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Collection Development

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Purpose and Goals

College Mission

Lane Community College mission is a learning-centered community college that provides affordable, quality, lifelong educational opportunities that include:

  • Professional, technical, and lower division college transfer programs.
  • Employee skill upgrading, business development and career enhancement.
  • Foundational academic, language and life skills development.
  • Lifelong personal development and enrichment.
  • Cultural and community programs.

The Library collection supports the college’s mission in accordance with the Library's principles, mission and philosophy.

Goals

The Library's Collection Development Policy provides guidance for the selection and maintenance of collections that support and enhance the curriculum and instructional programs of Lane Community College, and the information needs of students, faculty, and staff who comprise the College’s community of lifelong learners.

The Library's collection also includes general information resources that support a learning environment in subjects not covered by classroom instruction. The Library acquires materials and media in a variety of formats.

Objectives

This policy is intended to guide the development, management, and fiscal planning of LCC Library's collections. It provides guidance to  librarians in providing resources to support students, faculty and staff.

Responsibility for Collection Development

Each librarian, as well as  Library leadership, has collection development responsibilities to: 

  • Remain current on the information needs of the LCC community.
  • Follow collection development policies and procedures.
  • Develop budget allocations.
  • Build collections and liaise with faculty, administrators and staff in assigned subject areas.
  • Select in areas not otherwise assigned which contribute to a diverse collection.
  • Participate in assessment and weeding.
  • Market the Library's collections to the College community.

Although faculty librarians are ultimately responsible for the Library's collection, the Library encourages acquisitions suggestions from the community.

Budget Allocations

Each area of the curriculum has its own materials budget allocation. Allocations are determined  by the faculty librarians and Library leadership, and based on curricular relevance, program size and research needs, publishing costs within specific disciplines, balance of the collection, and general overall collection needs. Faculty and staff planning new courses or programs are encouraged to contact the Liaison Librarian for their discipline. The Library materials budget may be adjusted depending on the overall Library budget and the needs of the College.

The materials budget and fund allocations will be reviewed by faculty librarians at least once a term during the academic year.

General Selection Guidelines

The following guidelines assist Library faculty in identifying resources for inclusion in the collection:

  • Relevance to instructional needs of the faculty.
  • Intellectual content and scholarly worth.
  • Support for subject areas and vocational emphases currently represented by credit courses at LCC.

Limitations and Basic Standards

The following guidelines set basic standards and limitations for materials in the collection:

  • The Library will select books and other instructional materials to secure an adequate basic collection to support all areas of the curriculum.
  • Advanced level research is not supported by the book collection. Interlibrary loan and the Summit collection are provided to meet these needs.
  • Non-English materials are limited to languages taught at the college.
  • The holdings of the Summit consortium may be considered in purchase decisions.
  • Items costing more than $125 require approval by the faculty librarians.
  • The Library will attempt to balance print and digital formats without unnecessary duplication. Duplicate copies of a title may be purchased when high demand is anticipated, or to meet requirements for alternative formats.

In general, the Library does not purchase textbooks, audio books, sheet music or computer software.

Criteria for Selection of Materials

  • Reviews.
  • Currency and quality of content.
  • Timeliness and lasting value.
  • Reputation of the author or publisher.
  • Physical and technical quality.
  • Ease of access and user-friendliness.
  • Depth of current holdings in the subject.
  • Demand and frequency of Summit requests placed for material on the subject.
  • Cost.
  • Availability in alternate formats.

Types and Formats of Materials Collected

Books

Using the criteria for selection, books may be collected in print and electronic/online formats.

Reference Materials

The reference collection includes print and online encyclopedias, dictionaries, atlases, directories, indexes, bibliographies, statistical compilations, and handbooks. The collection is regularly reviewed for currency, accuracy, usage and relevance.

Periodicals

The periodicals collection supports the LCC curriculum and a core collection of general interest periodicals. Periodicals are primarily acquired through online database collections. New print subscriptions are only acquired after review by the faculty librarians.

Audiovisual Materials

Audiovisual materials include DVDs, streaming audio and video. Specialized AV materials may be expensive and will be included in the collection if they meet the general selection guidelines, can be used in more than one course or discipline, are durable and easily accessible.

Electronic Resources

Electronic resources are materials in digital formats such as electronic periodicals, ebooks, databases and web-based resources. The Library may purchase or provide access to online electronic resources in lieu of other formats.

Selection criteria for electronic resources include:

  • Cost
  • Extent of cumulative coverage.
  • Production quality.
  • Training requirements.
  • Ease of use.

Recreational Materials

Librarians may selectively acquire popular fiction, DVDs, biographies, and how-to books of general interest to augment the collection.

Books for Newly Literate and Low-Literate Adults

The Library may purchase books in support of the Adult Basic Education, High School completion, GED, Bridge, and ESL programs.

Children's Books

The Library may purchase children's books to support the Early Childhood programs and others.

Deselection

To assure an effective current collection that best serves the educational mission of the college, the faculty librarians systematically remove materials from the collection using the following criteria: 

  • Usage.
  • Obsolescence.
  • Faculty recommendation.
  • Duplication.
  • Discontinued degree programs.
  • Accreditation requirements.
  • Availability of newer editions or material.
  • Collection analysis and evaluation.

Replacement of Materials

Decisions on the replacement of lost, damaged, missing, or worn-out items are made by the Librarians based on frequency of use, currency, and applicability to current curriculum or programs.

Reserves

The Library will buy a title and place it on reserve for a specific class if the book is otherwise suitable to the LCC Library collection. The Library will not buy books or textbooks solely to place on reserve or because they are used in a class.

Due to space constraints the Library does not put more than 3 copies of any title on reserve.

Periodicals and Continuations

Periodicals and newspapers are purchased or accepted as gifts for one or more of the following reasons:

  • To keep the Library collection current with information on subjects needed to support Lane Community College's curriculum.
  • To provide material not currently available in books or other resources.
  • To provide for the research and information needs of students, faculty, staff and administrators.

Individual titles are selected on the basis of student and staff recommendations according to the following criteria:

  • Cost of the subscription.
  • Accuracy of content.
  • Availability in subscription databases.
  • Demand.
  • Representation of a point of view or subject needed in the collection.
  • Relevance.
  • Reliability.
  • Use or potential use.
  • Format.
  • Chronological coverage.

Newspapers are purchased to give local, metropolitan, national and international news coverage, and to represent community or interest group viewpoints. Subscription cancellations will be based on the same criteria.

Decisions on periodical subscriptions may be made by the Librarians' council. Anyone who requests a periodical subscription will be notified of the decision.

The Acquisitions Department is responsible for all periodical processes, procedures, and record-keeping. Once a periodical is processed and placed in Circulation (including display carousels), caretaking will be assumed by the Circulation Department until discarding is necessary.

Format

The format of a periodical subscription may be paper or electronic. Format will be determined when the subscription is first authorized, but is subject to review whenever appropriate.

Retention policy

The basic period for retention of periodicals in paper format is three years. Retention means that a full three years of issues are maintained while issues for the next year accumulate. Exceptions to this are weekly periodicals which will be kept for 1 year, and popular titles (to be determined by title) which will be kept for 1 year. Other exceptions include titles which are not available in database subscriptions or the discretion of a liaison librarian. All microforms will be retained at the discretion of the librarians. Exceptions to this policy may be implemented depending on usage or other appropriate considerations. Periodicals for which there is no microform backup may be retained for periods of time other than the basic retention period. Newspapers in paper format will be discarded after two months. Discarding periodicals shall take place once a year in December. Any discarding of periodicals will be done by the Acquisitions Specialist to ensure the maintenance of accurate records of holdings.

Donations and free subscriptions

Decisions regarding donated or free subscriptions will be considered using the same criteria used for paid subscriptions. Any donation will become the property of the College and will be incorporated into the collection or be subject to appropriate disposal. If periodicals covering a span of years are donated, they may or may not be retained if future continuation is in doubt. Subscriptions not beneficial to the periodical collection will be discarded, given away or diplomatically refused.

Donations for tax purposes must be made through the LCC Foundation and the donor is responsible for determining the value. For a donation to be accepted by the IRS for tax purposes, it must be donated to a recognized organization. The only such organization at Lane is the LCC Foundation. The donor is completely responsible for determining the value of or having the value determined for a donation. All letters of acknowledgment for donations shall be made by the LCC Foundation.