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Library Policies

Our policies and procedures are designed to meet State of North Dakota statutes and best practice recommentations from the North Dakota State Library and the American Library Association (ALA).  They are also instrumental in helping the library meet or surpass the guidelines in Library Vision 2020 set forth by the North Dakota Library Coordinating Council.

All policies must be reviewed by the library board every three years.

Strategic plan

The library is required to submit a 3-5 year strategic plan to the North Dakota State Library.  The strategic plan is designed to communicate the vision and direction of the library between the board, the staff, and stakeholders (the people of Barnes County).  It is a guide to inform our decision making for the next few years and create continuity as the composition of the board and staff changes during that period.

Part of our strategic planning is focused on meeting all the Standards for Public Libraries adopted by the North Dakota Library Coordinating Council, May 2019. 

State standards for public libraries

  • State Standards for Public Libraries are broken into a three tier system with multiple goals at each level.
    The most basic, Developing, has 25 goals which the library met before the standards were adopted in May 2019.
    The next level, Excelling, has 23 goals which the library met before the end of 2019. The library met the Excelling standard again in 2020. We were only one of four libraries in the state to meet the Excelling standard in 2020.
    The top level, Future-focused also has 23 goals. VCBC library has met 17 of the goals. We are working on completing the missing goals, items F9, F13, F14, F15, and F18, by the end of 2022.
    Click the How are we doing? link above for all the details.

  • The link above takes you to the ND State Library's website.

Library Resources