The Unabridged service (www.unabridged.info)
provides downloadable digital audiobooks, old-time
radio programs, and other related content and services to qualified users of
the participating member organizations.
Unabridged currently offers two collections: The main collection, and the Unabridged
School Download Library, which contains materials of potential interest and use
to students in kindergarten through twelfth grade.
The Unabridged collections of downloadable digital audiobooks strive to meet on a timely basis the
informational and recreational reading needs of the highly diverse group of Unabridged users in the participating states.
To guide Unabridged staff and staff
members at Unabridged member organizations in making decisions about the
selection, management, and preservation of the materials contained in the
Unabridged collections.
To inform Unabridged users, stakeholders,
and the general public about the principles and practices that govern the development
of the Unabridged collections.
To provide a standard against which ongoing evaluations of
the actual Unabridged collections may refer.
To declare the commitment of the Unabridged service and its
member organizations to the principles of free access to ideas and information
that reflects a variety of viewpoints and tastes in reading material.
The electronic books are available only through the
Unabridged School Download Library, designed for K-12 students.
The electronic books are available only through the
Unabridged School Download Library, designed for K-12 students.
During the May 2008 meeting of the Unabridged Board, the
decision was made not to include downloadable digital music in the Unabridged collection
If the usage statistics of the current Unabridged
collection indicate that a certain author, genre, or topic is of high interest
to Unabridged users, we will try to acquire additional titles by that author,
in that genre, or on that topic.
We welcome recommendations from Unabridged
users for titles, authors, and genres to consider adding to the Unabridged
collections. Recommendations from
Unabridged readers and staff members at Unabridged member
organizations for new titles, authors, and genres are taken very seriously and
investigated in light of the other selection criteria outlined in this
collection development policy.
Audiobook reviews in various media
are regularly reviewed to find new titles and/or authors to add to the Unabridged collections. Reader ratings and comments from sources such
as Amazon.com also are taken into consideration.
In order to provide timely access to a cohesive, coherent
collection of digital audio content, Unabridged may acquire some content that
already is held by, or is in the process of being acquired by, or will
eventually be acquired by, the National Library Service for the Blind and
Physically Handicapped. While efforts to
avoid unnecessary overlap are ongoing, the fact that a high-demand title is in
other collections available to Unabridged users will
not necessarily preclude the inclusion of that title in the Unabridged
collections.
In general, Unabridged collects unabridged versions of the
titles selected for inclusion in the collections. Occasionally abridged versions of works find
their way into the Unabridged collections, usually
because they were misidentified by either the publisher or the vendor as
unabridged versions when they were selected for inclusion in the Unabridged
collections. When this occurs, the
abridged version remains in the collection.
Although the Unabridged collections
contain some older material, such as classic books and old-time radio programs,
in general the collections focus on recently published audiobooks.
The developers and users of the Unabridged
collection are especially interested in providing timely access to new
books. Efforts are made by our suppliers
and our collection development staff to make Unabridged downloadable digital audiobooks available on the same date as (or, when possible,
even prior to) the release of print, audio, and electronic versions of the book
to the general public.
Most Unabridged audiobooks may be
listened to on a computer, transferred to a portable playback device, or burned
to a set of CDs. Sometimes, however, the
rights holders to a particular work will not grant certain playback rights to
our distributors, and, ultimately, to Unabridged users. This occurs most often when a specific title
is prohibited from being burned to a set of CDs.
When the Unabridged collection management staff notices that the playback
options and digital rights management terms for a specific title being
considered for inclusion in the Unabridged collection deviate from the normal
terms of use, that fact will be considered as part of the overall selection
process.
Most of the items in the Unabridged
collections were written and recorded in the English language. However, the main collection contains a small
collection of Spanish language audiobooks, some of
which are for works originally written in Spanish, while others are works
translated into Spanish from other languages.
Audiobooks of works translated from one
language to another, as well as audiobooks of works
originally written in languages other than English, will be considered based on
the selection criteria outlined in this collection development policy.
Some items in the Unabridged
collection may be considered offensive or unacceptable to some Unabridged users
due to the opinions, language, and actions conveyed in these works. The source of the offensiveness may be
related to sex, violence, religion, politics, and other topics for which some
people have strong beliefs, opinions, and preferences. Items selected in accordance with this
collection development policy are available in their unabridged form. They will remain in the collection even if
they prove to be offensive or unacceptable to some Unabridged
users or stakeholders. Unabridged supports
intellectual freedom, especially the freedom to read. Unabridged strives to abide by the American
Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights (http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/statementspols/statementsif/librarybillrights.cfm)
and the
Textbooks generally are not included in the Unabridged collections.
However, the Unabridged School Download Library provides works of
fiction and nonfiction that may supplement the textbooks and classroom
materials used by kindergarten through twelfth grade students.
The Unabridged collections are designed to meet the
recreational and informational reading needs of all ages of Unabridged users,
including children, tweens, teens, and adults. The selection of materials for children, tweens, and teens is governed by the same selection
criteria used to develop the collections in general.
Because new items added to the collection usually become
available immediately after the completion of a purchase order, the collection
development staff tends to make several small purchase orders each month,
usually at least one per week. This also
enables rapid response to the ever changing list of items on hold. As a result, new titles and additional copies
of titles already in the collections are being added to the collections on a
regular basis.
Most of the Unabridged collection operates
under the “one copy, one user at a time” method of circulation. Unabridged users who are interested in
listening to an audiobook for which no copies
currently are available may place a hold on that book. When a copy becomes available, the user who
placed the hold will be notified via email.
The Unabridged collection management staff has access to many detailed
reports about the nature of the collection and its use, including a list of all
the titles for which current holds exist, the number of holds, the number of
copies currently in the collection, the resulting hold ratio, and the date the
oldest active hold was placed. The
Unabridged collection management staff studies this and other important reports
frequently, often on a daily basis. In general,
if the hold ratio becomes three or greater (that is, there are at least three
holds for every copy currently in the collection), the Unabridged collection
management staff will review the usage trends for that title, that author, and
that genre to determine if one or more additional copies should be added to the
collection to meet the proven demand.
Sometimes our suppliers allow us to add titles to the Unabridged collection even before the audiobook
version is released for use. This
enables Unabridged users to become aware that a title
has been added to the collection and will become available soon, usually within
30 days. Users may place holds on these
pre-release titles. Adding titles to the
Unabridged collection weeks before they actually
become available should be done with caution, however, because it can create a
frustrating situation for some readers.
Because all Unabridged content is
in digital format, and because the cost of storing digital content is minimal,
the Unabridged collections never have been weeded, and there are no plans to
regularly weed the collections. If
however at some point in time some content in the collection has received no
use for a long period of time, and if keeping these no-longer-used items in the
collection appears to be impeding the ability of Unabridged users to find items
of current interest, a weeding program will be examined and implemented if
necessary.
Occasionally the supplier of an item already in the Unabridged collection loses the right, usually through the
expiration of a contractual agreement with the rights holders of audio versions
of a work, to sell or lease additional copies of that item to Unabridged. Although a supplier never has recalled
existing items in the Unabridged collection (an action that would be vigorously
challenged by the Unabridged Board), at times it becomes difficult or
impossible for the Unabridged collection development team to acquire additional
copies of a popular item to meet proven user demand.
·
The Board of the
Unabridged downloadable digital audio book service (www.unabridged.info) believes in freedom
of information for all, and does not practice censorship.
·
The selection of
Unabridged materials is predicated on the user’s right
to read, and, similarly, his or her freedom from censorship by others.
·
Many books are
controversial. Any given item may offend
some person or group.
·
Selections of
materials to add to the Unabridged collection are made
based on the Unabridged Collection Development Policy (http://www.unabridged.info/colldevpolicy.htm).
·
The Unabridged
Board holds that censorship of reading material is a purely individual
matter. The Board maintains that while
anyone may ignore or reject books and other materials of which she or he does
not approve, she or he may not exercise censorship to restrict the freedom to
read of others.
·
The
responsibility for materials selected and read by children and adolescents
resides with their parents or legal guardians.
Selection decisions for items added to the main Unabridged
collection are not influenced by the possibility that these materials may be
accessible to minors.
·
The Unabridged
Board recognizes that a collection of diverse materials may generate some
requests for reconsideration. The
following procedures have been developed and approved by the Unabridged Board
to ensure that requests to reconsider an item in the collection are handled in
an attentive, consistent, and timely manner.
·
The Unabridged
Board accepts requests to reconsider specific items in the collection from
current Unabridged users as well as patrons of any of
the current Unabridged organizational members.
Parents or legal guardians of Unabridged users
under the age of 18 also may submit requests to reconsider specific items in
the collection. Please follow these
steps:
o
Download the
“Unabridged Request to Reconsider an Item” Form. This form is available online in Microsoft
Word file format at www.unabridged.info/RequestToReconsiderForm.doc
. A PDF version of the form is at www.unabridged.info/RequestToReconsiderForm.PDF.
o
Complete the
form, providing as much information as you can.
Please be as specific as possible.
o
Please note that
we need to know the name of the individual making the request, a mailing address,
an email address, and a telephone number in order to contact you to acknowledge
receipt of the request to reconsider and to keep you informed of the progress
and outcomes of the reconsideration process.
o
Only requests to
reconsider that are printed, signed, and mailed via surface mail will be
considered by the Unabridged Board.
Requests that are transmitted via fax machine, email, voice-mail, or by
any means other than surface mail will not be considered.
o
Please print the
completed request to reconsider form and mail it to the Unabridged Coordinator:
Tom Peters
6106
o
The Unabridged
Coordinator will contact the Unabridged Board, notifying them that a request to
reconsider has been received, thus beginning the process described below by
which the Unabridged Board shall respond to the request to reconsider.
·
The
Unabridged Board shall respond in writing in a timely manner to all requests to
reconsider items in the Unabridged collection that
adhere to the submission criteria and procedures outlined above.
·
Challenged
items shall remain in the Unabridged collection and available to all during the
review process.
·
The
Unabridged Board will report all requests for reconsideration to the Office for
Intellectual Freedom at the American Library Association, which since 1990 has
maintained a confidential database of challenged library materials (http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/challengeslibrarymaterials/challengereporting/index.cfm).
·
The
Unabridged Board will maintain its own confidential file of items for which requests
for reconsideration have been received, the information gathered as part of the
process of responding to each request for reconsideration, and the formal
response in writing.
·
http://www.txla.org/pubs/ifrfrfrm.html
·
http://library.ppld.org/aboutyourlibrary/admin/policies/ChallengedMaterials.asp
If you have questions, suggestions, or concerns about this
collection development policy, the Unabridged
collections, or both, please feel free to contact the Unabridged Coordinator:
Tom Peters
TAP Information Services
Phone: 816.616.6746
Email: tapeters@tapinformation.com