This policy outlines the goals and objectives of collection development at the Walpole Town Library. It contains criteria used to review both physical materials and electronic under consideration for acquisition and deselection. This policy should direct the library staff in defining the collections current scope and future direction.
Goals and Objectives:
- To provide materials and resources reflecting a diverse range of topics, ideas, viewpoints, and tastes that support an individual’s lifelong pursuit of educational, vocational, and recreational interests.
- To offer materials necessary to foster a wide range of literacies from birth through adulthood.
- To offer library materials in various formats that meet the access needs of the community.
- To aim for a collection that is balanced, right sized, and inclusive.
- To provide primary and secondary sources through a dedicated reference collection to document the history of Walpole.
- To continually evaluate the collection on its usage, appearance, accuracy, and age to ensure appropriate allocation of the materials budget.
- To uphold the Library Bill of Rights statement of Diverse Collections.
Artificial Intelligence with regards to Collection Development:
The Walpole Town Library is committed to maintaining a collection curated by the library staff that reflects human creativity, knowledge, and expertise. As such, the library does not deliberately purchase, acquire, or accept donations of books that are knowingly generated, authored, or written by artificial intelligence. This policy ensures that our collection upholds quality, authenticity, and intellectual integrity for our community. AI-assisted content is permitted in the library collection subject to the same requirements and criteria as wholly human authored works. AI-assisted content is work that is written by a human but for which the author employed AI tools to edit, refine, or error-check the work. Due to the lack of publishing standards regarding the disclosure of artificially created materials, AI generated content may inadvertently be added to the collection. These materials will be tagged in the catalog record. However, there are also digital resources that the library offers that are not staff curated and therefore may contain AI generated material.
Gifts and Donations:
The Walpole Town Library welcomes gifts of books and other materials. The library reserves the right to keep, discard, sell, or make other appropriate disposal of any books or materials that are donated as determined by its mission and needs.
Staff members review all donated materials for potential addition to the Library’s collections. Materials may also be used to benefit the Friends of the Library’s book sale.
Acceptable items for addition to the collection
- Materials in like-new condition
- Books
- DVD’s
- Audiobooks on CD
Items that are not accepted for the collection
- Material in poor condition (has stains, water damage, smell, writing, etc.)
- Formats not currently being collected by the Library, such as VHS, audio cassettes, LPs, etc.
- Textbooks (except current Metro school textbooks)
- Magazines & Newspapers