Collection Development Policy

Voted on and Approved by the Lyme Library Board 12/3/2025

The purpose of this policy is to define the criteria used for adding to and maintaining the materials in the Lyme Library’s collections. It outlines the procedures and the restrictions that the professionally trained library staff use to review library and educational materials within the collection. We do so by using professionally accepted standards and evaluating the material’s relevance, physical condition, accuracy of content, availability of duplicates, available age appropriate or grade-level, and the continued demand for the materials within the collection

The Library Board of Trustees and the Library staff stand behind the American Library Association’s Freedom to Read statement (Appendix A) and theLibrary Bill of Rights (Appendix C) and Freedom to View statement (Appendix B) when overseeing and building the library’s collection of materials. The Lyme library staff and Board of Trustees recognize the importance of the public library as a place for voluntary inquiry, the dissemination of information and ideas, and promotion of free expression and free access to ideas by residents

Purpose and Scope of the Collection

• The goal of the library’s collection development is to reflect the library’s mission, vision, and strategic initiatives. To fully serve the community, the library staff strives to provide physical and digital materials in multiple formats for patrons of all ages and have the library serve as a center of lifelong education, cultural and recreational advancement and to meet the evolving informational needs of the community.

• All library materials are evaluated and made accessible in accordance with the protections against discrimination set forth in section 46a-64 of the Connecticut General Statues (Appendix F)

Responsibility of Selecting Library Materials

• Responsibility for the selection of materials is allocated to the Library Director and the Children’s Librarian with the final approval being the responsibility of the Library Director. Librarians are professionally trained to curate and develop a collection that provides access to the widest array of library and educational materials.
• Sources used for collection development research include professional literary reviews, educational references, recommendations from standard bibliographies and patron/staff requests.
• Any purchases, requests or donations made by non-professional library staff must be evaluated and approved of by the professionally trained library staff and made accessible only if they are fit within the physical restrictions and intellectual scope of our collections and are in accordance with the protections against discrimination set forth in section 46a-64 of the Connecticut General Statues (Appendix F). Any materials not meeting those requirements will not be added to the Lyme library collection.
• The library’s collection is reviewed and updated annually to meet the needs of the community as well as to dispose of or bind materials in disrepair. Repurchase of items that are due to be “weeded” is done so by checking the circulation statistics for the items and/or its availability from other libraries for our patron’s use.
• We develop our collections to provide a wide range of materials to represent all members of the community with the goal that patrons using the collection patrons will find materials that promote entertainment, self-education, empathy and self-awareness. As professionals we encourage caregivers to talk to their own children and based on their own family’s values take responsibility for what their children read and watch and we develop our collections to encourage the free expression of ideas and in compliance with anti-discriminatory policies and laws.

Standards of Selection

• The library strives to include a broad range of fiction and nonfiction materials intended for the use of the general public. The selection of any given item for addition to the library’s collection should not be interpreted as an endorsement of any particular viewpoint.
• Items associated with presentations and programs that the library has sponsored are frequently added to the collection to promote access to additional materials on a subject to foster the library’s commitment to lifelong learning.
• Items added to the collection are intended to offer opportunities for intellectual engagement and discovery. Items are collected based on their authority and accuracy, artistic value, diversity, literary value, historic interest/importance, relation to the existing collection, societal importance, usefulness for research, patron interest, creativity, and creative experimentation.
• Library materials are provided for the interest, information and enlightenment of all residents.
• Library materials are curated to represent a wide range of varied and diverging viewpoints in the collection as a whole

Interlibrary Loans

The library’s collections are designed to engage the general reader, and the collection is not developed exclusively for the use of specialists or professionals. In cases where more specialized materials might be needed, attempts will be made by library staff to borrow materials for the requesting patron by interlibrary loan from local universities or other sources to benefit from the continued research in areas not adequately covered in the library’s general collection.

Gifts and Donations

The library accepts gifts of books and other materials but reserves the right to evaluate and to dispose of them in accordance with the criteria applied to all purchased materials. Since the library has limited facilities, not all gifts will be maintained, but the library will see to it that they are used for the library’s benefit whenever possible. No conditions may be imposed relating to any gift after its acceptance by the library.

Unsolicited self-published materials will not be accepted unless they have received positive reviews by professional literary sources and have been professionally edited. The addition of unsolicited materials to the collection is not guaranteed even to local authors.

Digital Collections

At the present time the Lyme Library acquires digital materials from several sources, each of which has collection development policies intended to respond to the lifelong learning and recreational needs of library communities. These resources are in place to allow Lyme Library patrons to access materials remotely and due to space restrictions at the main location, they allow for a digital expansion of the overall collection. Items in the digital collections correspond closely with the library’s physical collections and are added to using similar resources such as published reviews, patron requests and the suitability of the materials to meet the needs of patrons in a general library community. Considering that these digital vendors supply materials to American libraries they make every effort to align their collections to support the ALA’s Freedom to Read (Appendix A) Freedom to View (Appendix B) and Library Bill of Rights (Appendix C) statements.

Maintaining the collection

Collection maintenance and review are done by the library staff on an ongoing basis with the target of having 5% of the total collection withdrawn annually due to lack of circulation, duplication, poor physical condition, or accuracy of subject matter. All materials that are being reviewed for withdrawal due to lack of recent circulation are checked against the Wilson Core Collection suggestions and/or checked to see if the book is available via interlibrary loan from any of the other consortium libraries before the final decision for withdrawal is made. Withdrawing library materials allows the library staff to purchase new materials that better meet the evolving needs of its patrons. Due to space restrictions, the collection’s maintenance is critical to ensuring that the Lyme Library’s patrons have easy access to the materials and that the materials available meet the needs of the community it serves.

Controversial Materials

The library recognizes that some materials may not be considered appropriate for all patrons. The selection of materials will not be made based upon anticipated approval or disapproval of groups or individuals within the community, but solely with the purpose of building a collection that provides a wide range of materials to represent the interests and needs of the overall library patron community.

The library strives to maintain several age-appropriate collections for children and teens and develops those collections based on professional expertise and on information obtained from professional organizations and reviews doing so with the goal of the age appropriateness of the content. As professionals we encourage caregivers to talk to their own children and, based on their own family’s values, take responsibility for what they wish their children to read and watch. The selection of adult material will not be inhibited by the possibility that materials may inadvertently come into the possession of children or will materials be reassigned to areas within the library or withdrawn from the collection based on pressure from groups or individuals who maintain that the subject matter contained within does not align with their individual viewpoint.

Library materials will not be marked or identified to show approval or disapproval of the contents, and no catalogued book or library item will be removed from the shelves except for the express purpose of protecting it from damage or theft.

Reconsideration of Library Materials

The Lyme Library develops its collection in compliance with State and Federal laws and regulations, and no materials will be withdrawn from the collection unless they are in violation of said laws. The library maintains a reconsideration procedure, policy and form which can be used by Lyme residents (Appendix J below) if they wish to have an item considered for review and must comply with the restrictions and guidelines of making such a request.

Intellectual Freedom and Censorship

The Lyme Library stands with, and abides by, the Connecticut Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Against Censorship Statement,( Appendix K) which defends, “the rights of library users to read, speak freely, and have unrestricted access to information, as guaranteed by the First Amendment. We are committed to defending the constitutional rights of all individuals, of all ages, to use the resources and services of libraries”. We abhor and will not tolerate any “callous systemic erasure to undermine and eliminate the diversity of thought and experiences”. We reject any attempts by individuals to use “intimidation to threaten the livelihood and safety of authors, library workers, educators, and board members”. We agree that “there is no good censorship. Any effort to restrict free expression, or the free flow of information, aids discrimination, and oppression. Fighting oppression with censorship is self-defeating. Critical thinking and civil discourse from all points of view must be protected and encouraged in a democracy. Any attack on these tenets is an affront to the rights of all people and works against the values of equity, diversity, and inclusion for which all libraries strive. Attempts to suppress and censor denies the individual the freedom to exercise critical judgment and to make their own decision about what they read and believe. We believe in the free enterprise of ideas and expressions. We reject the claim that removing, labeling, or relocating a title will somehow shield children from the ideas contained within. We further reject the notion that anyone can perform the work we do without significant engagement with the professional ethics and expertise of librarianship. We oppose the restriction, removal, banning, and censorship of books and other library materials that limit the freedom to read, speak, publish, or obstruct intellectual freedom”

The Lyme Library supports the American Library Association’s “Freedom to Read Statement” (Appendix A) which states that the freedom to read is essential to our American democracy and follows CT State Legislature bill SB1271 (Appendix H) which states that within Connecticut public and school libraries that materials, displays and programs may only be removed “for legitimate pedagogical purposes or for professionally accepted standards”. This policy is in accordance with Public Act 25-168 Sec. 322, 323. (Appendix I) The Lyme Library also stands with and abides by the American Library Association’s “Freedom to View Statement “(Appendix B) which states that “The freedom to view, along with the freedom to speak, to hear, and to read, is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. In a free society, there is no place for censorship of any medium of expression”. The Lyme library also develops its collection under the guidance of the American Library Association’s “Library Bill of Rights” (Appendix C)

As per State of CT General statures, Volume 3, Title 11, Chapter 190, section 11-24b ;“No principal public library shall be eligible to receive a state grant in accordance with the provisions of subsections (b), (c) and (d) of this section if such principal public library prohibits or otherwise limits the availability of any book or related library materials by banning, censoring or challenging such book or related library materials at such library.”