Approved 10-21-2025

CIRC-20: Library Bill of Rights

The Lake Bluff Public Library adheres to the American Library Association’s Library Bill ofRights (see below).

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, andenlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not beexcluded 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 currentand historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan ordoctrinal disapproval.
  3. Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provideinformation and enlightenment.
  4. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgmentof 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 serveshould make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs oraffiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use.
  7. All people, regardless of origin, age, background, or views, possess a right to privacy andconfidentiality in their library use. Libraries should advocate for, educate about, and protectpeople’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.