LIBRARY BILL OF RIGHTS

1. The American Library Association affirms that all libraries are forums for information and ideas and that the following basic policies should guide their services.  
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.
5. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.
6. A person's right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background or views.
7. 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.
Reprinted by permission of the American Library Association.

SCHOOL LIBRARY BILL OF RIGHTS
FOR SCHOOL LIBRARY MEDIA CENTER PROGRAMS

The American Association of School Librarians reaffirms its belief in the “Library Bill of Rights” of the American Library Association.   Media personnel are concerned with generating understanding of American freedoms through the development of informed and responsible citizens.   To this end the American Association of School Librarians asserts that the responsibility of the school library media center is:

to provide a comprehensive collection of instructional materials selected in compliance with basic written selection principles and to provide maximum accessibility to these materials,

to provide materials that will support the curriculum, taking into consideration the individual's needs, and the varied interests, abilities, socioeconomic backgrounds and maturity levels of the students served,        

to provide materials for teachers and students that will encourage growth in knowledge and that will develop literary, cultural and aesthetic appreciation and ethical standards,

to provide materials which reflect the ideas and beliefs of religious, social, political, historical and ethnic groups and their contribution to the American and world heritage and culture, thereby enabling students to develop an intellectual integrity in forming judgments,

to provide a written statement, approved by the local boards of education, of the procedures for meeting the challenge of censorship of materials in school library media centers and

to provide qualified professional personnel to serve teachers and students.

Approved in 1969 by the American Association of School Librarians Board of Directors.