KLU Policies 

Mission

The Kentucky Libraries Unbound consortium is a library partnership designed to offer a wide variety of digital resources to our communities in order to enrich lives and inspire lifelong learning.

Structure of the Consortium

The Kentucky Libraries Unbound (KLU) consortium is a group of libraries in the state of Kentucky that have joined together to provide their patrons with downloadable eBooks, audiobooks, video and music. Combining their resources allows the group to provide a larger and broader collection to their patrons than each library could achieve individually. Every member library will be considered a single, equal voice in any vote or discussion concerning the service, regardless of library size, service population size, fiscal contribution to the collection or other factors.

The Consortium Coordinator will serve as the facilitator for discussion and decision making, and as the conduit for communication to and from OverDrive, Inc., the company contracted to provide the Kentucky Libraries Unbound service software, support and materials.

Policy Changes and Operational Decisions

With the advantages of pooling resources for a larger, more complete collection, comes the limitation that no library may act unilaterally regarding the consortium or the shared collection. 

Decisions affecting the consortium are made by vote of the member libraries.

Any decision to alter current policy shall be made by vote of the member libraries, with a two thirds majority among the respondents required to enact a change. Each member library shall have one equal vote voiced through their designated consortium contact. It is the responsibility of the member library to ensure that the Consortium Coordinator has a current email address for the appropriate contact person. It is the responsibility of the individual library contact to ensure that they are acting in agreement with the administration of their individual library.

Operational decisions, such as the addition or deletion of subscriptions or titles within a subscription, or changes in borrowing periods or limits, will be made in the same fashion, but require a simple majority vote for approval.

Any issue brought to the attention of the Consortium Coordinator will be forwarded by the Coordinator to all the designated contacts at the KLU member libraries via email. Each designated contact will be requested to respond within one week. Any member library needing additional time to formulate a decision must inform the Coordinator within that week, and in no case will a decision be suspended for more than thirty days, or three days prior to any deadline imposed by OverDrive, Inc. involving the issue at hand.

The collected received responses at the end of the specified period shall constitute a quorum, and any member library from which a response is not received will be considered in abstention.

Usage Policies

Patron accounts and blocking access to KLU

Member libraries have the ability to set criteria with OverDrive, Inc. under which patron access to the service may be blocked for their individual patrons. Many libraries do this to conform to the blocks they place on physical item checkouts in response to overdue items, outstanding fines, etc. This is a decision of each member library, and may not necessarily reflect the practice at another library in the consortium.

Patron Holds

All holds queues in the shared collection represent patron holds from many member libraries. In the interests of fairness, member libraries should refrain from contacting OverDrive to have patron holds moved to the top of the holds queue except in situations where a technical issue with the service, as verified by OverDrive, has caused either a shortened time in which to retrieve the hold, or an inability to check out or download the hold. Holds should not be advanced to the top of the list due to patron error in managing or retrieving their holds, or to satisfy an unsubstantiated complaint. Doing so unfairly increases the wait time for patrons of other library systems, which only causes more issues and complaints, and exacerbates the problem.

Juvenile Borrowers

The technology that powers Kentucky Libraries Unbound cannot differentiate between Adult and Juvenile library cards. As always, it is the responsibility of the concerned parent or guardian to monitor the borrowing habits of any minors they care for. The consortium cannot operate in loco parentis. It also will not, and technologically cannot, entertain requests to limit any materials to Adult borrowers only.

Collection Development

The Shared Collection

Each member library has its own budget to purchase materials for the shared collection. With the exception of Always Available subscriptions, each library system makes selection and purchasing decisions independent of every other library system in the consortium. Some systems choose to have their expenditures handled by the Consortium Coordinator, with the understanding that the Coordinator is acting on behalf of that library, and any purchases so made are in the name of, and the responsibility of, that library. Individual library systems cannot be held responsible for the purchasing decisions of another library system. Once purchased for the shared collection, titles are considered the property of the consortium. As such, they cannot, for example, be deselected by an individual library system.

It is expected that member libraries will exhibit the same care and professionalism in selecting digital materials for the shared collection that they do in purchasing physical materials for their individual collections, and follow their respective written collection development polices as applicable.

Always Available Subscriptions

Always Available subscriptions are collections of titles the consortium may purchase. The subscriptions operate under an unlimited, simultaneous access license for a specified period of time. Discussion of any changes to subscriptions will take place via the email list prior to the renewal dates. Each member library system will then be accorded one vote, and purchases made according to a simple majority. Each member system pays an equal share of the purchase, regardless of their individual vote for or against the purchase.

Pledge Model Funding

As Overdrive adds new services and subscriptions that exceed what can be supported by the mandatory content credit that is part of membership dues in KLU, the consortium coordinator can launch a vote for adoption that will use a pledge model of funding.  This would allow members who want the service added to pledge additional funds to purchase the new product as a group at the consortium level and price instead of individually through their advantage collections.

Advantage Collections

The Advantage program allows individual library systems to purchase separate collections of titles that are limited to use by their own patrons, and are not shared with the consortium. 

Unlike the shared collection, materials within an Advantage Collection are the sole responsibility of the individual purchasing library. Selection and purchasing decisions are made in accordance with each library's internal collection development policies, as are any decisions regarding review and deselection. Advantage titles are considered the property of the individual purchasing library, and may be treated as such, within any confines imposed by OverDrive, Inc., or the respective copyright holders.

Community Reserve Titles

Community Reserve is the OverDrive, Inc. nomenclature for locally produced or obtained content that has been added to the system by an individual member library. Any library adding local content to the collection is solely responsible for determining the copyright status of such material, and obtaining any necessary permissions prior to addition. The consortium will not be held responsible for copyright infringements through the use of the Community Reserve feature. Should the Consortium Coordinator receive a copyright complaint regarding Community Reserve content, the complaint will be forwarded immediately to the member library that added the material. The material will be suppressed from public view in the system, pending resolution of the complaint.

Challenges and Selection Review

Title previews on the KLU website

The KLU website offers samples and previews of many of the titles available for download, in various formats. There is the possibility that these samples and previews may contain adult language or images. The content of these samples and previews is determined between the content provider (publisher) and OverDrive, Inc. They are provided by OverDrive, Inc. as an integral part of the service. The consortium, and individual member libraries, cannot control or block, and are not responsible for any content in a sample or preview which a patron may find objectionable. Concerns may be forwarded to OverDrive, Inc., but no expectation of action or response should be implied on their behalf.

Challenges to materials purchased for the Shared Collection

Patrons concerned about specific titles in the shared collection may discuss those concerns with their home library system. Due to the nature of a shared collection however, no member library may remove a title from the collection, as doing so would necessarily affect patrons and holdings outside the purview of that single library. Technologically, it is not possible to block a title for an individual member library. Only the disposition of items held in an Advantage collection owned by that library may be determined by an individual library.

Should a patron file a formal challenge through the challenge process in place at their member library, and their concerns cannot be allayed at the local level, the challenge may be forwarded to the consortium via the Consortium Coordinator. Any such challenge will then be distributed to the consortium via the KLU member site (https://sites.google.com/bcpl.org/klu/home) and listserv. The challenge will be considered by the consortium as a whole, with one month allowed for discussion and voting. A two-thirds majority among the respondents shall be required to remove a challenged book from the collection. Challenges will be processed one at a time, in the order that they were received by the coordinator.

The decision regarding a challenged title will be forwarded to the member library where the challenge originated by the consortium coordinator, on behalf of the consortium. In the event that a title is deemed unsuitable for the collection, the Consortium Coordinator will also make the necessary arrangement with OverDrive regarding the removal of the title.

The consortium will only formally initiate the reconsideration process for a specific title once in any three-year period. Additional requests for reconsideration of a previously challenged title within that period will only be processed if specific new information or insight is provided by the new request which would, in the consortium’s opinion, prompt further action. 

Challenges to materials purchased for an Advantage Collection

Materials in an Advantage collection are the sole responsibility of the purchasing library, who may address any patron challenges as they see fit.

Deselection

In general, a digital collection does not succumb to the deterioration and storage issues of a physical collection, so fiction titles will not normally be weeded. Nonfiction titles may be weeded, primarily to remove obsolete or inaccurate information that may prove a detriment to users throughout the consortium. The CREW Method is a standard deselection model used in American libraries, and provides criteria for determining the obsolescence of materials. These criteria will be the guideline for determining the obsolescence of titles in the shared collection.

The deselection procedure for shared nonfiction materials will be as follows: any title which becomes a concern for a member library, due to age or inaccuracy, will be brought to the attention of the Consortium Coordinator. These titles will be collected, and distributed to the designated KLU contacts at each library via email in a periodic list. Titles agreed to be inaccurate or obsolete by a simple majority of those responding within a one week period, will be removed or suppressed by the Coordinator in arrangement with OverDrive, Inc.