Uta Hussong
LIS615-Spring 2004
Collection Development Policy: Critique
Based on my background and interest in environmental science, I chose to critique two environmental science collection policies by comparing and contrasting the two and by comparing their component elements with the recommended elements noted in Evans’ text (Evans, 2000). These elements are as follows: overview, details of subject areas and formats collected, and miscellaneous issues (gifts, deselections/discards, evaluation, complaints/discards, and electronic resources.) Both of the policies I am critiquing are for collections housed within larger university libraries although one policy, Scott Library (Bodak, 1994), is much more stand-alone than the other, Davidson Library (Martorana, 2000). Davidson Library at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) in Santa Barbara, California holds about 2.6 million total volumes, but I was not able to readily ascertain this information for the Scott Library at York University (York) in Toronto, Canada. I am guesstimating that Scott Library may be similar in size as the Environmental Studies collection policy boasts that York University’s Environmental Studies department “offers the largest graduate programme of its kind in Canada.” As a result, I am assuming that the library is not tiny.
The first item of note for both of the collections policies is that they contain no description of the service community. At first I thought that this might be an item addressed in the larger and presumably more comprehensive parent library collections policies. However, this is not the case. As I thought about this, I realized that while the composition of the community surrounding the university may change, the university’s slate of programs would most likely remain fairly stable. And the composition of the library collection and collections efforts of the library staff will most likely follow suit. This section of the policy seems much more important for a school library or public library which is responding directly to the needs of a changing community rather than to a fairly stable institution.
Both policies contain language that identifies the service clientele directly or indirectly as the students and faculty in degree programs ranging from undergraduate to the doctoral level although York provides much more detail. Neither policy deals with non-affiliated user use. In both cases, this issue is addressed in a separate parent library policy. Both policies state that the collection purpose is to support instruction and research, which is to be expected. But neither policy details to what degree research is supported over instruction or vice versa.
Both policies address the parameters of the collection by detailing the main areas in which collection activities are occurring. They note that environmental science is a multidisciplinary field and that other collections within the library as well as other special libraries on campus or in the surrounding community will contain materials of interest. Again, the York policy is much more comprehensive and explicitly states that material found in the Environmental Studies collection will rarely be duplicated in the other associated collections or libraries (with one noted exception). English-language materials and current materials (UCSB specifically sets a 5-6 year old limit) are noted to be of primary importance, although both note that foreign-language materials will be obtained if requested. While neither policy discusses cooperative arrangements (nor do the parent policies), the UCSB policy explicitly states that ILL is heavily used, especially for the acquisition of older materials.
Both policies address the types of formats that are actively collected. And UCSB also has a statement to indicate the formats that they do not typically collect.
The two policies differ drastically in their treatment of levels of collecting. Although the UCSB policy details in the overview section that its main collection priorities are focused on the faculty research areas and notes these areas, this is the extent to which it provides collection details. There is no further information provided as to the current level of collecting or to the desired level of collection. This may possibly be inferred from the first sentence of the collection document, which states that the goal is a research level collection. However, research level collection is not defined, by conspectus standards or otherwise, at this point or any other in the document. And there appears to be no parent policy that puts forth or defines levels of collection.
In sharp contrast, the York policy details each subject field (by name only) and provides not only the current level of collection but the desired level of collection, as well. While the definitions of the various collection levels are not contained within the policy, they are easily retrieved by a hotlink embedded at the beginning of this section of the policy. This hot linked document provides a detailed definition for each collection level and references the authoritative bodies upon which the definitions are based.
The main criticism of the collection details section of the York policy has to do with the document as a whole; it has not been updated since 1994. And if collection activities have been ongoing, surely some additional areas have reached the “desired” collection level ranking. But the reader of the policy has no way of telling in what state the collection is currently.
It is quite easy to summarize how the UCSB policy addresses collection development concerns such as gifts, deselection/discards, collection evaluation, and complaints or censorship issues – it doesn’t. There is however a gift policy as part of the parent library policies, so this issue is not completely ignored. However, the other items noted above do not seem to be addressed even by the parent library.
In the York policy, only two of the issues listed above are mentioned, gifts and deselection/discard, and then only with one sentence each. As with UCSB, there is a detailed gift policy as part of the parent library policies. And again, the York parent policies do not contain statements addressing the rest of the issues of concern.
While it may be possible that complaints and censorship are not really items of great concern is an academic library and therefore these issues are not widely addressed in academic collections policies, deselection/discards and evaluation would seem to be very important issues given the large size of academic collections and the ever-present concerns regarding storage space. So it is a bit surprising to find these issues not addressed at all, or very briefly, in the two policies under scrutiny.
Based on the two policies critiqued, real-world treatment of collection development issues (or at least the documented treatment) falls far short of the goals that Evans lays forth. There may be many reasons for this including lack of time necessary to develop totally comprehensive policies, decisions to not include issues deemed of minor importance to a given collection/library, or simply lack of awareness of the importance and potential usefulness of documenting previously unwritten policies. Whatever the case, current and future collection development professionals need to address existing document deficiencies.
Bodak, Trudy, “Environmental Studies,” York University Libraries [home page online]; available from http://www.info.library.yorku/policies/colldev/est.htm; Internet; accessed 25 February 2004.
Evans, G. Edward, “Collection Development Policies,” in Developing Library and Information Center Collections (Greenwood Village, Colorado: Libraries Unlimited, 2000), 69-90.
Martorana, Janet, “Environmental Sciences Collection Development Policy,” UCSB Libraries [home page online]; available from http://www.library.ucsb.edu/policies/collections/envi-cd.html; Internet; accessed 25 February 2004.