The Yuma High School Library Media Center Collection Management Policy outlines the mission and responsibilities of the library. It aims to provide intellectual and physical access to information and materials in all formats to ensure students are effective users of information. The library's collection supports the school's curriculum and students' personal needs. Materials are selected using specific criteria and from a variety of sources. The policy also addresses issues like intellectual freedom, controversial materials, challenges to materials, and collection maintenance.

1. Yuma High School Library Media Center
Collection Management Policy
Yuma High School Mission Statement
Students learn, teach, and achieve through a rigorous and relevant environment in order to
become career and college ready.
Yuma High School Library Media Center Mission Statement
Yuma High School Library’s mission is to ensure that students are effective users of
information by providing intellectual and physical access to materials in all formats. The YHS
Library provides instruction to foster competence and stimulate interest in reading, viewing
and using information and ideas by working with other educators to design learning strategies
to meet the needs of individual students.
Introduction
This policy is a public statement of the guidelines used by the Yuma High School Library Media
Center to select and manage its collection.
Patrons
The patrons of Yuma High School Library Media Center are first and foremost its students and
its faculty. The library also serves the parents and guardians of the students as well as the
school staff.
Access
Yuma High School will make every effort to allow access to all students, parents, and staff
regardless of race, religion, disability, or economic standing. The YHS library media center will
be open before and after school. All patrons are given access to print and non-print materials.
These include the latest technologies funding will allow such as internet, software, multimedia
equipment, and online resources.

2. Responsibility
According to the School Library Bill of Rights, “School libraries are concerned with generating
understanding of Americans’ freedoms and with the preservation of these freedoms through
the development of informed and responsible citizens.” To this end, the responsibility of the
school library is:
A. To provide materials that will enrich and support the curriculum, taking into
consideration the varied interest, abilities, and maturity levels of the students served.
B. To provide materials that will stimulate growth in factual knowledge, literary
application, appreciation of reading, aesthetic values, and ethical standards.
C. To provide a background of information this will enable students to make intelligent
decisions in their daily life.
D. To provide materials on opposing sides of controversial issues so that young citizens
may develop the practices of critical reading and thinking.
E. To provide materials representative of the many religious, ethnic, and cultural groups
and their contributions to our American heritage.
F. To place principle above personal opinion and reason above prejudice in the selection of
materials of the highest quality in order to assure a comprehensive collection
appropriate to the users of the library.
G. To appreciate and take into account the requests and wishes of students, faculty, and
staff in the selection of materials for the library’s collection while still maintaining high
standards.
Selection and Evaluation of Materials
Materials should support and be consistent with the district's general educational goals
and the individual educational goals and objectives Yuma High School.
Materials should be selected to support and enrich both the curriculum and the
personal needs of our students and faculty, taking into consideration diverse interests,
abilities, socioeconomic backgrounds, maturity levels, and students' extracurricular interests.
Materials selected should encourage an appreciation for both informational and recreational
reading, viewing, or listening.
Care will be taken to select materials meeting standards of high quality including:
 Educational significance
 Physical format
 Presentation, including special features, such as indexes, table of contents,
illustrations, photographs, maps, charts, graphs
 Readability

3.  Patron interest
 Authenticity/accuracy in factual content
 Artistic quality or literary style
 Technical production/construction that is well crafted, durable, manageable, and
attractive
 Represent opposing points of view on controversial issues, encouraging individual
analysis
 Appropriate and effective literary style for the subject matter and its intended
readers or viewers
Materials will be considered relating to their overall purpose and their direct
relationship to instructional objectives and/or the curriculum. Materials will be purchased in a
variety of formats with efforts made to incorporate emerging technology when they meet the
criteria outlined above. Gift materials will also be evaluated by the criteria outlined above and
shall be accepted or rejected in accordance with those criteria. Once accepted, gift materials
become property of the library and are no longer subject to dictation from the previous owner.
Procedures for Selection
The librarian will be responsible for the selection of materials. In coordinating this
process, the librarian will:
A. Use reputable, unbiased, professionally prepared selection aids. Among the sources
which may be consulted are:
 Booklist
 Horn Book
 Kirkus Reviews
 Library Journal
 School Library Journal
 Follett Titlewave
 Other sources as appropriate
B. When possible examine items to be purchased
C. Consider recommendations from faculty, administrators, students, and parents
D. Judge gift items by standard selection criteria
E. Purchase replacements for worn, damaged, or missing materials basic to the collection.
Intellectual Freedom, Controversial Materials, and Censorship
The library supports the principles of intellectual freedom inherent in the First
Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. One of the library’s major philosophies is
to provide an opportunity for students and teachers alike to gain information, insight, and
understanding on the various points of view on controversial issues. The library stands for

4. freedom of communication, intellectual activity, and thought. Therefore, it does not add or
withdraw materials from the collection at the request of any individual or group without proper
and routine consideration.
Major controversial issues include race, sex, politics, literature, and economics. In
selecting material in any of these areas the following criteria are given consideration:
A. The materials on controversial issues should be representative of a particular point of
view and a sincere effort made to select equally representative materials covering
contrasting viewpoints.
B. The material does not unfairly, inaccurately, or viciously disparage a particular race or
religion. A writer’s expression of a certain viewpoint is not to be considered a
disparagement when it represents the historical or contemporary views held by some
persons or group.
C. The race, nationality, or political views of an author should neither prohibit nor
mandate inclusion of his/her work.
D. Materials on religion are chosen to explain rather than convince and are selected to
represent the fields as widely as necessary for the school’s purposes.
E. The selection of materials on political theories and ideologies, or on public issues is
directed toward maintaining a balanced collection of various views.
F. In literary work of established quality, the use of profanity, violence, or the treatment of
sex is not an adequate reason for eliminating the material from the school library.
G. Materials on physiology, physical maturation or personal hygiene should be accurate
and in good taste.
H. Materials should be evaluated as a whole. The purpose, style, and theme should
overshadow any isolated, offensive action. The masking, clipping, or any other
alteration of an individual work should be avoided.
I. The inclusion of controversial materials does not imply endorsement of ideals
contained in such materials by either the Yuma Union High School District or the YHS
Library.
The Yuma High School Library welcomes books and other resource materials from
individuals and organizations, but reserves the right of placement or rejection. The materials, if
accepted, must meet the standards and criteria set forth by this collection management policy.
Once accepted, materials become property of the library and are no longer subject to requests,
appeals, or orders from the previous owner.
Challenged Materials
The review of questioned materials will be treated objectively, unemotionally, and as
an important, but routine, action. Every effort will be made to consider objections made
against material in the library’s collection. In cases where objection is expressed, the best

5. interests of the students, the school, the curriculum, and the community will also be
considered. Since differences of opinion do exist in our society, the following procedure will be
observed to recognize those differences in an impartial and factual matter.
A. The librarian who receives such a request will use a courteous and objective approach.
The complainant may be shown reviews of the material in question, if such reviews are
available. They may also be shown any available recommendations or requests for the
purchase of the material, if the library had received any.
At this time, the student’s freedom to read should be emphasized. It will be noted that
if a parent or guardian does not wish their student to read a specific material, it is the
right of the parent or guardian to supervise their student accordingly. However, the
intellectual freedom of other students should not be limited.
The librarian should offer to re-evaluate the material, but is not obligated to remove
the material from the shelf at this time. Hopefully the problem will be resolved at this
level.
B. If no agreement between the librarian and the complainant can be reached, the
complainant should complete the “Request for Reconsideration” form (see attached). It
should be signed by the complainant and identified so that a proper reply can be made.
C. Upon the completion of this form, the questioned material will be withdrawn from
circulation. At this time, the questioned material will be read, evaluated, and discussed
by a library committee and convened by the principal and the librarian.
D. The committee will review the questioned material and all critical evaluations available.
General acceptance of the material shall be checked by consulting authoritative lists in
light of the collection management policy of the school. A thorough review of the
questioned material will be conducted. Passages will not be taken out of context and
the material will be evaluated as a whole.
E. The final decision of the committee will be implemented by the principal and the
librarian. The complainant will be sent a copy of the evaluating report and decision.
Collection Maintenance
The library’s collection is constantly evolving in order to remain current, relevant, and
aesthetically pleasing. Therefore, the collection will be periodically examined by the librarian
for the purpose of weeding (or discarding) outdated, damaged, or uncirculated materials.
Materials may also be removed for repair or to be replaced if budget constraints allow.
Materials chosen for removal will either be given to faculty members who desire them for
classroom use, auctioned in bulk boxes, thrown away, or recycled.

6. REQUEST FOR CONSIDERATION
YUMA HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY
INITIATED BY
DATE_______________
NAME_____________________________________
TELEPHONE_______________________
ADDRESS___________________________________________________________________
REPRESENTING
SELF_________ or
ORGANIZATION’S NAME_______________________________________
MATERIAL QUESTIONED
BOOK
AUTHOR____________________________________________________
TITLE_______________________________________________________
COPYRIGHT DATE__________________
AV MATERIAL
TYPE OF MEDIA (i.e. DVD, CD)___________________________
TITLE___________________________________________________________
PUBLISHER______________________________________________________
COPYRIGHT DATE___________________________
Page 1 of 2

7. PLEASE RESPOND TO THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS.
IF MORE SPACE IS NEEDED, USE AN ADDIONAL SHEET OF PAPER.
1. Have you read or seen this material in its entirety? _________________________
2. To what do you object? Please cite specific passages with page numbers.
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
3. What do you believe is the main idea of this material?
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
4. What do you feel might result from the use of this material?
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
5. What reviews of the material have you read?
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
6. For what other age groups might this be suitable?
_________________________________________________________________________
7. What action do you recommend for this material?
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
8. In its place, what material do you recommend that would provide adequate information
on the subject?
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
SIGNATURE________________________________________
PRINTED NAME_____________________________________
DATE________________________
Page 2 of 2