Collection Development Policy

Leslie J. Savage Library Collection Development Policy

Mission, Goals, Guidelines, and Priorities

Mission

Leslie J. Savage Library selects and maintains a collection of library materials related tot he instructional, research, intellectual, and artistic interests of undergraduate students,faculty, and staff. Library materials represent appropriate formats carefully selected, acquired, and cataloged, whether physically housed on campus or electronically accessible elsewhere.

Goals

The library collection must:

• Provide materials necessary to support teaching and learning as outlined in the curricular program and mission of the College,
• Provide foundational materials necessary to support the research required of undergraduate students, faculty, and staff,
• Provide materials that are necessary for liberally educated students, scholars, and thinkers, and that foster an informed society, and
• Collect and provide published and unpublished materials that reflect the College’s history and that support research in history, prehistory, cultural, and natural resources of the western region of the United States.

Guidelines and Priorities for Collection Development and Maintenance

To strive for consistency over time in making decisions about the collection, the library has developed guidelines on selection of new materials, spending priorities, disposition of gifts, and periodic collection review to weed outdated materials and redirect resources to meet changing needs.

Selection of new materials added to the collection is a cooperative effort. Building the collection is the responsibility of the entire College community. All faculty, staff, and students are encouraged to request materials they feel will be of value to the collection, with faculty having a significant role in selecting materials necessary to support the curriculum. In particular, new tenure track faculty are encouraged to evaluate their needs in order to enhance our collection. The library has a special responsibility for selecting interdisciplinary materials and other materials necessary to maintain a well-rounded collection focused on the undergraduate curriculum.

Generally, the library does not purchase textbooks. Books that are used as class texts and meet the criteria described in “Spending Priorities” below may be acquired.

The library maintains overall responsibility for shaping the collection and has final authority in all collection decisions.

In addition to requests, the library reviews the following sources in building the collection:

• Faculty assignments,
• Interlibrary loan requests,
• Bibliographies in textbooks
• Collection development tools and reviewing sources,
• Publications of academic organizations, and
• Lists of award-winning books, videos, and other materials.

Spending priorities serve as guidelines for library staff. The priorities are designed to accommodate fluctuating resources and changing directions of the curriculum. In addition to guiding decisions for spending, priorities also serve a communication function by informing faculty, staff, students, and others about the method and reasoning of adding materials to the collection.

The library has identified four priorities for purchasing learning materials.

General Education. The library spends learning materials funds in order to support the general education of its community. General education is a process of self-directed learning in a broad range of subject areas. The library will support this process by purchasing books, audio-visual titles, and periodicals recommended by students, faculty, and staff.

Research Tools. The library spends learning materials funds in order to support the daily research needs of the college students, faculty, and staff. Daily research activity requires expenditures for standard reference sources, monograph series, “basic” periodical title subscriptions, and multi-disciplinary databases.

Undergraduate Curriculum. The library spends learning materials funds in order to support the major and minor programs of the undergraduate curriculum. Materials purchased for the curriculum include books, monographic series, periodicals, audiovisual titles, and electronic databases. Members of the faculty and academic departments are the primary selectors of materials for the curriculum priority.

Regional, State, and Local Subjects. The library spends learning materials funds for resources that are relevant to the life and times of the western region of the United States, the state of Colorado, and the greater Gunnison area. All types of print and non-print sources are purchased to support the priority.

These priorities serve as guidelines for allocating funds.

 Local Authors

The library selectively purchases books and other materials written or created by local authors. Local authors are defined as full or part time Gunnison County residents and Western faculty, staff, and students. Purchased works by local authors should fit with one of the library’s four spending priorities.

 Visiting Authors

If the library anticipates a sustained interest in the author or his/her works, the library purchases works by visiting authors who provide lectures or talks to the campus community. Purchased works by visiting authors should fit with one of the library’s four spending priorities.

 Federal and State Government Publications

The library collects federal government publications through participation in the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP). As more government information shifts from paper to electronic formats, the library provides access to this information through the catalog and website. The library collects or provides access to the Federal Depository Basic Collection. The library’s collection of government publications focuses on geology and science-related information, educational resources, and health materials from FDLP. Additional selections of materials not currently included can be requested once a year from the FDLP program and are reviewed according to the spending priorities previously described. The library also collects Colorado State Government information from the Colorado State Library.

 Disposition of Gifts

The library welcomes the donation of gifts as a way to enrich the library’s collection and to support the scholarly, artistic, and informational interests of the campus community. Current selection and college copyright policies apply to gifts received. The library also recognizes the investment of time by librarians and staff in cataloging and processing resources and the other expenses involved with the addition of any item to the collection. Judicious decisions about adding gifts must be made in accordance with existing collection development and college copyright policies.

The library reserves the right to make all final decisions on what is added to the collection given the needs of the students, faculty, and staff and capacities of the library.

 Weeding Policy

Most materials are purchased with consideration of their long-term value to the collection. The value of a work, however, changes overtime. While many materials retain their value when considered against the whole of a subject or area of knowledge, the content of some materials will age and need to be replaced with materials that reflect advances in a subject area. As the college’s curriculum evolves, the need to maintain materials in some subject areas may be reduced or disappear. This may require discarding materials that are no longer of use or interest to the campus community.

Whenever possible, weeding will be accomplished as a collaborative effort between the library staff and the appropriate department faculty.

Materials, which may be weeded, are:

• Materials not supporting the current curriculum of the college or the goals as stated in the Collection Development Policy,
• Superseded editions not containing unique information or data,
• Materials containing out of date information or data and not relevant to the historical study of the subject matter, and
• Items in poor condition beyond reasonable preservation efforts.

In addition to the above, the following criteria may apply to periodical titles in print.

Back issues, which may be weeded, are:

• Issues with articles represented in other formats (microfiche, full-text in electronic databases, or other online versions), and
• Issues for titles generally not purchased for research value but for general interests of the campus community.

An entire title may be weeded if significant missing issues diminish the research value of the title.

Withdrawn materials are discarded in compliance with State of Colorado regulations.

 Collection Development Committee

This policy and spending priorities serve as guidelines for allocating funds and building the collection of library materials. Because the curriculum is dynamic and needs and priorities change, the library has established a Collection Development Committee that:

• determines spending priorities for library materials that will best serve the needs of the College community and ensure the optimal expenditure of collection funding,
• reviews faculty, staff, and student requests in consideration of the priorities and available funds,
• solicits faculty advisement on collection needs and encourages faculty involvement in development of the collection, and
• serves as a discussion group for collection development issues.

The committee consists of the library director, acquisitions technician, and librarians.