The purpose of this policy is to provide a framework for decision making by the professionals of Hamilton Library. We propose this document will identify and describe collecting priorities. The policy should encourage thinking and criticism about selection. This guide, if followed, will eliminate any selection bias on the part of the selector. The policy should be used as a training tool for new staff learning selecting responsibilities. The policy should serve as a buffer and rebuttal to patron complaints and attempted censorship. Additionally the policy should serve as a guide for deselection and weeding. Finally this document can serve as an informative public relations tool for communicating the purpose of the collection, and used as an evaluation mechanism against Hamilton Library failing to meet our prescribed standards.
Patron are adult persons who may have physical disabilities, teaching faculty, researchers, staff, undergraduate students, graduate students, and post graduate students.
There are currently 70,307 students enrolled at the Manoa campus of University of Hawaii. During this fall semester of 1996, 863 students were enrolled in American Studies classes. There were 54 courses offered by the American Studies department. During the Fall semester of 1996, there are 124 students whom are American Studies majors. 41 students are undergraduate majors, and 83 of them are classified graduate students.
The primary purpose of the University is to provide an environment in which faculty and students can discover, examine critically, preserve and transmit the knowledge, wisdom and values that will help ensure the survival of the present and future generations with improvement in the quality of life.
The University of Hawaii's Hamilton Library's mission is to provide complete coverage in differing formats of all subjects. The library will buy a wide variety of materials to meet the needs of our diverse clientele. Our goal is to achieve a balanced and full collection. The library will not censor materials on the basis of the author's or subject's race, gender, creed, nationality, religion, economic background, political party, social affiliations, beliefs or opinions.
If a patron finds fault with an item in the collection, they will be directed to the library administration office, and shall be given a complaint form. Once the form has been completed and returned to the administration office, the item will be examined by the library director and the library board within 30 days. The author of the complaint will them be notified by mail of the library's position and/or response.
It is important for Hamilton Library to reiterate in this intellectual freedon policy the Intellectual Freedom Statement composed by the American Library Association. The statement was published by ALA in 1994. The text is as follows:
Library Bill of RightsThe American Library Association affirms that all libraries are forums for information and ideas, and that the following basic policies should guide their services.
1. Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin , background, or views of those contributing to their creation.
2. Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.
3. Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.
4. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.
5. A person's right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.
6. Libraries which make exhibit spaces and meeting rooms available to the public they serve should make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use.
Copyright is a legal right of intellectual property granted to authors of original works that are fixed in a tangible medium of expression. Copyright is not for ideas; but for fixation of an idea. A work may not be copied from another work.
From 17 U.S.C. 102 (a) copyright act "Works of authorship include the following categories: literary works; musical works including any accompanying words; dramatic works including any accompanying music; pantomimes and choreographic works; pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works; motion picture and other audio visual works; sound recordings; and architectural works." The duration of copyright is the life of the author plus fifty years.
A work is in the public domain is not protected by copyright. This happens when the original copyright has expired or the work was produced by the U.S. government the copyright has been forfeited or abandoned.
Section 106, the fair use clause in the copyright act states: "The fair use of a copyrighted work...for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright." In regards to ILL; It is within the law for a not-for-profit library to borrow no more than five articles from any given journal.
It is the intention of Hamilton Library to observe, respect and follow copyright law.
The University of Hawaii moved to its current location in 1912. The college of Arts and Sciences was added to the curriculum in 1920 and hence the history of the University of Hawaii and Hamilton Library as it is today.
Currently there are more than 2.6 million volumes in the University of Hawaii Manoa library, including more than 38,000 currently received serial and periodical titles. This library is approximately the 44th largest library in the United States. The online public access catalog allows users to access external databases, national indexes, the Internet, and other library catalogs through out the country.
The broad subjects which are emphasized are Hawaiiana, the Pacific nations, and Asia. The general collections, humanities, social science, literature, sciences, medicine are housed on the second and third floors. The basement houses the depository Government Documents collection. The fourth floor houses the Asia and East Asia collections. The fifth floor houses the Hawaiian collection, the Pacific collection, the rare book vault, and the Charlot collection.
Ultimately the library director John Haak MLIS has the responsibility of collection development. Because of the vast amount of material published, it is necessary for multiple individuals to select materials on a subject and format basis. Subjects and disciplines are so extensive that faculty my be enlisted to counsel on selection decisions. Patron of the library may also have requested items investigated for their possible inclusion in the collection. Currently, public services librarians divide selection responsibilities by subject/discipline. Sheri Gusukuma MLIS selects materials for American Studies and American Popular Culture with counsel from Dr. Paul Hooper Chairman of American Studies. Other subject and language selectors will be omitted for the sake of this single subject oriented policy.
Materials are selected by individual librarians based on their professional experience and academic training, Hamilton Library does not feel that it is in its best interests to out-source selection to a book jobber. Book jobber services are limited to acquisitions. Librarians select both new and retrospective items. Linda Engleberg MLIS is specifically responsible for selecting visual materials primarily video tape format (VHS). Gregg Geary MLIS is specifically responsible for selecting audio, music, CDs, phonographs, and cassette materials for the library.
Selecting librarians are asked to choose items from published subject bibliographies; selection aids; standard lists and catalogs from various publishers; those items favorably reviewed; those items depicting various points of view; those items chosen for content is courses offered through the University of Hawaii system; items with a classical literary value; items with a contemporary reflection, items with a social value; items with an aesthetic value; items appropriate for research; and those items thought to be of value and which will contribute to Hamilton library's existing collection.
The library is a non-profit organization which uses fund accounting. It is the administration's responsibility to inform selection librarians of the exact amount of funds available for them to work with. Moneys dedicated for expenditure on collection items come from the government for the purpose of carrying out the specific role of selecting appropriate materials for Hamilton Library. The operating fund is allocated for one fiscal year. This year begins the first of July and ends the 30th of June.
From the government the funds appear unrestricted. The administration of Hamilton library in cooperation with selectors, allocate funds according to a ratio of students to subject major, and average cost of publication for a specified discipline. This provides guidelines for selectors. It is feasible for selectors to dedicate funds for another discipline or format if needed by another selector. The overall practice is to match funds with needs. fund allocation should predict that a selector should spend a majority of time on subjects which are given higher allocations and less time on given subjects with less allocated moneys.
Hamilton Library intends no offense toward any individual, program or department with budgetary allocations. Hamilton Library is a fair as possible; however we predict that not everyone will have their desired purchases realized every year. Our intention is to divide resources equally and share the wealth between all disciplines. Again, our intention is to match funds with needs.
Hamilton Library will preserve an item it deems valuable enough to expend preservation funds. It is in the professional opinion of the subject selector to determine how valuable the damaged item is; to answer the question, could the item be replaced for less cost than preserved?, and decide if preservation is the best choice. If preservation is not a wise option the librarian may choose to photocopy the item and discard the damaged original.
The library's climate controls are dictated by the preservation department. This is for the over all well being of the materials. Paper is delicate and needs a specific temperature, humidity and lighting level for its continued survival.
It is the responsibility of the selector to determine if a lost or stolen item shall be replaced. The selector shall use circulation statistics, or estimated frequency of referral if the item is a reference book, currency, and possible overlap in other materials when making a replacement decision. Funding for replacement items is allocated by the lost-damaged-stolen fund which is pooled for the entire library.
Materials shall be deselected by collection development and reference librarians. Reasoning for deselection is any one of the following: time sensitive outdated materials, physical condition, insect infestation, missing elements, updated editions, or other relevant criteria. Every five years the library staff shall collectively deselect materials for shelf space conservation. The same criteria for this five year policy may be implemented at other times for the sake of space conservation, relevance to collection, currency, and by profession consideration of the attending librarian. Deselected materials shall be discarded appropriately.
Duplicate copies are not purchased. There may be exceptions if rational is agreed upon by a group decision of reference librarians, faculty, and collection development librarians via semesterly meetings.
Hamilton Library shall maintain open access to a majority of all items. Hamilton Library does reserve the right to house rare, or commonly vandalized or destroyed items in closed stacks. Items in closed stacks may circulate, however they must be paged by circulation staff. No serial publications will circulate from the library. All undergraduate students shall have borrowing privileges for 30 days, and additional time through appropriate renewal. Graduate students may have borrowing privileges for a semester, and faculty for a year. The exception to this rules is in the case of audio/visual materials. Audio/visual materials may be borrowed for up to 4 days with possible renewals for no more than 4 days long.
Hamilton Library is a member of the Association of Research Libraries and is a conspectus member online with RLIN. Hamilton is responsible for three primary subject areas for Conspectus collectiong. These are Asia (4), Hawaii (5), and the Pacific (5). We will continually be maintaining our level 4-5 collections, the above named subjects, and we will continually improve the high level 3 collections in regards to science, humanities and social sciences, arts, and languages.
It is the intention of Hamilton library by holding fast cooperative efforts via ARL and RLIN to eliminate the duplication of lower level sources, redundant preservation, and exploit the use of ILL services for items impossible for Hamilton to collect. The Conspectus is not an admission of guilt or weakness. It is a collective way for libraries to exercise the solutions to information storage problems with a positive outcome. Conspectus evaluation templates are available through the library administration office.
Equipment and/or machines for the utilization of library materials shall be purchased by the appropriate department. The serials department shall be responsible for purchasing, maintaining, and scheduling service on microform readers. Microfiche and microfilm readers and printers shall be used rather than solely microform readers because users have stated that there is a higher desire to print than to merely view material. The serials department shall have no less than nine dual film/fiche printers available for usage.
The audio/visual center shall purchase and maintain equipment and/or machines for the usage of audio cassettes, video cassette players for VHS, CD players for compact discs, phonographic record players for recordings on vinyl, and all equipment shall have headphones for users to enable multiple use and to keep the areas silent.
The systems office shall purchase, maintain, and secure appropriate hardware and CD-ROM drives for the use of CD-ROM databases, and online databases. None of the above mentioned machinery shall leave Hamilton Library, it will all be shared by first-come-first- served or on a reserved basis.
Hamilton library's American popular culture collection will welcome collecting all formats including: Audio recordings, archival materials, CD-ROMs, films, government documents, Internet sources (online), manuscripts, maps, microforms, monographs, musical scores, newspapers, pamphlets, pictures, serials, slides, software, and video/VHS formats.
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