Director Brian Raitz
Public Libraries are Wild and Wonderful
Reflections on Challenging Material

Above is the op-ed from News and Sentinel, October 15/16th Weekend Edition

Books We as a Community Love and Hate

Unfortunately, we are only able to list books in our catalog. This list will be updated each Friday. Add your choices! The reasons will be shared in their entirety as printouts in the library along with the materials soon. The list will be updated each week on Friday.

List of Banned or Challenged Books

These are books that have been banned or challenged in previous years at libraries across the US.

Parkersburg and Wood County Public Library Collection Development Policy

The Materials Selection Policy of the Parkersburg and Wood County Public Library has been compiled with the intent of clarifying for the librarians and the public the criteria used in the selection, acquisition, evaluation and weeding of library materials.

You can read the entire Collection Development Policy here. – Challenge Form 

American Library Association Guide to Intellectual Freedom

Intellectual freedom is the right of every individual to both seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction. It provides for free access to all expressions of ideas through which any and all sides of a question, cause or movement may be explored.

You can read the American Library Association’s Freedom to Read statement here and the Library Bill of Rights here.

Selection Form for “Books We Love and Hate” Lists

Parkersburg and Wood County Public Library is compiling lists of “Book We Love” and “Books We Hate” to share with our patrons and Library visitors. We will try to update the lists at the end of each week. If you want, you can select items from those on the Banned Books list above.

Your reasons won’t be listed, but you can put a review on Goodreads (links in our catalog), or LibraryThing (reviews accessible in our catalog). You can look in our catalog for the information requested below.

To complete the form, fill in the fields below. If you didn’t finish, please put in note field.