COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES FOR ACADEMIC PROGRAMS

 
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
The library of the University of Connecticut develops, maintains, and makes discoverable robust and unique collections that support the research and learning needs of the UConn community and beyond. The University Library serves all of the undergraduate and graduate programs on the main campus, the four regional campuses, and the UConn Health campus. While the UConn Law Library is administratively separate from the University Library, the University Library and the Law Library maintain a strong affiliation, particularly in the areas of collection development and access. With 3.9 million print volumes and well over 110,000 electronic and print journals, the libraries of the University of Connecticut form the most comprehensive public research collection in the state.The University Library maintains nine physical locations: four on the Storrs campus, one at each of the four regional campuses, and one at the UConn Health campus. The Homer Babbidge Library, the flagship location of the University Library, is in the center of the Storrs campus and serves both undergraduate and graduate programs. The Storrs campus is also home to the School of Fine Arts Resource Center in the Fine Arts complex, the Pharmacy Library in the Pharmacy/Biology building, and the University Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center. Each of the University’s four regional campuses — Avery Point, Hartford, Stamford, and Waterbury — maintains a library dedicated to serving the programs at those sites. Regional campus libraries hold undergraduate-focused core collections as well as specialized research collections tailored to the needs of graduate programs: Marine Biology at Avery Point; Business, Public Policy, Education, and Social Work at Hartford; Business at Stamford; and Education, Nursing, and Engineering at Waterbury. The Storrs and regional campus locations of the University Library shares a single catalog and each of these libraries serve as a gateway to the collection as a whole. The UConn Health Sciences Library location of the University Library maintains a separate catalog reflecting the specialized needs of the UConn Health community.This document applies specifically to the Storrs and regional locations of the University Library (heretofore referred to as “the Library”) and outlines the principles and guidelines used to develop the collections at these locations.
Scope of the Collection The Library develops and maintains collections that inspire discovery and the creation of new knowledge by providing resources that support and enhance research and scholarship, undergraduate and graduate education, and emerging areas of interdisciplinary interest at the University of Connecticut. The depth of collection development varies by discipline and is driven by the scholarship and teaching priorities of the University’s academic programs.The Library recognizes that free access to ideas and freedom of expression are fundamental to research and education in a democratic society. The Library is committed to providing a balanced collection representing a diversity of perspectives. The collection will not exclude any materials on the basis of their creators’ and/or publishers’ race, color, ethnicity, religious creed, age, gender identity, sexual orientation, or physical or mental abilities.
Access versus Ownership   The Library is responsible for acquiring, curating, and preserving enduring research collections and ensuring their availability for current and future scholarship. Decisions about which materials to purchase for permanent retention are balanced against the need to provide access to a broad array of information resources with immediate scholarly and research value. Research strengths, academic priorities, and the information needs of students inform decisions about when to collect for permanent retention, when to lease or borrow materials, and when to rely on openly available repositories.
Cooperative Collection Sharing and Stewardship   The Library’s collection meets the needs of the UConn community while also functioning as a node in networks of collective collections developed by libraries partnering at regional, national, and international levels. The Library recognizes the vital importance of these collective collections in ensuring for the long-term retention of the scholarly record and the ongoing ability of researchers to access this record. To this end, the Library is committed to participating in partnerships with other libraries that facilitate collection sharing and stewardship. Among the partnerships that the Library participates in is the Eastern Academic Scholars Trust (EAST), a print retention partnership of over 50 college and university libraries. The mission of EAST is to ensure that faculty and students in the northeast United States have access to the collective scholarly record of print monographs, journals, and serials in the participating libraries and that this record is preserved.
Licensing Online Resources The library of the University of Connecticut negotiates licenses as “One UConn,” and including the Storrs campus libraries, regional campus libraries, the Health Sciences library, and the Law library. When negotiating license agreements for online resources, the Library refrains from purchasing resources where restrictions would impede research or intellectual freedom, or be impossible to enforce. The library strives to ensure access is granted to the fullest extent possible and that the UConn Board of Trustees’ approval, signature authority, and contract requirements are all met. In furtherance thereof, licenses negotiated by the libraries generally reference and incorporate terms and conditions set forth in the LIBLICENSE Model and in other standards widely adopted by research institutions.Additionally, the library negotiates licenses to be in compliance with the State of Connecticut’s contract requirements. Licensed resources must include the State of Connecticut’s required contract provisions.
Collections Budget The Library’s collection allocations are used to acquire ownership of or access to monographs, media, journals, databases, and data and datasets; support interlibrary borrowing and lending; enable the discovery of print and online materials worldwide; steward the University’s scholarly output; secure participation in collaborative repositories that safeguard the long term preservation of both print and digital resources; and participate in relevant professional memberships. The Library also collaborates with schools and departments to co-finance and co-sponsor specialized resources that benefit our research community.
Responsibility for Collection Development The Library’s Collections Steering Committee has administrative oversight for the collections. It sets collection development policies, makes broad collection budget allocations, and regularly reviews these allocations for strategic adjustment. Selection/retention decisions for high-cost resources also fall within the purview of the Collections Steering Committee.The Library’s Research Services unit coordinates the assessment and development of collections and discovery tools of cross-disciplinary nature, while individual subject librarians have responsibility for assessing and developing collections and information sources relating to their assigned academic disciplines. Fund allocations are divided among academic disciplines based on the size of the program, department, school or area, the nature of material needed, the record of expenditures in relation to previous years, and the existence or presence of new initiatives and/or faculty.
General Criteria for Collection Development The Library works with the UConn community and consortia to determine which resources should be acquired or retained and employs the following general criteria when evaluating resources to be added to the general collections: Relevance to education and research programs: Applicability to faculty and graduate students’ research interests, current curricular needs, and research trends in academic disciplines. Scope and depth of the existing collection: Breadth and historic retention of the Library’s collection in the subject area. Quality: Level of scholarship and creativity; long term relevance of content and format; reputation of the author, publisher, contributors, and editorial board; and availability and importance of illustrations and bibliographies.
Currency and timeliness: Rapidity with which new information significantly advances or supersedes earlier scholarship in the subject area. Discoverability, usability, and accessibility: Ability of users to locate materials in scholarly databases and free search engines, intuitiveness of the interface design, and accessibility of online materials for users with disabilities.Cost: Expense of acquiring, processing, cataloging, shelving, and preserving materials, both commercially sold and free. Renewal rates: Subscribed resources with renewal rates of four percent or more are subject to review. The review will assess the basis for the significant cost increase and may result in cancellation. Language and country of origin: Optimal language and perspective for specific programmatic research and education needs. Contribution to open scholarly communication: The resource positively impacts open access to research and scholarship; the information is or will soon become readily accessible to the world community.