University of North Texas at Dallas Library

Maddaford

Collection Development Policy

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University of North Texas at Dallas Library

Collection Development Policy

SLIS 5400 Fall 2009

Sarah Maddaford

Mission Statement

The UNT Dallas Library is currently developing its mission statement as it prepares to be a separate university. The mission statement for the library needs to support the mission statement of the university: “Enhance access to high quality education, and to prepare students to become exemplary citizens who can assume leadership positions in a global environment. Our mission is accomplished through an interdisciplinary approach to teaching and learning, the pursuit of innovative research and technologies, and a commitment to improve the quality of life through civic engagement. Our teaching, research, and civic engagement will be conducted in an environment guided by respect for and understanding of diverse viewpoints and the core values of virtue, civility, reasoning, and accountability.” (B. Robertson, personal communication, December 8, 2009) The library will continue to be primarily virtual with interlibrary loan access to Denton’s print and electronic collections. UNTD Library also strives to instruct students on how to utilize the resources available to them for their course work through bibliographic instruction in the classroom as well as the library.

History

The University began its search for a virtual librarian in 1999 in conjunction with the approval of a satellite center for UNT Denton which opened for students in Spring 2000. Librarian Leora Kemp has been with the library from its beginning and was promoted to Librarian III during 2002. The single librarian has been supported from the beginning by student assistants who run the circulation desk and provide reference services.

The current building opened in January 2007 with its library staff already in place. The library has been in this building for almost three years. In anticipation of moving to the new building with a larger space for the library, the library staff has been augmented by the addition of a paraprofessional staff member and two new librarians. There have been cuts to the number of student assistants as well as the library hours, but the library still provides bibliographic instruction and reference help at all times.

User Demographics

According to the UNT Dallas website (2009a), the UNTD enrolled 2,333 students during the past semester “…a 26.5 percent increase over the spring 2008 headcount…” Because it is on the track to becoming an independent university, the student body has increased about 16 percent each semester with the faculty and staff increasing to support them.

The Dallas community around the library is largely minority with about twenty percent of citizens below the poverty line according to the 2000 Census. (U.S. Census Bureau) This community uses the library to complete homework for area community colleges and high schools or as a resource for job hunting.

The members of the student body are generally older than a traditional university since there are no freshmen at present. The Dallas campus boasts on their website that they are “…among the most diverse [student bodies] in the nation…” (2009b) partly because the students are mostly from the surrounding area. “Our primary target audience has been the nontraditional student who has an associate’s degree, works full time, has a family, and lives too far from a 4-year public university to find the time to finish the bachelor’s degree,” Leora Kemp wrote the second part of the Dallas library history in November 2005. These non-traditional students make up the majority of users at the library. The students are typically black or Hispanic with a minority of white and Asian students in line with the demographics of Dallas where most of them reside.

Formal Collection Development Procedures

The UNTD Library utilizes the collection development policy of the UNT Denton libraries with some adjustments. The adjustments mostly consist of maintaining a smaller print collection and a wide variety of electronic resources. The policy is also slightly modified in that there is more duplication of items in UNTD library’s collection that are also in the Denton libraries than there is overlap between the collections of the individual libraries in Denton. The Denton policy is very comprehensive in defining the responsibilities for selection and maintenance of the collection. Selection is ultimately up to the Dean of Libraries, but faculty are encouraged to give suggestions for additions to the collection based on their area of knowledge and librarians are supposed to fill in any gaps in knowledge for which the faculty is not equipped. The policy also specifies methods for selection based on set factors such as cost and accessibility as well as defining procedures for weeding the collection. This collection development policy covers several libraries of varying types including a media library, a science and technology library, the main library and the Dallas campus library. As the Dallas campus library becomes the UNTD library, the librarian will have to further edit the collection development policy to fit the community and library more accurately than the Denton policy currently does.

Description of Collection

The Dallas campus relies on many of the print resources housed at the Denton libraries because the print collection at Dallas is small due to the limited space for the library. The collection contains five to six hundred titles housed in the stacks for students to browse. Many of these materials are reference, but about 5% of the materials are available for check out by students. The library consists of several small offices, one of which is a group study room, a reference/circulation desk, several tables spread around the stacks and three public access computers.

“We may not be a traditional library, but we are a full service library,” librarian Leora Kemp continually informs anyone who asks. (L. Kemp, personal communication, August 12, 2009) The Denton libraries supplement the print collection, but the Dallas library boasts a bibliographic instruction program to encourage the use of the vast electronic resources available to the patrons through its partnership with UNT Denton. The library provides access to full-text e-books, journals and newspapers in addition to various abstracts and indexes that students can search for peer-reviewed, scholarly material. The print resources in Denton can be requested by the Dallas students and arrive by courier twice a week, giving them full access to Denton’s much larger print selection in a reasonably timely manner.

The print collection largely focuses on general reference materials, but also includes several small sections. The library features a Career Development Resources section that attempts to cover all the degrees offered by the campus in order to inform students about possibilities for their degrees. The collection also features a counseling/psychology/sociology section, a library science section, an education section and a variety of criminal justice and political science resources throughout the collection. We also have a variety of video cassettes and DVDs available for check out. In addition to the regular collection, the professors can leave textbooks and materials for their students to use in the library.

The biggest weakness in the collection is the inability to go to the stacks and hand the student a resource to take home. Students that utilize the library are forced to plan ahead in their studies or go home frustrated with the size of the print collection. Since many of the students are below the poverty line, access to the electronic resources when campus is closed is not guaranteed and thus only providing these resources does not necessarily meet the needs of the students. Also, the only audio materials available at the library are through the electronic resources.

Budget

As shown in Appendix B, the library budget available to student assistants and the public does not feature heavily on print collection development. The Dallas campus library’s agreement with Denton takes a significant portion of the budget in order to provide electronic resources and access to the larger print collection available through Denton. The print collection in the Dallas campus library is maintained with the Maintenance and Operations portion of the budget which also includes office supplies and toner for the printer.

Materials Selection

The UNTD Library will collect materials in all formats and all appropriate subject areas. The collection will remain largely virtual with electronic resources valued above print materials because of both the space available in the physical library as well as the currency and functionality of the electronic resources. All selections will be evaluated based on (1)lasting value of the content, (2)cost, (3)strength of present holding in subject areas or similar subject areas, (4)reputation or authoritativeness of the author, reliability of the publisher, compiler, producer, vendor, and (5)consortial holdings. The library relies on librarians and professors to notice gaps in the collection and provide suggestions for filling any gaps. The library shall conduct needs assessments periodically to ensure that the collection maintains relevancy in regard to course materials and research topics.

The UNTD Library prefers electronic resources over print, cassette, DVD or CD materials because of the ease and range of access. Selection of these materials will prize full-text over abstracts as well as full-text searching over other search methods. Licensing, necessary training, usability, hardware and software compatibility and vendor support for products will also be taken into consideration when evaluating these materials for purchase.

Serial subscriptions will be reviewed annually to ensure continued appropriateness to the University’s and Library’s mission, to keep expenditures within the departmental allocation, and to meet consortial or system agreements.Any new subscriptions may cause old subscriptions to be dropped. Any subscription over a certain amount must be approved by the Dean of Libraries who may deny the request if the subscription is available through other means.

Three or more print copies of any title shall not be purchased without consulting the appropriate library liaison or collection librarian. Purchasing an electronic version is preferred to purchasing multiple print copies. The library will not purchase materials intended to be consumed in the context of a university course (e.g. workbooks, tests, software, etc.). The library also will not purchase textbooks for current courses but will accept them as donations.

New Purchases

The library provides lists of the new materials in its newsletters as well as on the library blog which is listed on the Library Services page of the UNTD website. Occasionally, new materials are displayed, but in general they are placed in the collection and referred to during reference interviews.

Reader’s Advisory

There has not been much call for Reader’s Advisory at the UNTD Library. The library does not include popular fiction or non-academic non-fiction, which leads most students to ask elsewhere for reading materials. The library does provide suggested research materials and career information with online and printed career guides and research guides.

Information Literacy

The UNTD Library strives to help create students who are information literate and prepared to utilize information technology in whatever career they choose. Library student assistants provide bibliographic instruction in the classroom whenever the professor submits a request. The head librarian encourages faculty to procure these instruction sessions at every meeting she attends as well as through personal correspondence. The library assistants and paraprofessional also provide point-of-service bibliographic instruction for students needing help with research for a paper. The person manning the desk is trained to answer questions about the library catalog, the indexes and abstracts databases and alternative methods of obtaining research materials.

Government Investigation Resources

The American Library Association and librarians have historically stood for free and equal access to information. Their “…institutional history of activism around intellectual freedom has produced institutional structures that channel opposition to specific kinds of abridgement of information access, including censorship and surveillance activities.” (Drabinski, E., 2006, p.14) As well as maintaining a current collection of resources for librarians to use to prepare their library for a FBI request, the “… [ALA] provides a hotline librarians can call if they receive section 215 subpoenas or NSL.” (Drabinski, E., 2006, p.13)

The best method to ensure patron privacy and intellectual freedom while still complying with the USAPA is not to keep records any longer than necessary for the operation of the library. This includes things like “…information systems that actually erase data…” (Drabinski, E., 2006, p.14) completely from a system after it has been used, “…routinely shred[ding] documents related to patrons’ reference questions and requests for books” (Gilbert, E., 2005, p.1) and informing patrons about the possibilities of FBI investigations and their possible effects. We need to have signs prominently displayed that tell the patrons exactly what the FBI can receive when they request records from us. One such sign could state “If your borrowing records or records of your internet activity are requested, it is illegal for anyone to tell you.” (Drabinski, E., 2006, p.12)

The policy at the University of Texas at Dallas Library includes informing the librarian about the request because the desk is usually run by student assistants or the paraprofessional instead of an ALA accredited librarian.
Appendix A:

Collection Development Policy

UNT LIBRARIES

POLICY & PROCEDURE MEMORANDUM #16 December, 2006 (Revised)

COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT POLICY
______
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. MISSION STATEMENTS
II. DEFINITIONS
III. SCOPE OF COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT POLICY
IV. PROFILE OF THE UNT LIBRARIES
V. UNIVERSITY AND COMMUNITY PROFILES
VI. GOALS OF COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT
VII. RESPONSIBILITY FOR SELECTION
VIII. FUND ALLOCATIONS
IX. SELECTION GUIDELINES
X. COLLECTION MAINTENANCE
XI. GIFTS
XII. EXCHANGES
XIII. MATERIALS ISSUED BY SPECIAL AGENCIES
XIV. SPECIAL COLLECTIONS

I. MISSION STATEMENTS.
A. UNIVERSITY: UNT is a recognized student-centered public research university where we harness the power of ideas through a culture of learning based on diverse viewpoints, interdisciplinary endeavors, creativity and disciplined excellence.
This is accomplished through a broad and balanced array of programs where well-prepared students and dedicated scholars and artists collaborate with our local and global communities in the creation, integration, application and dissemination of knowledge. In this way, UNT creates an enriched and sustainable future for our students, state, nation and world.

Approved by the Board of Regents on May 12, 2006.
B. LIBRARIES: The mission of the UNT Libraries is to acquire, preserve, provide access to, and disseminate recorded knowledge in all its forms. Access will be provided increasingly through electronic networks and consortial arrangements. The Libraries, through traditional methods and through digital information resources, provide bibliographic, reference, and instructional support to assist the university's programs of teaching, research, scholarly and creative production, and public service.
Approved by ______on ______.

II. DEFINITIONS.
A. Collection Librarian – a librarian who works daily within a specific collection or portion of a collection and who has responsibility for developing that collection.
B. Library Liaison – a member of the Libraries’ staff who has the responsibility for working in a partnership with one or more academic departments, schools, or colleges to develop the Libraries’ collections. Guidelines and responsibilities for library liaisons are contained in the Manual for UNT Library Liaisons.
C. Departmental Library Representative – a member of the academic department who works with the library liaison in expending the departmental allocation and developing the Libraries’ collections in the department’s areas of expertise.
D. General Collection – the collection that contains the majority of the materials in the areas of the humanities, social sciences, science, and technology.
E. Special Collection – a collection that contains resources of specialized interest due to subject, issuing agency, audience, and other factors as identified in specific special collections policies. Current special collections include Archives, Curriculum Materials Collection, Government Documents, Juvenile Collection, Media Library, Music Library, and Rare Books and Texana. For further details, see XIV. SPECIAL COLLECTIONS.
F. Primary Clientele – students, faculty and staff of the University of North Texas are the primary clientele of the general collection. For the primary clientele of the UNT Libraries’ special collections, consult the individual policies of the special collections (see XIV. SPECIAL COLLECTIONS).
G. Secondary Clientele – the rest of the UNT community, the city and county of Denton, and the region of North Texas are the secondary clientele of the general collection. For the secondary clientele of the UNT Libraries’ special collections, consult the individual policies of the special collections (see XIV. SPECIAL COLLECTIONS).

III. SCOPE OF THE COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT POLICY.

The Collection Development Policy applies to the General Collection of the UNT Libraries.

The special collections of the UNT Libraries have individual collection policies that are posted on their home webpages (see XIV. SPECIAL COLLECTIONS). The special collections are governed by the Collection Development Policy, but are allowed variance in primary and secondary clientele, selection guidelines and collection maintenance. The variance will be determined by the Heads of special collections to meet the needs of the special materials and their clientele.

IV. PROFILE OF THE LIBRARIES.
The UNT Libraries support instruction, research, and creative production with collections of over 5.8 million cataloged items, in a variety of formats, in six libraries located in six separate facilities. The Libraries provide electronic access to materials through the UNT Libraries' website at
A. Willis Library – UNT’s largest library is located on the Mall of the UNT Denton campus. It houses the Humanities and Social Science ( and Microforms ( collections. Willis Library is also home to the following special collections: Archives ( Curriculum Materials ( Documents ( Juvenile ( Music ( Rare Book and Texana ( and The Portal to Texas History (
B. Science and Technology Library ( – UNT’s oldest library is located in the Information Sciences Building of the UNT Denton campus. It houses the science and technology collections, with the exception of Computer Science, Engineering and Materials Science.
C. Media Library ( – The library is located in Chilton Hall on the UNT Denton campus. It houses the majority of audiovisual materials on campus, including but not limited to DVDs, videocassettes, 16 mm films, and audiobooks on CD. Music recordings (CDs and DVDs) are located in the Music Library special collection in Willis Library.
D. Research Park Library ( – The library is located in the UNT Research Park, which is north of the Denton campus and home to the College of Engineering. The Research Park Library houses collections in the subject areas of Computer Science, Engineering, Materials Science and related applied sciences and technology.
E. Library Annex – The off-campus facility contains lesser-used research materials from the collections in Remote Storage, and houses the Libraries' Technical Services Department ( and Preservation Unit (
F. UNT Dallas Campus Library ( – The library is located at UNT’s Dallas Campus and serves all departments offering courses at the campus. The collection is mainly “virtual,” having a large selection of electronic resources, supplemented by an essential collection of print reference resources.