisite to effective and responsible citizenship in a democracy.
LEGAL REFERENCE:
ADOFTED: July 10, 1995