Statement of Selection Policy
The Concordia International School Shanghai Library system, which includes elementary, middle, and high schools, exists to stimulate and support the intellectual life of the school. The library does this by providing resources to support both curricular and non-curricular interests of faculty and students and by providing services essential to the school’s educational program. The core collection, consisting of a range of age and developmentally appropriate fiction and non-fiction information resources, should empower students to become effective users of information.
In support of this policy, the Concordia libraries adhere to the following Intellectual Freedom policies* of the American Library Association:
The American Library Association affirms that all libraries are forums for information and ideas, and that the following basic policies should guide their services.
I. 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.
II. 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.
III. Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.
IV. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.
V. A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.
VI. 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.
VII. All people, regardless of origin, age, background, or views, possess a right to privacy and confidentiality in their library use. Libraries should advocate for, educate about, and protect people’s privacy, safeguarding all library use data, including personally identifiable information.
*Adopted June 19, 1939, by the ALA Council; amended October 14, 1944; June 18, 1948; February 2, 1961; June 27, 1967; January 23, 1980; January 29, 2019. Inclusion of “age” reaffirmed January 23, 1996.
The primary goal of the school’s library media program is to enrich and support the instructional program of the school. The school library makes available, through the school library collection, a wide range of materials on varying levels of difficulty with a diversity of appeal compatible with different needs, interests, and viewpoints of students and teachers.
To this end, the goals for selection are as follows:
1. To provide school library media that will enrich and support the curriculum, educational goals of the school, and the aims and objectives of specific courses. Learning resources shall strive to be appropriate for the age, emotional development, ability level, learning styles, and social development of the students for whom the materials are selected, taking into consideration individual needs and the varied interests, abilities, socioeconomic backgrounds, and maturity levels of the students served.
2. To provide school library media that will stimulate growth in critical thinking, factual knowledge, literary appreciation, aesthetic values, and ethical standards.
3. To provide background information enabling students to make intelligent choices in their daily lives.
4. To provide materials on opposing sides of controversial issues and representing differing shades of opinion so that students may develop, under guidance, the practice of critical thinking and critical analysis of all media.
5. To provide materials representative of the many religious, ethnic, and cultural groups of our world and the contributions of these groups to our cultural heritage.
6. To provide materials of particular relevance to the unique characteristics of the local community and the cultural diversity of the school community.
7. To provide materials designed to motivate students and staff members to examine their own duties, responsibilities, rights and privileges as participating citizens in our society.
The library's primary function is to provide the Concordia International School Shanghai community with all formats of information to achieve a balanced collection of resources.* Selection of materials will be based on the following considerations:
● Purpose—The overall purpose and its direct relationship to instructional objectives, the curriculum needs of students and teachers (priority), and/or personal and recreational needs of students and faculty
● Reliability—Accuracy, authenticity, authority
● Suitability—Suitability of subject and style for users
● Quality—Literary merit or artistic quality, reputation of the author or originality of the resource, authority of positive review or criticism
● Treatment—Clear, comprehensible, skillful, convincing, well-organized, unbiased, relevant, current
● Availability and price—Availability of materials on the subject, price relative to other comparable materials
● Technical production—Audio and/or visual clear and well-crafted
● Construction—Durable, manageable, attractive
● Special features—Useful illustrations, photographs, maps, charts
● Possible uses—Individual, small group, large group instruction, in-depth study
*Note: A single source need not meet all or even the majority of the criteria in order to be acquired.