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Policies
Borrow Library Items
Computer and Internet
Use Policy
Freedom to Read
Library Cards
Meeting Room Policy and Guidelines
Rules of Behavior
Unattended Children Policy
Website Linking Policy
All Library Policies (PDF
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Rules of Behavior
The Board of Library Trustees has prescribed
these Rules of Behavior for the purpose of assuring that (i)
all library patrons have a fair and equitable opportunity to
the quiet use and enjoyment of the Library's services, materials
and facilities without being subjected to unreasonable interference
or disturbance by others; (ii) all Library patrons enjoy a safe
and secure facility in which to use the Library's materials
and services; (iii) the Library's materials are protected from
theft and damage; and (iv) all Library employees enjoy a safe
and secure workplace. Illinois Library Law authorizes the Board
of Library Trustees "to exclude from the use of the library
any person who willfully violates the rules prescribed by the
board."
The general Rules of Behavior in the Library are as follows:
A. All conduct that may reasonably be expected to create a
disturbance or otherwise interfere with the quiet and safe use
and enjoyment of the Library by others (for example, but not
limited to, loud or boisterous conversations, running, fighting,
threatening or harassing behavior, use of video equipment including
cell phone cameras, obstructing others' access to Library resources,
etc.) is PROHIBITED.
B. Children under eight years of age may not be left unattended
in the Library. They must be under the direct supervision of
a parent, or responsible caregiver, when in the Library.
C. Animals, other than specially trained animals used as aids
by persons with disabilities, are not permitted in the Library.
D. Personal distribution of leaflets, survey taking, collecting
signatures on petitions, solicitations and similar activities
on library property are PROHIBITED.
E. Library users may not leave personal belongings in the Library
when they leave the building. The Library is not responsible
for any loss of users' personal belongings, through theft or
otherwise. Bulky items that take up excessive space are not
permitted in Library facilities or on Library grounds.
F. All conduct is PROHIBITED that may reasonably be expected
to endanger the health and safety of Library users or employees
or cause or threaten to cause damage to Library materials or
facilities (for example, moving furniture in a way which blocks
aisles, using tables, chairs or heating units as footstools,
sitting on stairways, defacing or vandalizing Library property
or materials, etc.) The Library reserves the right to limit
the number of persons who may sit together at a single table
or carrel.
G. Eating and possession of unsealed packages and containers
of food are not permitted in the Library, except for items served
at approved events held in public meeting rooms when arrangements
for serving food have been made and approved in advance. Beverages
with a covered lid are permitted in the Library. Examples include
coffee cups with a lid, water or soda bottles with a screw on
top, soft drink cans and soft drink containers with a lid and
straw.
H. Weapons such as explosives, firearms, knives, look-alike
weapons, or any other objects that can reasonably be considered
as weapons, are not permitted on Library property or any Library-related
events.
I. Use of alcohol and tobacco products in the Library is PROHIBITED.
J. Sleeping or the appearance of sleeping is not permitted
in the Library.
K. The Library reserves the right to inspect the contents of
all bags, purses, briefcases, backpacks, etc. for library materials.
L. The Library reserves the right to impose time limits upon
continuous use of Library equipment.
M. Depending upon the offense and the particular circumstances
of the case, violators of the foregoing Rules may be barred
from use of the Library, either temporarily or permanently.
Security guards are authorized t ask disruptive patrons to leave
the library and ban them for a 24-hour period. Guidelines for
banning patrons are as follows:
Minor infractions such as running, sleeping:
First offense - patrons are asked to leave for the day
Second offense - three-day ban
Third offense - one-week ban
Use of profanity, threatening, intimidating or harassing
behavior, damage to library property:
First offense - one-day ban
Second offense - one-week ban
Third offense - one-month ban
Additional violations - six-month ban
Library staff will call the police when serious incidents
such as these occur. Administration will issue letters that
will be sent certified to the patron's home. Parents, guardians,
and school principals will be notified if the patron is a
minor.
N. In addition to barring persons, temporarily or permanently,
from use of the Library for violations of the foregoing Rules,
the Library may, in its sole discretion, bring criminal charges
against any persons suspected of criminal acts toward library
staff or patrons, including theft or vandalism of Library property
or materials or of any violations on Library property of federal,
state or local laws and ordinances.
Library Board approved January 20,
2004. Revised August 15, 2009.
Freedom to Read
The freedom to read is essential to our democracy. It is continuously
under attack. Private groups and public authorities in various
parts of the country are working to remove or limit access to
reading materials, to censor content in schools, to label "controversial"
views, to distribute lists of "objectionable" books
or authors, and to purge libraries. These actions apparently
rise from a view that our national tradition of free expression
is no longer valid; that censorship and suppression are needed
to counter threats to safety or national security, as well as
to avoid the subversion of politics and the corruption of morals.
We, as individuals devoted to reading and as librarians and
publishers responsible for disseminating ideas, wish to assert
the public interest in the preservation of the freedom to read.
Most attempts at suppression rest on a denial of the fundamental
premise of democracy: that the ordinary individual, by exercising
critical judgment, will select the good and reject the bad.
We trust Americans to recognize propaganda and misinformation,
and to make their own decisions about what they read and believe.
We do not believe they are prepared to sacrifice their heritage
of a free press in order to be "protected" against
what others think may be bad for them. We believe they still
favor free enterprise in ideas and expression.
These efforts at suppression are related to a larger pattern
of pressures being brought against education, the press, art
and images, films, broadcast media, and the Internet. The problem
is not only one of actual censorship. The shadow of fear cast
by these pressures leads, we suspect, to an even larger voluntary
curtailment of expression by those who seek to avoid controversy
or unwelcome scrutiny by government officials.
Such pressure toward conformity is perhaps natural to a time
of accelerated change. And yet suppression is never more dangerous
than in such a time of social tension. Freedom has given the
United States the elasticity to endure strain. Freedom keeps
open the path of novel and creative solutions, and enables change
to come by choice. Every silencing of a heresy, every enforcement
of an orthodoxy, diminishes the toughness and resilience of
our society and leaves it the less able to deal with controversy
and difference.
Now as always in our history, reading is among our greatest
freedoms. The freedom to read and write is almost the only means
for making generally available ideas or manners of expression
that can initially command only a small audience. The written
word is the natural medium for the new idea and the untried
voice from which come the original contributions to social growth.
It is essential to the extended discussion that serious thought
requires, and to the accumulation of knowledge and ideas into
organized collections.
We believe that free communication is essential to the preservation
of a free society and a creative culture. We believe that these
pressures toward conformity present the danger of limiting the
range and variety of inquiry and expression on which our democracy
and our culture depend. We believe that every American community
must jealously guard the freedom to publish and to circulate,
in order to preserve its own freedom to read. We believe that
publishers and librarians have a profound responsibility to
give validity to that freedom to read by making it possible
for the readers to choose freely from a variety of offerings.
The freedom to read is guaranteed by the Constitution. Those
with faith in free people will stand firm on these constitutional
guarantees of essential rights and will exercise the responsibilities
that accompany these rights.
We therefore affirm these propositions:
A. It is in the public interest for publishers and librarians
to make available the widest diversity of views and expressions,
including those that are unorthodox, unpopular, or considered
dangerous by the majority.
Creative thought is by definition new, and what is new is different.
The bearer of every new thought is a rebel until that idea is
refined and tested. Totalitarian systems attempt to maintain
themselves in power by the ruthless suppression of any concept
that challenges the established orthodoxy. The power of a democratic
system to adapt to change is vastly strengthened by the freedom
of its citizens to choose widely from among conflicting opinions
offered freely to them. To stifle every nonconformist idea at
birth would mark the end of the democratic process. Furthermore,
only through the constant activity of weighing and selecting
can the democratic mind attain the strength demanded by times
like these. We need to know not only what we believe but why
we believe it.
B. Publishers, librarians, and booksellers do not need to endorse
every idea or presentation they make available. It would conflict
with the public interest for them to establish their own political,
moral, or aesthetic views as a standard for determining what
should be published or circulated.
Publishers and librarians serve the educational process by
helping to make available knowledge and ideas required for the
growth of the mind and the increase of learning. They do not
foster education by imposing as mentors the patterns of their
own thought. The people should have the freedom to read and
consider a broader range of ideas than those that may be held
by any single librarian or publisher or government or church.
It is wrong that what one can read should be confined to what
another thinks proper.
C. It is contrary to the public interest for publishers or
librarians to bar access to writings on the basis of the personal
history or political affiliations of the author.
No art or literature can flourish if it is to be measured by
the political views or private lives of its creators. No society
of free people can flourish that draws up lists of writers to
whom it will not listen, whatever they may have to say.
D. There is no place in our society for efforts to coerce the
taste of others, to confine adults to the reading matter deemed
suitable for adolescents, or to inhibit the efforts of writers
to achieve artistic expression.
To some, much of modern expression is shocking. But is not
much of life itself shocking? We cut off literature at the source
if we prevent writers from dealing with the stuff of life. Parents
and teachers have a responsibility to prepare the young to meet
the diversity of experiences in life to which they will be exposed,
as they have a responsibility to help them learn to think critically
for themselves. These are affirmative responsibilities, not
to be discharged simply by preventing them from reading works
for which they are not yet prepared. In these matters values
differ, and values cannot be legislated; nor can machinery be
devised that will suit the demands of one group without limiting
the freedom of others.
E. It is not in the public interest to force a reader to accept
the prejudgment of a label characterizing any expression or
its author as subversive or dangerous.
The ideal of labeling presupposes the existence of individuals
or groups with wisdom to determine by authority what is good
or bad for others. It presupposes that individuals must be directed
in making up their minds about the ideas they examine. But Americans
do not need others to do their thinking for them.
F. It is the responsibility of publishers and librarians, as
guardians of the people's freedom to read, to contest encroachments
upon that freedom by individuals or groups seeking to impose
their own standards or tastes upon the community at large; and
by the government whenever it seeks to reduce or deny public
access to public information.
It is inevitable in the give and take of the democratic process
that the political, the moral, or the aesthetic concepts of
an individual or group will occasionally collide with those
of another individual or group. In a free society individuals
are free to determine for themselves what they wish to read,
and each group is free to determine what it will recommend to
its freely associated members. But no group has the right to
take the law into its own hands, and to impose its own concept
of politics or morality upon other members of a democratic society.
Freedom is no freedom if it is accorded only to the accepted
and the inoffensive. Further, democratic societies are more
safe, free, and creative when the free flow of public information
is not restricted by governmental prerogative or self-censorship.
G. It is the responsibility of publishers and librarians to
give full meaning to the freedom to read by providing books
that enrich the quality and diversity of thought and expression.
By the exercise of this affirmative responsibility, they can
demonstrate that the answer to a "bad" book is a good
one, the answer to a "bad" idea is a good one.
The freedom to read is of little consequence when the reader
cannot obtain matter fit for that reader's purpose. What is
needed is not only the absence of restraint, but the positive
provision of opportunity for the people to read the best that
has been thought and said. Books are the major channel by which
the intellectual inheritance is handed down, and the principal
means of its testing and growth. The defense of the freedom
to read requires of all publishers and librarians the utmost
of their faculties, and deserves of all Americans the fullest
of their support.
We state these propositions neither lightly nor as easy generalizations.
We here stake out a lofty claim for the value of the written
word. We do so because we believe that it is possessed of enormous
variety and usefulness, worthy of cherishing and keeping free.
We realize that the application of these propositions may mean
the dissemination of ideas and manners of expression that are
repugnant to many persons. We do not state these propositions
in the comfortable belief that what people read is unimportant.
We believe rather that what people read is deeply important;
that ideas can be dangerous; but that the suppression of ideas
is fatal to a democratic society. Freedom itself is a dangerous
way of life, but it is ours.
This statement was originally issued in May of 1953 by the
Westchester Conference of the American Library Association
and the American Book Publishers Council, which in 1970 consolidated
with the American Educational Publishers Institute to become
the Association of American Publishers. Adopted June 25, 1953;
revised January 28, 1972, January 16, 1991, July 12, 2000,
June 30, 2004 by the ALA Council and the AAP Freedom to Read
Committee. Library Board approved November 15, 2005
See also the full policy manual
for the Library Bill of Rights, Freedom to View, and Freedom
Information Action.
Website Linking Policy
The Oak Park Public Library as part of its public library services
has intentionally included in its website a limited number of
links to websites not owned or managed by the Oak Park Public
Library. Links to other websites fall into four categories and
are selected by library staff using the following criteria:
A. Oak Park Links Page
1. Sites owned by Oak Park government entities.
2. Sites serving as directories and indexes of Oak Park websites.
3. Sites of Oak Park news sources with general circulation or
an equivalent electronic circulation.
B. Extension of Editorial Content
1. Sites that serve to extend the editorial content of Oak Park
Public Library web pages, e.g. the Oak Park Public Library web
page on Frank Lloyd Wright might link to Wright resources or
the library construction web page might link to the architect's
website.
C. Online Tools
1. Databases and other information resources subscribed to/purchased
by the Oak Park Public Library or the State of Illinois on the
behalf of the Oak Park Public Library.
2. Library resources provided by other library or library organization
resources, e.g. SWAN and the Library of Congress.
3. State of Illinois or U.S. Government sites providing library
services.
D. Internet Starter Page
This page is intended to assist novice Internet users in using
the Internet.
1. Sites that assist novice Internet users in searching and
using the Internet.
2. Small collection of reference sites selected by Oak Park
Public Library staff.
The Library provides these links solely as information to assist
its library patrons, and not as an advertising service or to
promote local businesses, agencies, services or organizations.
The Library receives no compensation in connection with these
links, and neither supports nor opposes the sponsors of the
linked sites.
Library Board approved October 18,
2006
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