Your Freedom to Read
The Intellectual Freedom Committee of the American Library Association first published the Library Bill of Rights in 1939, with its most recent revision in 2019. Its words still guide libraries and publishers today as we work to ensure free and uncensored access to information. The American Library Association also celebrates Banned Books Week each fall to bring awareness to issues regarding your rights and responsibilities as a reader and user of libraries. This year, Lee’s Summit North is celebrating Banned Books Week across the first two weeks of October. Swing by the library to view information about censorship, book challenges, and your rights and responsibilities as a reader.
Below, read the full text of The Library Bill of Rights. You can find the full text at this link, and for further reading and understanding check out the ALA’s Freedom to Read Statement and the Banned Books Week information site.
The American Library Association affirms that all libraries are forums for information and ideas, and that the following basic policies should guide their services.
I. Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.
II. Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.
III. Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.
IV. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.
V. A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.
VI. Libraries which make exhibit spaces and meeting rooms available to the public they serve should make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use.
VII. All people, regardless of origin, age, background, or views, possess a right to privacy and confidentiality in their library use. Libraries should advocate for, educate about, and protect people’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.
Book Club
Book Club has had an amazing year! We have had lots of fun at our monthly meetings. We had a great field trip with LSH and LSW to Kauffman Stadium and Arcade Alley. And, we received a $750 student-led grant from the Lee’s Summit Educational Foundation to give away 120 books to Kindergarteners at two of our LSR7 elementary schools. Check out our Book Club page for how to join and more highlights.
Exemplary Library Recognition
The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education recently recognized the Lee's Summit North High School Library as an Exemplary Library Program. Lee's Summit North was one of only nine schools in the state to receive the distinction in 2023. The library had to meet 21 criteria to qualify for the recognition and submit an application with numerical, visual, and narrative evidence. You can read the report and more information concerning the program on DESE's website. Thank you to our administration, staff, and students who make the program what it is.
Trip to Japan
This July, 24 Lee's Summit students and four teachers, including Mr. Russell, Mr. Miller, and Ms. Russell, traveled to Japan for 10 amazing days. Mr. Russell organized the trip and recruited students from all three high schools. Students raised funds for more than five years, and though the trip was delayed for two years because of Covid, it was more than worth the wait. The people, the food, and the natural beauty of Japan offered an experience we will never forget. From the Sea of Japan to the heart of Otaku culture in Tokyo, we saw and experienced so much. Stay tuned to your library for future travel opportunities.
View more pictures and read about our trip on our Instagram account.
The Story of Betsy
Buckle Up Betsy was part of the Kansas City Cows on Parade in summer 2001. The artistic installation featured approximately 260 life-size cows artistically rendered and on display around Kansas City. Buckle Up Betsy was on display at Union Station near downtown Kansas City and was created by LSNHS art teacher Jeanette Parsons. All of the cows were auctioned off for charity in October 2001. Many were auctioned by Sotheby's at Starlight Theater on October 5, 2001; Betsy was part of an internet auction on Amazon starting the same day. Betsy was originally sponsored by three Lee's Summit area businesses: Carl Chinnery and Associates Law Office, Ray Adams Toyota, and Twin Lakes Insurance agent Mike Smith. The winner of the internet auction donated Buckle Up Betsy back to Lee's Summit North. For several years Betsy resided in the commons, but after threat of being turned into either a sophomore's new car or steak at lunch, Betsy moved to the safer pastures of the Library Media Center, where she gazes (or grazes) out on one of the best views in Lee's Summit.
MCPL and LSR7 Partnership
Beginning with the 2019-2020 school year, the LSR7 School District partnered with Mid-Continent Public Library so that every student has a Mid-Content Public Library card. Below is an email from Mid-Continent explaining the details and a bit about some of the many awesome resources students can access via MCPL.
The short version though is this,
Students' MCPL Library Card = LS1234567 (Capital LS+Lunch Number)
MCPL PIN = MMDDYYYY (Eight digit birthday)
During this critical time when you and your students and their caregivers need help the most, Mid-Continent Public Library provides access to a wide range of online resources that can help with schoolwork at home. As you contact your students, please remind them that they can use the Library virtually with their Student Access Passes (Library card).
You can help your students begin using their Access Passes today!
The Lee's Summit School District has chosen a special format for Student Access Pass numbers, which gives access to Mid-Continent Public Library’s online resources:
“LS” + student ID number (i.e., LS1234567)
By using their Student Access Pass numbers, your students can use the following from home:
Online Resources: MCPL has more than 200 online resources that can be used for research, school projects, online learning, and more. One such resource is Live Homework Help from Tutor.com, which is available in English and Spanish and connects students with a live tutor who can assist them in a variety of subjects. When accessing any online resource on mymcpl.org, type in the student’s Access Pass number using the format above.
Digital Content: The Library provides a wealth of materials that can be downloaded or streamed, including eBooks, eAudiobooks, and eMovies from OverDrive; eMagazines from RBdigital and Flipster; eNewspapers from PressReader; and eMusic from Freegal Music and other free resources. Access these and others at mymcpl.org/GoDigital.
We look forward to seeing you at one of our branches in the near future.
*All students are eligible for a student ID-based account unless their parents opted out during this year’s school registration.
Libraries and eBooks
With our physical libraries closed until next school year, our digital eBook collections have become more valuable than ever during distance learning. By far our most popular eBook library is Sora / Overdrive, home to thousands of new young adult novels you can read or listen to for free.
We are about to enter our tenth year offering eBooks and audio books through Overdrive in our LSR7 high schools and middle schools. Between August 2011 and the time I’m typing this (11 AM on May 11, 2020) our students and staff have checked out 86,612 eBooks and audio books, and they have placed 25,530 holds. We’ve seen 11,180 unique users in that time. What we never anticipated was that there would come a time when our eBook library would become the library.
In this post, I want to take a moment and offer a glimpse behind the curtain of our eBooks platform about the business of eBooks. As a library, our relationship with eBooks is different than with print books. With print books the process is fairly straightforward: the library buys a book and we own it. We check that book to our patrons until it becomes unusable, which might be decades after we buy it. For the most part, if you personally buy an eBook or audio book, you most likely own rights to that digital file until you delete it from your device.
The eBook world is very different for libraries. Regular users will notice that we have some books only for a little while, while others have been around since the beginning and are part of a permanent collection. It all boils down to licensing, and how the publishers decide to allow us access to those licenses. Not all publishers do things the same way, and some have different policies for public libraries vs. school libraries. Most of the major publishers have changed their policies on eBooks over time -- some of them multiple times.
Think of our eBook library like Netflix. You’ve probably noticed that the Netflix lineup changes week to week and month to month. Our eBook library changes too, sometimes day by day, as titles that we licensed for one to three years expire and we add new titles that have just been published. We license some books for a total of 26 checkouts. Some we get to keep in our permanent collection. It all comes down to what a particular publisher’s policies are when we want to license a title. You might notice that sometimes we have titles that Mid-Continent doesn’t have, and vice-versa. It is frustrating when the public library has an audio book on their Overdrive but we can’t license it on our Overdrive for school. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen due to publisher choices regarding licensing.
Some publishers only license their eBooks or audio books for twelve months, sometimes for as much as $50 for a single year. Unless a title is on a current award list (such as Gateway or Truman), we don’t license a book under those terms. That’s another instance where Mid-Continent might have a title where we don’t. This is just my opinion (Mr. Russell here, by the way), but I don’t think that’s a good use of taxpayer money. The return on investment for us simply isn’t worth that amount of money because there’s a chance that title might only get used two or three times -- meaning a cost of $17 to $25 per checkout. (MCPL, on the other hand, has an exponentially larger patron base where a single license for $50 a year might get enough checkouts to be worthwhile).
More than that, I believe in that old saying of voting with your dollars. We license thousands of dollars in eBooks a year -- and nearly all of that goes to ‘vote’ for titles with 26 checkouts or that go into our permanent collection. In a way, it's a bit like providing feedback to publishers in terms of sales. Often, if I decide not to license an eBook due to publishers insisting on a one-year term, I will add an extra copy or two in print that we can keep as long as we want. While we might lose access to a handful of good titles in eBook format, there are plenty of great young adult novels from publishers willing to license books at a reasonable fee and with reasonable terms to school libraries. I am happy to support those publishers with our library funds.
One other note to mention about eBooks: there is a slight change coming to Overdrive in the next few months. Overdrive is the app and platform we’ve used for new fiction titles since we started offering eBooks almost a decade ago. However, the company behind Overdrive is retiring that app this fall in favor of the newer app, Sora, which has been out for about a year. Logins, passwords, and access to all our eBooks remains the same on both platforms. Sora allows you to win badges for different things, which some users will find entertaining. Starting in late July or August, our LSN LMC Web Page will link directly to Sora instead of Overdrive.
As always, if you have questions or suggestions about our eBook collections, please contact us!
