Collection Development and Weeding Policy

The Otto Bruyns Public Library of Northfield adheres to the guidelines laid out by the American Library Association on collection development.  The Library will support those principles and will use those ideals to help develop and maintain this Collection Development and Weeding Policy.  The Otto Bruyns Public Library of Northfield endorses the American Library Association’s “Library Bill of Rights,” a copy of which follows, and uses this document’s standards in the practices of collection development and maintenance.

Collection Development

1. Selection

Final authority for the determination of a policy in the selection and acquisition of materials is vested in the Library’s Board of Trustees.

Choice of materials will result from a variety of professional activities on the part of the Library Director.  Reviews of new books from both professional journals and popular reviewing media form an important tool in the selection process.  Recommendations from the staff and public are also welcome and evaluated within the framework of the acquisition process.

2. Responsibility

The Library Director has the final responsibility for the selection of all materials to be incorporated into the library’s collection, regardless of the mode of acquisition. The public Library asserts its right and duty to keep in its collection a representative selection of materials on all subjects of interest.

It is the Director’s responsibility to provide materials that are both of current interest and permanent value, that are up-to-date, that are responsive to the needs of every segment of the community and that do not discriminate against political, religious, economic, or social view or group through deliberate exclusion of their views. The Director shall try to provide for a diversity of materials without exercising direct or implied censorship. The Director shall be responsible for expending available funds in an equitable manner so that all divisions of the collection receive a just proportion of said funds.

3. Criteria

All acquisitions, whether purchased or donated, are considered in terms of the standards listed below. However, an item need not meet all the criteria in order to be acceptable. Materials are evaluated on the significance of the entire work rather than individual parts. When judging the quality of materials several standards and combinations of standards may be used. The following principals will guide selection:

1. • Contemporary significance or permanent value
   • Community interest
   • Accuracy of content
   • Reputation and/or authority of the author, editor or publisher
   • Literary merit
   • Relation to the existing collection and to other materials on the subject
   • Price, availability and demand
   • Scarcity of information in the subject area
   • Availability of material in other area libraries
   • Attention of critics, reviewers, media and public

4. Format

The Library offers items in a variety of formats, including print books, audiobooks and e-books, and will frequently review the selection of formats acquired to meet the needs of the community and stay ahead of developing technologies.  Materials will be purchased in the format that best suits the patron’s needs.  Patrons are able to specify the format of items upon requesting an item.

5. Language

The Library has a Juvenile and Adult Collection of Spanish Language books available for checkout.  Patrons are welcome to request books in other languages to be added to the collection, at the discretion of the Library Director.  The Library wishes to serve the diverse needs of the Northfield community in the development and maintenance of its collection.

6. Duplicate Copies

The Library will consider purchasing duplicate copies of items, within the constraints of available funds and at the discretion of the Director, in order to have sufficient copies of popular items to meet patron demand.

7. Donations

The library will accept book donations to be added to the collection upon discretion of the Library Director. Donations will be judged upon the same basis as purchased materials.  See the Library’s “Gifts and Donations” policy for more information on how to gift books.

Weeding and Deletion

The Library will regularly need and delete materials in poor condition or that are no longer useful.  The need for replacement is weighed with regard to several factors, including the number of duplicate copies, the existence of adequate coverage of a field, similar materials in the collection, later or more authoritative, as well as current, demand for a particular subject or title.

Items that are candidates for weeding:

• Shabby, outdated materials
• Items in poor condition, unable to be mended
• Items that have not circulated or have very low circulation for a certain amount of time, usually 3-5 years and prior
• Items with date sensitive subjects (business, investment, science, medicine, law, technology, and/or items whose information becomes inaccurate when not current)

Weeding will be conducted by trained library staff, with the assistance of computer generated usage statistics from the Library’s digital catalog.  Items that are candidates to be weeded will be approved by the Library Director before deletion occurs.  New and replacement titles will be ordered, as necessary, at the discretion of the Library Director. Depending on the items’ condition, weeded items will either be discarded or donated to the Friends of the Library book sales.

Adopted: September 10, 2026