Welcome to LibGuides@Southampton: Collections

University of Southampton Library endorses Research Libraries UK's statement on the role of libraries in intellectual freedom: 

RLUK reiterates its endorsement of the IFLA Statement on Libraries and Intellectual Freedom. In particular, we note that:

• Libraries have a responsibility both to guarantee and to facilitate access to expressions of knowledge and intellectual activity. To this end, libraries shall acquire, preserve and make available the widest variety of materials, reflecting the plurality and diversity of society.
• Libraries shall ensure that the selection and availability of library materials and services is governed by professional considerations and not by political, moral and religious views.
• Libraries shall acquire, organize and disseminate information freely and oppose any form of censorship.

As libraries have a responsibility to carry the widest variety of materials it should be clear that the inclusion of a work in a library’s collection, on its shelves, or in its catalogues is not to be taken as in any way an endorsement of the views expressed within the work or a mark of approval of the work’s author(s).

RLUK also takes this opportunity to endorse the statement from CILIP: Intellectual Freedom, Access to Information and Censorship