The Selection Policy of the Mohawk Valley Community College Libraries has the following objectivies:
- To provide materials in support of the College curricula or needed in the conduct of College business.
- To provide a balanced collection in all fields of knowledge.
- To provide a representative selection of materials on all subjects of interest to the College community, including materials on all aspects of controversial matters. No material shall be excluded from the collection because of the race or nationality of the author, or the political, moral, social, or religious views expressed therein.
Subject Scope
The curricular areas supported by the collection are: advertising, business, computer science, criminal justice, education, fine arts, food service and hospitality, health, history, human services, humanitites, law, life science, literature, mathematics, philosophy, physical education and recreation, physical sciences, political science, psychology, religion, social sciences, and technology.
Responsibility for Selection
The most important aspect of the collection development process takes place before the materials are actually ordered. This involved the planned selection of items best qualified to strengthen the College's resources for learning, teaching, and research.
Selection is the responsibility of library faculty, with the participation of classroom faculty actively encouraged and sought. Library faculty are responsible for general guidance on the selection of materials, the review of faculty selections, designation of suggested areas needing special emphasis, and the development of a balanced and appropriate collection. Library faculty will each have areas for which they are the identified "selector." Final decisions on materials to be acquired are made by the Coordinator of College Libraries.
Classroom faculty selections are a very important basis for building the College in each curricular area and will be given primary consideration.
Student selection is also encouraged. Any student may request materials to be considered for purchase by submitting a recommendation in the suggestion box or in person to a member of the library staff.
The collection development policy will be reviewed, evaluated, and revised as necessary by the Coordinator in consultation with the professional staff.
Gifts
Materials received as gifts will be evaluated by the same criteria as materials purchased. The Libraries retain the right to dispose of gifts at any time and in a manner deemed appropriate.
Books
Selection Criteria
- Among the criteria to be considered in the purchase of books for the Libraries' collections are:
- Relevance to the curricula
- Relevance to the College's needs
- Authoritativeness
- Literary quality
- Availability of materials on the subject
- Reviews in the professional literature
- Reputation of the author
- Inclusion in recognized bibliographies and indexes, including those of accreditation agencies
- Quality of the publisher
- Price
Allocation of Funds
Funds for the purchase of library materials shall be allocated on the basis of general subject divisions. Such allocations shall be based on support for the College curricula; the need to maintain a balanced collection of materials in all areas of human knowledge; user interest as demonstrated by circulation patterns and library faculty observations; and other special needs as determined by the Coordinator of College Libraries and the library faculty. These allocations shall be viewed as guidelines rather than rigid formulae and will require continuing review and revision to meet changing needs. The percentage of funds allocated to the various subject areas will be determined by the Coordinator of College Libraries in consultation with the library faculty.
Priority of Selection
Priority for purchases is given to those books which meet the curricular needs of the students in the courses offered by the College. After this primary need has been met, consideration is then given to other desirable materials which will give balance to the collection or will meet the special interests or needs of the College community.
Format
In the acquisition of new titles, selection of paper format (hardcover vs. paperback) will be determined based on anticipated frequency of use, duration of usefulness, and price differential. In general, preference will be given to paperback books over hardcover format because of their cost.
Multiple Copies
The Libraries purchase multiple copies of a title only in cases of demonstrable need.
Textbooks
Since it is the primary purpose of the library collection to supplement and augment the College curricula, textbooks adopted for class use will not normally be purchased. Exceptions may be made if the text is considered useful to the general reader or required for the Reserve collection.
Out-of-print Materials
Efforts to obtain materials on the out-of-print market shall be made if it is decided that the materials are of enough importance to justify these efforts.
Replacement
Lost or stolen books will be replaced once they have been determined to be missing at the request of the library faculty member who selects for that subject area.
Discarding
The removal of obsolete materials for the purpose of discarding shall be considered an integral part of the total organized effort to study and develop the collection. Discarding shall be done by the library faculty, with the advice of classroom faculty as necessary. Weeding criteria shall parallel the selection criteria, with age (ten years or more) and frequency of borrowing as additional factors to be considered.
Periodicals
The goal of the periodicals collection is to support and enrich the objectives and curricula of the College with materials of the highest quality.
Selection criteria
The criteria for periodical selection will include:
- Relevance to the curricula
- Relevance to the College's needs
- Applicability of subject content to the community college level
- Searchable through an index, abstract, or bibliography owned by MVCC
- Subscriptions to other titles on the same subject
- Quality, as rated in Magazines for Libraries and other sources
- Usefulness of the title in comparison to others in the field
- Frequency of use
- Price
Other criteria which could be considered are:
- Extent of contribution to general interest and education
- Relevance to specific administrative functions at the College
- Language of publication (All titles should be in English except for a limited number which support foreign language courses)
- Availability of the title at other area colleges
- Frequency of interlibrary loan requests
Exclusions
Titles requested by faculty for research not directly related to teaching, especially those which are highly specialized and of no continuing value to the collection will be discouraged. Titles related to an individual's avocation or personal interest shall not be purchased.
Replacement
The periodicals staff will make every effort to obtain replacement pages and/or a replacement issue. Materials which will be archived on microfilm may not be replaced by paper, depending on the decision of the Serials Librarian.
Discarding
The library faculty under the direction of the Coordinator of College Libraries will regularly undertake a systematic review of the periodical collection, including the category of standing orders, to ensure the present collection meets the standards set forth in this policy. Academic department heads and faculty are part of the process of review and their recommendations will be solicited.
Electronic Resources
Definition
"Electronic resources" shall be understood to refer to categories of materials or services which require computer access, either through a microcomputer or a mainframe. Examples include CD-ROM products, machine- readable datafiles (both local and remote), Internet resources, interactive media, and electronic journals.
Selection Criteria
Among the criteria to be considered in the purchase of electronic resources are:
- Relevance to the curricula
- Relevance to the College's needs
- Accessibility and format
- User-friendliness
- Frequency of updates
- Availability of equipment and memory required to support the product
- Impact of the product on the library system
- Degree of technical support required
- Product reliability
- Price
- Number of simultaneous users allowed
- Campuses' accessibility
Trials
If the library selector desires to evaluate a new electronic product on a trial basis prior to purchase, he or she may request this through the Acquisitions Department.
License Agreements
Copies of all licensing agreements will be maintained by the Library.
Continuations
The ever-changing technologies in the area of electronic resources demand an annual review of the appropriateness of the collection. Each subscription, licensing, and/or agreement will be made for not longer than one year.
Non-print Media
Selection Criteria
The Libraries shall select, make available, and retain video and audiocassettes to meet the curricula-related and general information needs of the students. While striving to complement the Libraries' print collection, non-print media selection will be guided by a general design to provide both educational and feature films representing a wide variety of subjects and genres.
Criteria will include:
- Relevance to the curricula
- Expressive of current events and cultural interests
- Artistic merit
- Relationship to the existing collection and to other materials available on the subject
- Reviews in professional literature
- Reputation of filmmaker
- Documentation of the times
- Price
- Uniqueness of the format to the content
Exclusions
Materials whose appeal is strictly sensational, erotic, scatological, cheap or exploitive or which are ephemeral in nature will not be acquired.Currently, only VHS videocassettes and audiocassettes are included in the collection. Beta and other formats will not be purchased.Video programs which are intended for instructional use in the classroom will not be included in the Libraries' collections. Such requests will be referred to the Instructional Media Center.
Replacement
Non-print media will not automatically be replaced because of loss, theft, or damage. Replacement decisions will be based on factors such as continued demand for the title, existing coverage in the collection, and availability of new or better material on the subject.
Discarding
The library faculty video coordinator will periodically examine all videos. Out-of-date or damaged materials will be removed from the collection.
