Collection Development Policy

Last revised: April 2024
Created: February 2023

PURPOSE STATEMENT

This policy establishes standards and criteria for acquisition, maintenance, retention, and deselection of materials, whether by purchase or gift, and provides a basis for consistent collection development from all library staff and the Wittenberg community of users engaged in that work. It is informed and framed by the University and Library mission, vision, diversity, and other statements and principles, and reflects the goals and values of the University.

This serves as a planning document to direct future collection development and provides a way to measure progress in the collection development and management program. It also provides a method for communicating the Library’s collection philosophy and principles to the University community and other users and institutions.

This policy will be revised periodically to reflect the changing academic needs and priorities. The librarians will review this policy annually or as needed.

COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT PRACTICES

Responsibility

Thomas Library believes that collection management is a joint effort of library selectors and teaching faculty. We encourage faculty members to recommend the acquisition of specific titles; the successful management of the collection depends on faculty involvement. However, final responsibility for selection and deselection decisions rests with the library.

Priority

Acquisition priority is given to those items that directly support the University’s current and near-future curriculum and research areas. All acquisitions must meet the criteria set forth in this policy.

Collection Standards and Intellectual Freedom

The library's primary collection focus is on materials that support the current and near-future curricular and research needs of our students.

Thomas Library adheres to the American Library Association (ALA) Library Bill of Rights, which guides our behavior, frames our belief system, and establishes the basic principles that govern our service work.

The library will not censor access to resources, material, or content, nor protect users from offensive or suggestive materials or information. Material included in the library’s collection represent a variety of viewpoints, perspectives, voices, and experiences. No material should be excluded from the collection based on race, creed, gender, disability, sexual orientation, political views, or ethnicity.

Selection Criteria

Selectors generally consider the following factors. Some selectors may have additional or more specific criteria.

Relevance of the subject matter to the curriculum
Expected use of the work by students and faculty
Quality of scholarship or literary merit as determined by bibliographic aids and review sources
Accuracy of information and data
Diversity of perspectives
Timeliness or permanence of the material
Reputation of the author or publisher
Quality of the physical products
Usability of online products
Availability of other library materials on the subject
Inclusion of the work in important bibliographies and indexes
Costs
Open Access availability
Format and its effect on accessibility of the information

Selection Tools

Include but are not limited to:

Faculty requests
Online selection tools, including those provided by library vendors
Reviews in scholarly journals, Choice, Booklist, and other sources
Publishers’ catalogs and websites
Indexes, bibliographies and series lists
Interlibrary loan requests
Email lists and postings

Content Formats

Content will be obtained in a variety of formats, including print and electronic.

Hardcover is the preferred format for books in most cases; exceptions include for the juvenile collection and for novels and works of fiction. In cases where hardcover costs are substantially higher than softcover, the library may opt to purchase softcover and have it bound.
eBooks are preferred for monograph works in a variety of subjects and fields; the library holds licenses to ProQuest eBrary and EBSCO eBooks.
Audiovisual material physical formats will be limited to the most modern and widely-accessible formats.
The library does not add consumables (coloring books, workbooks, etc.) outside of those items that come included as part of educational kits or board games.
Materials that come with multiple pieces (such as kits) will be reviewed carefully.
Education kits may be acquired assuming licensing terms allow academic library usage and budgetary constraints support the purchase.
Requests for digital content requiring passwords for user access or platforms / software not traditionally considered part of a library collection (for instance, lesson-plan software gaming subscriptions) will be carefully reviewed by the appropriate librarian liaisons and the Head of Technical Services; such requests may be refused.

Where feasible, Thomas Library seeks to obtain electronic access to material. Electronic resources are an integral component of information resources for Thomas Library. Consortial agreements with OPAL and OhioLINK expand the resources available to the Wittenberg community and must be considered in developing the local collection. Criteria for considering electronic access are as follows:

Cost to obtain electronically
Online functionality, including access issues and concerns
Circulation and usage statistics
Reputation
Whether the item is obtainable through other currently-held online sources or collections
Specific course/faculty needs with clear justification

Final decisions regarding electronic media purchases rest with the Head of Technical Services and the appropriate library liaison. The library director will be consulted as needed. Feedback from faculty is sought and welcomed.

Additional Selection Guidelines

The following guidelines apply to materials in the general circulating collection:

Multiple Copies: Thomas Library does not generally purchase multiple copies of monographs though may consider duplication for works with circulation records and patron requests that indicate an exceptionally heavy demand.
Replacements: Missing or lost materials are not automatically replaced. Thomas Library evaluates potential replacements using the same criteria as regularly purchased items, as well as the following: publication date, cost, circulation history, editions available, availability through consortial agreement or Interlibrary Loan, and remaining books/items relevant to that subject. The library may select an alternative as the replacement.
Reprints: Thomas Library selectively collects reprints of monographs and journals based upon the availability and comparative quality and price of the original or microform edition, or the existence of additional material in the reprint edition.

ACQUISITION AND PURCHASING

Areas of Focus

General Collection

The Thomas Library general collection should encompass all Library of Congress classification codes as reflected in our curriculum. Depth of collection within each Library of Congress classification code is determined by liaison librarians as appropriate to support curricular emphasis, research topics, and overall breadth of each associated academic program. Since curricular and research needs drive our collection development, these decisions are made on a situational basis by each liaison librarian with support from their respective liaison department faculty.

Content levels appropriate for consideration include general, professional, basic academic, or advanced academic depending upon the program being supported.

Curriculum Resource Center

The Curriculum Resource Center (CRC) is a section of the library devoted to supporting Wittenberg's Education majors and others working with pre-K-12 students. It includes books, kits, games, manipulatives, and other resources useful for teaching in elementary and secondary settings.

>Textbook Collection

To support affordable learning initiatives on campus, the library maintains a textbook collection, focusing specifically on material for high-cost and high-enrolled classes and classes with multiple sections. This collection is comprised of donations and faculty suggestions reallocated from their general collection requests.

Archives and Special Collections

Special Collections and Archives has a separate collection development policy due to the unique nature of those collections.

Consortia

The Library is an active member of both the OPAL and OhioLINK consortia. Consortia standards and requirements will take precedence over other considerations. Membership in consortia like OhioLINK and OPAL allows the Library to maximize our allocated budget and expand our reach in terms of access and accessibility, while allowing us to support other Ohio institutions, both public and private, by granting them access to our resources as we receive access to theirs. OhioLINK’s principles of content selection follow these guidelines:

Content meets statewide strategic and sustainable priorities for education and research.
Decisions about content are made by the member organizations.
There is a high need across most of the membership (basic resources).
There is a firm commitment of sufficient funds from the membership (basic resources) or the research-intensive members (research resources).
Price savings are substantially better than individual institutional purchases or subscriptions.
Management of the content supports efficiencies for staffing at OhioLINK and membership institutions.

Thomas Library acknowledges the following standards regarding consortial duplicates:

If five (5) copies of an item are held in the OhioLINK central catalog or OPAL shared catalog, selectors may be asked to provide rationale for adding a local copy and requests may be denied.

Purchasing and Standing Orders

All materials purchasing is done under the direction of the Head of Technical Services.

Thomas Library no longer establishes new standing orders. The Head of Technical Services will, once every other year, coordinate a review of all existing standing orders with the appropriate library staff. This review will consider such issues as relevance, curriculum support, and duplication, and will determine if any standing orders are discontinued.

Gifts-In-Kind Donations

Thomas Library conforms to University and federal laws regarding the acceptance, tracking, and processing of donations. Prospective donors may contact the library director or university advancement.

COLLECTION MAINTENANCE

Deselection, the permanent removal of material from the collection, is essential for the maintenance of an active, useful library collection. Deselection is also made necessary by the limits imposed by the library’s available space and the physical condition of the items. Librarians are responsible for conducting deselection efforts in their areas of collection responsibility as needed. The general factors considered for deselection of monographs are listed below:

The title is no longer germane to the curriculum or of intrinsic scholarly significance
The physical condition of the title makes it unusable and a decision has been made not to try to preserve it
The title has been in the collection for a long period of time with no evidence of recent usage and lacks sufficient scholarly or artifactual value to retain it
The title is a little-used duplicate
The edition has been superseded

Deselected items may be sent to our current resale partner to generate funds for future collection acquisitions. Deselected items may, at the discretion of the library, also be sold, given away, or recycled.

Emergency

It may be more cost effective to replace or withdraw damaged materials instead of repair or recover. In the event of an emergency or natural disaster, Thomas Library will follow procedure as outlined in the Library Disaster Recovery Plan.

Reconsideration Requests

Thomas Library welcomes feedback from all Wittenberg community members regarding our physical collection. Should a Wittenberg community member feel reconsideration of a particular item is warranted, we encourage them to email the director of the library.

The Head of Technical Services, Library Director, and the appropriate subject liaison will then review the objection and the item in question. The item will be reviewed against the collection development guidelines and principles and its supporting documents, including but not limited to such factors as currency, relevancy, curricular value, and accuracy. Also informing the final decision are the library and university’s mission, vision, values, guiding principles, and strategic goals. Review of the reconsideration request will occur within 5-7 weekdays of receiving the request for reconsideration.

Once a decision has been made, the item will either be returned to the appropriate collection or processed according to collection development plan guidelines.