Introduction
This document is intended to serve as a statement of the guidelines used to acquire and maintain materials for the Library collection. Rising costs, increases in publishing output, and an escalating demand for information in a variety of formats require that the Library thoughtfully select materials supporting the mission of the College. The collection must be deliberately shaped and developed in order to make the wisest use of the Library’s financial resources.
Goal
The goal of the Lee College Library collection is quality, not quantity. A collection has quality to the degree that it is relevant and appropriate in quantity to the number of students and faculty who use it. Quality is compromised either when new material is not added or when inappropriate material is retained. As a secondary goal it is preferable that the library’s collection be used. But there’s an attendant need for the library’s collection to be potentially useful, in anticipation of use. A high usage rate usually correlates with material purchases that meet the needs of the curriculum. On the other hand it must be acknowledged that it is impossible to accurately identify uses that fall outside of actual circulation. In-house use is a notoriously poor measure of use, since students frequently reshelve books, and some books that are reshelved were not helpful. Therefore, books that show little to no use in the statistics will be critically evaluated for potential usefulness, accuracy, timeliness, and quality, in order to determine whether to promote them or deselect them.
Responsibility for Collection Development
- Librarians
- act as liaisons to the Divisions. They are responsible for selecting and weeding library materials in all their different formats with regular input and material requests from faculty. Curricular needs are the primary consideration when selecting resources and librarians will remain current regarding course assignments and curricular changes.
- The Library Director
- oversees, assesses, and evaluates the entire collection to ensure it is meeting the needs of the Lee College curriculum.
- The Online Learning Librarian
- is responsible for reading and negotiating any electronic licensing agreements made between the library and commercial vendors.
- Faculty members
- are responsible for providing the library liaisons feedback regarding the addition or subtraction of materials, specific assignment needs, and other feedback on the collection as needed.
- Divisions
- with the support of the library liaisons are responsible for assessing the library collection as part of their periodic program review to ensure that it is adequately meeting their curricular needs.
Budget
Each year the library divides the monographic funds into smaller discipline components by subject using the Library of Congress Classification System to support each discipline. Funds are allocated and weighted based on the total number of declared majors and the number of programs per Division; the total number of courses and sections, and total number of circulated items. The library reserves the right to transfer funds across disciplines (LC subjects) to help
meet the immediate needs of new programs or to take advantage of economical purchase opportunities.
Intellectual Freedom
The Library supports the American Library Association’s "Bill of Rights" and "The Freedom to Read Statement," as well as the "Intellectual Freedom Principles for Academic Libraries" as adopted by the Association of College and Research Libraries. The Library considers these documents to be part of its Collection Development Procedures.
Priorities for Acquisition
The Library’s first priority is to provide materials to students in support of curriculum requirements for all academic and career programs offered at Lee College. Secondly, the Library responds to more advanced faculty research needs when funds are available. Finally, as funds permit, the Library will purchase general materials to meet the needs of the local community.
Selection Criteria
- The curricular needs of the college’s instructional programs
- Timeliness for constantly updated fields like nursing, computer technology, & law.
- Lasting value especially for humanities fields like English and social sciences fields like history.
- Faculty and student material recommendations as long they fit the curriculum and are not graduate research oriented.
- Program accreditation requirements
- The majority of purchased materials should be at a reading level no higher than the undergraduate level unless they fit a curriculum need.
- Recommended titles by reputable academic book reviews like Choice.
- Avoid duplicate purchasing, unless owning one copy excessively restricts access
- Electronic information exclusively:
- Cost effective replacement of existing resources (i.e., migration of reference and serial publications from paper and microfiche to electronic format).
- Compatibility with college equipment & software
Format Selection Principles
- Books:
- Hardbound is generally the preferred format due to their durability. Paperbacks may be purchased for topics that become outdated rapidly like law, nursing, and computer technology.
- Language:
- The Library purchases primarily English language materials unless requested by faculty or deemed to support the curriculum
- Electronic Resources:
- will be evaluated by using the same criteria as print material, by cost, and by use.
- Audio visual formats:
- will be selected/deselected according to the ever changing obsolescence of that format and to market trends of its use.
Non-monograph Collections
With the exception of archival collections, which will have their own collection plans, all collections in the library will be selected using the same selection criteria as the monograph collection.
Providing Access to Online Learning Students
It is the policy of Lee College Library to provide resources and services for all of its patrons. Therefore, in order to enhance access to students attending online learning classes, the library provides access to virtually all of its print and electronic books and articles. The library also participates in TexShare so that students might use many libraries throughout the state.
Collection Maintenance
Discarding of library materials is an important ongoing part of the collection development process. Librarians will examine the collection periodically to identify outdated and deteriorating materials that need to be replaced or removed from the collection. Resources that no longer meet the selection criteria should be removed from the collection. Materials damaged beyond repair, shall be either replaced or removed from the collection using the selection criteria. Faculty members are actively encouraged to survey their subject areas and make recommendations regarding purchases and are occasionally consulted on withdrawals from the collection.
Collection Evaluation
Various assessment methods will be used to evaluate the Library Collections by discipline. Triangulation of assessment methods will allow the librarians to see a more accurate picture of how well each of its collections supports the Lee College curriculum.