ALA's Office of Intellectual Freedom Statement Regarding Midwest Tape/Hoopla Age and Content Ratings System

[NELA Member At Large 1]

Hi, all,

Many of you may have already heard about Midwest Tape/Hoopa's Age and Content Rating System. Here is a statement about it that was issued by ALA's Office of Intellectual Freedom:

Statement: www.oif.ala.org/...
The Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) is aware that Midwest Tape / Hoopla plans to offer an audience or content filtering system to librarians and library workers. The system will allow librarians and library workers to filter the platform's content based on whether Midwest Tape / Hoopla believes the materials contain content some consider questionable or controversial for certain audiences. OIF has reached out to Midwest Tape / Hoopla to discuss our concerns about the proposal.   
Midwest Tape characterizes the system as an additional audience filter that will appear on MidwestTape.com. Midwest Tape representatives told OIF that the system was developed in response to librarians and library workers' requests for a new tool to help them comply with state legislation regulating libraries' content purchasing decisions. It will give library workers options to filter materials by audience, age range, and grade level. Midwest Tape compared its system to Lexile codes and other reading level suggestions and explained that Midwest Tape / Hoopla employees will decide which books will be assigned to the audience categories.  
While we appreciate that Midwest Tape has clarified that the Universal Content Ratings System is not intended to apply additional public-facing ratings to library materials and will not be public or available to library users, we have ongoing concerns about utilizing ratings and categories that resemble morality-based labels and filtering systems. Libraries provide a wealth of information and viewpoints, and they protect library users' intellectual freedom by not endorsing or stigmatizing the content or views in their collections.  
Applying prejudicial or stigmatizing ratings or labels on library materials challenges intellectual freedom principles and violates the Library Bill of Rights. Such filtering systems may even be unconstitutional. When a public library restricts or bars access to a book, film, video game, or other material based on its content or viewpoint, it may be deemed to be a content-based restriction on speech in violation of the library user's First Amendment rights, regardless of age. 
The American Library Association upholds the right of individuals to form their own opinions about resources they choose to read, listen to, or view and believes that there are better ways to respond to individuals' concerns about materials than by applying filters and ratings to library resources. Best practices in collection development do not require libraries to utilize or apply ratings systems or to limit access based on an intended reader's age. Instead, they rely on librarians' professional judgment concerning the individual needs of the users served by the library.  
To learn more about how rating and labeling systems hamper intellectual freedom and what libraries can do to protect intellectual freedom, visit the ALA's informational page on Ratings Systems and the Library Bill of Rights and the Labeling and Ratings Systems Q&A.  

Thanks,
Aaron

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Aaron J. Coutu-Jones, MLIS (he/him)
Member-at-Large