Press Release from Director Martin Walters, Community Library Network
JANUARY 31, 2025 — Libraries have existed for 5 millennia. The foundation of libraries is the collection, evaluation, and organization of information resources. To accomplish this raison d’être, library science focuses on cataloging and classification systems. The Dewey Decimal Classification system is one of the most widely used library classification systems in the world, especially in public and school libraries.
Labeling library material based on content and form is part of library classification. Every book in your local library has a label on it. Here at the Community Library Network, our Technical Services Department labels many different collections based on content, including children’s, young adult, reference, genealogy, local history, large print, graphic novels, inspirational fiction, biographies, fantasy, western, science fiction, romance, mystery, historical fiction, suspense, classics, and holidays, such as Christmas and Thanksgiving.
These content labels are used not only to identify library material but also to organize that material into their own special collections when necessary or expedient. These collections may be shelved separately from the general collection or located in their own rooms. At the Post Falls Library, for example, the children’s collection and the young adult collection are in their own rooms. At Hayden Library, the genealogy collection is in its own room.
Recently, CLN established another unique collection, the Mature Content Collection. This new collection follows the same professional standards applied to all library collections at CLN. The only difference between the Mature Content Collection and other CLN collections is that this new collection was established pursuant to the Children’s School and Library Protection Act. Consequently, there are legal obligations associated with this collection.
These obligations bind the CLN which operates public libraries in the state of Idaho. Compliance with the Children’s School and Library Protection Act necessitates that the CLN evaluates its collection. This process will take time; fortunately, evaluating library collections is the professional expertise of a librarian. CLN encourages all its patrons to become familiar with Idaho Statutes 18-1513 through 18-1517B as well as CLN’s Mature Content Collection Policy. The latter document cannot be properly understood separately from the Idaho Statute.
