Farmington Community Library:
Our Core Values
At its March, 2004 meeting, the Farmington Community Library Board of Trustees adopted the American Library Association's Statement on Core Values:
The library and information profession is enriched by the skills and knowledge of its individual members. Through their specialized training and experience, they contribute to the varied missions of their institutions and organizations. Over time, they have refined their services to meet the unique and ever changing needs of their communities. Despite the multiplicity of these skills and roles, librarians and information specialists hold the following values in common:
- Connection of people to ideas
- Assurance of free and open access to recorded knowledge, information, and creative works
- Commitment to literacy and learning
- Respect for the individuality and the diversity of all people
- Freedom for all people to form, to hold, and to express their own beliefs
- Preservation of the human record
- Excellence in professional service to our communities
- Formation of partnerships to advance these values
Interpretation
These values encompass many principles and beliefs that may have special meanings or require a different emphasis in each of the varied professional associations representing librarians and information professionals. The following is one interpretation, which may be adopted or revised by these organizations, based on their individual goals and
priorities:
Connection of people to ideas. We guide the seeker in defining and refining the search; we foster intellectual inquiry; we nurture communication in all forms and formats.
Assurance of free and open access to recorded knowledge, information, and creative works. We recognize access to ideas across time and across cultures is fundamental to
society and to civilization.
Commitment to literacy)1 and learning. We aid people to become independent lifelong learners by selecting and offering materials that support the differing needs of all
learners, and that entertain and delight the human spirit.
Respect for the individuality and the diversity of all people. We honor each request without bias, and we meet it with the fullness of tools at our command. We respect the
individual's need for privacy, confidentiality, aIld the right of access to library and information services and resources regardless of race, creed, national origin, age, ability,
gender, or sexual orientation.
Freedom for all people to form, hold, and to express their own beliefs. All people have the right to seek, to know, and to find.
Preservation of the human record. The cultural memory of humankind and its many families, its stories, its expertise, its history, and its evolved wisdom must be preserved so it may illuminate the present and make the future possible.
Excellence in professional service to our communities. Our commitment requires integrity, competence, personal growth, effective stewardship, and service to our discipline as well as to our public.
Formation of partnerships to advance these values. We believe in the interdependence of libraries and librarians and advocate collaboration in all areas and between all types of library, knowing that collections and services evolve successfully through such collaboration.
