The American Library Association affirms that all libraries are forums for information and ideas, and that the following basic policies should guide their services.

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.
4. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.
5. A person's right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.
6. 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.

Adopted June 18, 1948, by the ALA Council; amended February 2, 1961; amended June 28, 1967; amended January 23, 1980; inclusion of "age" reaffirmed January 24, 1996.

New Acquisitions Shelf, aka New Books Shelf

• The New Acquisitions, aka New Books Shelf will remain for the time being in its current shelf configuration.
  • In brief: Collection Management Services will add to the New Books Shelf; Public Services will remove items from New Books Shelf.
  • Shelves will be filled to physical capacity, thus underscoring our academic and scholarly ambitions.
  • If books exceed the absolute physical limits of these shelves, a taskforce will be called consisting of the Heads of Public Services and Collection Management Services and the Library Director to address the issue, revising the below directives as needed.
     
• Types of books:
  • Books requested by library and university faculty: All books requested by faculty and designated to Main Stacks or Juvenile Literature will go to the New Books Shelf with the exception of Faculty Author books as detailed below.
  • Gifts: Gifts to the library published in the current calendar year will be added to the New Books Self. (For example, if the current calendar year is 2017, then books published in 2017 [or pre-dated 2018] will be added to the New Book Shelf; books published in 2016 would not).
  • Standing orders: Due to the wide variety of books that fall in this category, the Head of Collection Management Services will generate a rubric to determine which monograph-like books  are appropriate for the New Book Shelf
  • Replacement books: In cases where books are recent replacement, follow the guidelines of Gifts (same calendar year).
• Length of time on shelf:
  • Most books will stay on the New Book Shelf for up to 90 days, but discretion of Public Services will be used in cases where a particular book may need to stay on longer. 
  • The period of 90 will be extended during summer months. 
  • No book will remain on the New Book Shelf for a period exceeding six months.
• Faculty Author Shelf
  • All Faculty Author Shelf books will be placed on the Faculty Author Shelf (not New Books).
  • Public Services will make ad hoc denials of Summit requests of newly-arrived Faculty Author books on an informed, as needed basis, when books are requested within the first 30 days.

• At present, New Books will serve a dual function of generating a system-wide moratorium on the circulation of those books in Summit and in celebrating our academic and scholarly goals in the acquisition of books that support Whitworth’s teacher and student scholars.

Written 4 October 2017 Amanda C. R. Clark; revised with input from Nancy Bunker and Paul Ojennus, 5 October 2017