Collection Development Policies
Academic Departments/Colleges | Other CollectionsGeneral Policy
IntroductionThough Colorado State University was founded in 1870 the Libraries' collections only began developing in 1880 and for many decades growth was slow. Only in about 1960 did the library acquire its 200,000th volume. Increased funding saw the collections quadruple in size during the decade of the 1960s with increased attention to the acquisition of materials in the humanities and social sciences as well as the sciences. Acquisition of end-user electronic resources began in 1985 with the lease of the first CD-ROM product while installation of a web-based online catalog in 1997 facilitated access to ever expanding electronic resources. For more details on the history of the library see: Library History and Buildings.
The major part of the collections, including Archives and Special Collections, is housed in the William E. Morgan Library with a new addition and renovation dedicated in 1998. In addition, there are two branch libraries, Atmospheric Sciences at the Foothills Campus and the Veterinary Medical Center Library. The Libraries maintains a storage facility, the Lake Street Depository with a central campus location.
Intellectual Freedom and the Library Bill of Rights
Collection development and management in the Libraries are guided by the American Library Association's Library Bill of Rights and the Association of College and Research Libraries' Intellectual Freedom Principles for Academic Libraries.
Collection Development and Management Program
The goal of the collection development and management program is to satisfy the University community's needs for information resources in any form that supports its primary missions of teaching, research, extension, and service. A further goal, appropriate to the land grant mission of the University, is to serve as an information resource to the local and state community by encouraging and supporting access to our collections.
The Collection Management unit has direct responsibility for management of the liaison program with the academic departments, selection of materials for the collections, and assessment and evaluation of the collections. A description of the unit along with lists of subject librarians and academic department liaisons to the Libraries is available at: Collection Management.
Materials Budget
The materials budget is set through the University's annual budget process for Education and General (E&G) funds. In addition to the purchase of monographs and serials, the following activities are funded from the materials side of the Libraries' budget: bindery, preservation, consortia memberships, document delivery, and networking.
The major factors that affect the materials budget allocation process are: programmatic needs; publishing output; and information such as prices, inflation rates, use statistics, number of faculty, and number of graduate and undergraduate majors. There are many other factors that may influence budget allocation including: recently developed or discontinued programs and courses, new faculty and new directions in faculty research, major shifts in enrollment patterns, serials to monographs ratio, and resource-sharing opportunities.
Cooperative Networks
The Libraries is committed to working cooperatively to support the acquisition of and/or access to resources through our state, regional, and national library consortia. Through various partnerships and memberships we participate in cooperative purchases, collection access and sharing, and pursue scholarly communication and publishing efforts. Major affiliations are the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries, Greater Western Library Alliance, Association of Research Libraries, Bibliographical Center for Research, and Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition.
Collection Assessment and Evaluation
Subject librarians are responsible for reviewing collections within their assigned areas in order to determine the extent to which the acquisition and/or access to books, journals, and electronic data in a given subject area satisfies the needs of users and fulfills the Libraries' stated mission. Standard methodologies are used and documented in order to provide information for current decisions as well as to establish a foundation for future planning.
The American Library Association's Guide to the Evaluation of Library Collections (1989) while dated is still useful as a guide to the essential elements and methodology of the collection evaluation process. Its Collection Evaluation Techniques : A Short, Selective, Practical, Current, Annotated Bibliography, 1990-1998 (1999) is an extensive bibliography giving references to sources for further specifics on particular approaches, such as circulation or shelf availability studies, and sampling and statistical methods.
In addition to assessing the utility of the existing collections, subject librarians also make decisions affecting its ongoing management. Review of the physical collections may result in identifying candidates for preservation treatment, replacement, transfer to storage, or deselection. Review of the electronic collections may result in deselection or transfer to an alternate format. In any large deselection project, whether physical or electronic, such as a serials cancellation, subject librarians always involve faculty of the affected departments and programs.
Subject Collection Development Policies
Policies for academic departments and specific collections such as Government Documents and Newspapers are prepared by subject librarians and available at: Collection Development Policies. They describe purpose, scope of coverage, types of materials collected, other resources available, and contact information for specific departments and programs.
Selection of Specific Types of Materials
Electronic Resources
The Libraries serve as a gateway to electronic resources available from a wide range of information providers in the emerging national information structure. "Electronic resources" is to be construed broadly. Typical examples include bibliographic databases, full-text electronic journals, statistical resources, multimedia programs, full text resources, e-books, web links, geographical data, and online reference sources.
Electronic resources considered for acquisition or access, whether fee-based or free, should follow collecting guidelines as detailed in the individual collection development policy statements, be available in formats for which the Libraries owns or is willing to acquire the appropriate hardware and software, and be broadly accessible under current copyright and licensing laws.
Serials
Serials acquired only through subscriptions include not only journals, periodicals, newspapers, bulletins, annuals, and such, but also indexes, databases, and other resources that are regularly updated. Serials may be issued in a variety of formats such as print, microform, and a variety of digital formats. Whenever feasible, the Libraries is moving towards switching from print to digital access.
Serials represent a continuing commitment to the base cost of the title, including maintenance, equipment, and storage space; furthermore, serials inflation may be as much as 10% annually so selection decisions must be made with great care. When funds are available for new subscriptions, subject librarians meet to prioritize requests from the academic departments as well as to consider other items that will support new programs and areas of research, interdisciplinary areas, undergraduate and graduate student needs, and reference needs.
Textbooks and Laboratory Manuals
Textbooks and laboratory manuals required for courses are not purchased by the Libraries. Funds are limited, and the purchase of textbooks may preclude the purchase of other important library materials. Exceptions may be made for textbooks that provide the only or best coverage of a subject, or when the work itself is of a seminal, historical, or other significant nature.
Genealogical Materials
The Libraries does not collect materials of a strictly genealogical nature, nor does it have a separate section devoted to genealogical research since they do not support the curriculum.
Audio-visual Materials
Neither audio recordings of music or spoken word (such as phonograph records, cassettes, reel-to-reel tapes, and compact discs) nor visual programs (such as slides, slide/tape sets, filmstrips, sound/filmstrip sets, videocassettes, and DVDs) are normally purchased for the collection. However, if a purchased book has an accompanying cassette, CD, or DVD it may be added to the collection.
Multiple Copies and Formats
Multiple copies are not normally purchased. However, additional copies may be added to the collection when titles have demonstrated or expected user demand. If the purchase cost of a title includes multiple formats, the subject librarian may choose the format to be added to the collection or keep all the formats if there are compelling reasons to do so.