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Policy

What is a collection development policy?

A collection development policy is a formal document that details your library's goals and practices in terms of its collection. It explains what you do when selecting, weeding, etc., and why you follow these processes.

Why have a collection development policy?

There are many reasons why you should have a policy, here are some important ones:

• helps you manage your collection
• explains why your library collects certain things and not others, as well as why the library weeds, and what the library will do if an item is challenged
• can be used as a training tool
• gives staff some guidelines
• provides a measure of protection for the library
• ties the collection to the goals of the library
• is a budgeting tool that helps you determing where you should spend your money

Who should write the collection development policy?

If you have the luxury of multiple people on the library staff, form a committee. This helps reduce bias that may come from one person. If you don't have more than one person working at the library, then the director typically writes the policy and the board reviews and adopts.

What should be in a collection development policy?

The short answer is everything we will talk about in this class. The Collection Management Policy Guidelines from the Montana State Library appear below. Your collection development policy may or may not include everything listed, but these guidelines will help you develop a collection development policy. Remember collection management is just another word for collection development. Policies should be written for the library staff, the board, and the community. Start simply with brief sentences. Try not to let the list that follows intimidate you. If you work steadily on your policy, you will eventually have a living document that gives you guidance and a better understanding of your collection and your development practices.

Collection Management Policy Guidelines

A. INTRODUCTION

Mission Statement: What is the library's reason for existence? What is the library's role in the community? The mission of the governing organization or parent institution may also be included.

Purpose of the Policy: How will the policy be used for library management, planning, and accountability to the governing organization and library users?

Community and User Groups Defined: Briefly describe the community served (town, county, school, business, etc.) in terms of size, population, location, economic base, etc. Describe the primary, secondary and occasional users of the library in terms of ages, education levels, occupations, numbers, frequency of use, reasons for use, etc.

Patron Needs and Services/Programs Defined: What educational, recreational, and/or research needs must be met? Consider the needs of children, students, senior citizens, disabled, business people, and other segments of the population. What services and/or programs does the library offer to meet these needs? (Examples: children's programs, homebound service, literacy tutoring, online database searching, telefax delivery of interlibrary loan materials, etc.) What needs are not being met?

Brief General Statement Describing the Collection: In general, how would you describe the library's collection? What is the size (in volumes or titles)? By how much does it grow each year? What reading or information levels (preschool, school levels, adult, technical/professional) are collected?

Cooperative Collection Management & Interlibrary Loan: How does use of interlibrary loan affect collection decisions? What cooperative agreements, if any, are in effect? Do you have deposit collection arrangements with other libraries, classroom teachers, the jail, nursing homes, etc.? Are the holdings of other libraries in OCLC or within the community considered before a title is purchased? Under what circumstances?

B. GENERAL PRIORITIES, LIMITATIONS AND POLICIES

Chronological Coverage: This refers primarily to the publication dates of the titles in the collection. Do you have mostly current information? Are older publications kept for historical or research purposes? Distinguish between older material intentionally retained and material that needs to be withdrawn.

Formats: Describe which formats of information the library collects: books, periodicals, newspapers, sound recordings, videotapes, films, slides, software, microfilm, CD-ROM, online databases, etc. Are paperbacks, textbooks, large print or microforms purchased or collected? Under what circumstances and to what extent? Is there a need to collect in a format you don't yet have?

Multiple Copies: Does the library normally purchase multiple copies of books or other items? How is the determination made to purchase or place in the collection duplicates?

Languages: Is material collected in languages other than English? (Examples: "Maintain collection of adult and juvenile Spanish fiction." "Collect classic French and German literature to support undergraduate courses.")

Funding Considerations: How are funds for materials obtained and allocated? Are funds obtained from any special sources, such as a trust fund, donation fund, friends group, grants? Are funding formulas tied to enrollment?

Collection Responsibilities and Selection Procedures: Who selects materials? What general processes or procedures are involved? What criteria are used for selection? The information from an existing selection policy could be reviewed and added here.

Gifts Policy: Do you accept anything offered? What do you add to the collection? How do you dispose of unwanted gifts? Do you accept gifts with "strings" or restrictions attached? Do you accept monetary gifts, bequests? Who makes the decisions about gifts? Be sure to mention that you do not appraise materials and therefore will give receipts only for the number of items, not for their value.

Collection Maintenance: Why, when and by what criteria do you withdraw or weed items? (Examples of weeding guidelines: outdated information; poor physical condition; unneeded duplicates; subject not within scope of collection management policy.) Policies concerning rebinding, repair and replacements should be addressed here.

Complaints and Censorship: Include the full procedure, policy and forms used by the library. The Library Bill of Rights, The Freedom to Read statement, and any other relevant policies should be appended to the collection policy. The board must adopt the Library Bill of Rights and the Freedom to Read statements. This gives meaning to including the statements in the policy.

C. SUBJECT AREAS COLLECTED

Subjects: The detail of this section will depend on the size and needs of the library. Three common approaches are described below. Choose or adapt the one most relevant to your library's collection. Be as general or as specific as you need to be to have useful information for development of the collection.
a. Broad categories, e.g. History, Science & Technology, Social Sciences, Literature, General Reference, Religion, etc., or curriculum areas.
b. Broad classification number categories:

Dewey: 000's, 100's, 200's, 300's...

Library of Congress: A's, B's, C's...

c. Specific classification number categories, for example:

Present Collection Levels: Within each of the subject categories established in section #1, give a brief description of your current collection in that subject. Be sure to include all formats: books, periodicals, audiovisual, government publications, etc. in your description and assessment of each subject area. At the minimum, give some indication of the strengths and weaknesses of your collection in each subject area. (Examples: "The library does not collect in this area." "Have current reference sources, 10-15 circulating books, but all are more than 25 years old.")
You may combine brief descriptions with standard collection level descriptions, such as the following:

• Out of scope: means the library does not collect in this subject.
• Minimal level: have a few good items.
• Basic level: have an up-to-date collection that will introduce readers to the subject and indicate the varieties of information available elsewhere.
• Study level: have a collection adequate to support undergraduate instruction & sustained independent study. Includes material at all appropriate reading levels.
• Research level: includes all the major published source material required for dissertation research.

If your library has used a conspectus methodology to assess the collection, you may choose to use the assessment level codes (0, 1a, 1b, 2a, etc.) in this section. If you would like information about the conspectus method of assessment, please contact the State Library.

Future acquisition levels or goals: Again within each subject area in section #1, indicate your needs and goals for that subject. How do you intend to change the collection? What are your priorities? Within what time frame? If the area needs weeding, or other specific action, that may be a goal in addition to the acquisition goals for new titles. (Examples: Weed "Science & Technology" collection by mid-1989. Upgrade "Medicine" collection from minimal to basic level by 1991. Work toward study level for "Local History" collection. Priorities are: Local history, current fiction, and business (adult collection); support for summer reading program (children's collection.)

Special collections: Describe any subject areas or format collections which the library maintains as a strong or unique collection. These may be materials that are shelved separately or that do not circulate. (Examples: rare books on the history of skiing; local history collection; slide collection; vertical file collection.) [Note: Special collections require extra care and investments of time and money to properly maintain and develop. Consider carefully before starting a special collection. If you have one already, consider if it truly fits with the library's mission and collection goals. It may be more appropriate to integrate it into the general collection or to donate it to another library.]

Other considerations: Information on languages, formats and chronological coverage may be noted within each appropriate subject area, if the general statements in section B above are not sufficient for your library or if a particular subject segment is an exception. If a collection assessment has been done, information about the methods used, the personnel involved and the dates and depth of the process should be noted.

D. POLICY IMPLEMENTATION, EVALUATION, AND REVISION

How, when and by whom will the policy be reviewed and updated? Try to be specific. (Examples: "Every June by the librarian and trustees." "Every two years, beginning in 1990, by the library- faculty committee.") [NOTE: The requirements for Collection Management Policy approval have been augmented. The new requirement states that the library's collection management policy must be reviewed and updated (with the current board chair/legal authority's and director/librarian's signatures) at least once every three years and resubmitted in its entirety to the Montana State Library.]

The last item on the policy should be the official record of action. This should include dates and signatures of the significant parties concerned. For example:

__________________________________________________________
Librarian Date

__________________________________________________________
Chair, Board of Trustees Date

or whatever would constitute official action for a policy for your library. The action to adopt the policy should be recorded in the minutes of an official meeting.

Collection Management Honor Roll

Each year the Montana State Library honors libraries who practice excellent collection management. If you would like to be considered for the Collection Management Honor Roll, you need to submit your collection development/management policy to the Montana State Library. Your policy is evaluated by Montana State Library staff based upon the guidelines above. If your policy is approved, and you have been updating your holdings in OCLC for the past three years you are eligible for the Collection Management Honor Roll. For more information about the Collection Management Honor Roll, please contact Sue Jackson at Sue Jackson or 1-800-338-5087.

Sample Collection Development Policies

Glendive Public Library (doc) (pdf)
This is an excellent collection development policy from the Glendive Public Library. The library serves approximately 9,000 people.

Praire County Library, Terry
The Prairie County Library is currently in the process of updating their collection development policy. However, this is still a wonderful example. The library serves approximately 1200 people.

Final thoughts on the collection development policy

• Include other staff and the library board when drafting a policy

• Think about the processes you already use to develop your collection and try to make your policy reflect those processes accurately

• Have your board approve the policy

• Make sure all staff have at least seen the policy, so they can understand the library's policy on collection development

• Make sure the public has access to the policy. The more they understand about how your library works, the better.

• It takes time to develop a good policy. Be prepared to put in some extra effort. The collection development policy is one of the most important policies a library has.

• The collection development policy is a living document. Review it periodically to make sure that it still reflects your library and your community.

Homework

Review your collection development policy. Compare it to the criteria above. Are you missing anything? Are there sections that need updating? Make note of these things. It will help you improve your policy. If you don't have a collection development policy then review a couple of policies and think about what you might want to include in a policy for your library. My contact info is Maggie Meredith.