Collection Development Policy for Gavilan College Library
1. Purpose and General Guidelines
This collection development policy includes general guidelines for the selection of library materials and criteria for withdrawal of materials from the collection.
The primary collection goal of the Library is to develop and maintain collections that support classroom instruction and the achievement, of course, program and institutional student learning objectives. As a central information resource for the Gavilan College community, the Library provides students, faculty, staff and related community members with books, periodicals and media in paper and electronic formats.
2. Intellectual freedom
Gavilan Library is an academic library committed to the principles of intellectual freedom as articulated in the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights and the Intellectual Freedom Principles for Academic Libraries: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights. (Association of College and Research Libraries, 1999, 2000).
3. Selection agents
Gavilan library faculty strive to maintain overall and currency and balance of the collection based on the needs of the Gavilan learning community. To ensure that library holdings are current, authoritative and adequate for Gavilan’s programs, we encourage faculty to assess the adequacy of library holdings in their interest areas and to make recommendations for additions to the collection. We welcome recommendations from students, staff, and others in the campus community to ensure that the full range of interests and educational needs of the campus community are being met. Recommendations are evaluated using the criteria established in this policy.
4. Specific selection criteria
- a suitable format for library use
- suitable reading level for our users
- relevant to curriculum-based needs of students
- displays excellence (artistic, literary, etc.)
- supports Gavilan’s multi-campus environment by acquiring online editions
- meets budgetary considerations
- meets relevance to instructional needs of the faculty
- meets needs based on condition and age of existing topical collections
- provides appropriate intellectual content and scholarly worth
- current, in-print publications will be chosen over out-of-print
- superior treatment of controversial issues
- stimulates further intellectual and social development
- supports and encourages independent, lifelong learning and intellectual growth
Acquisition tasks include the regular and systematic use of reviews, as well as the use of standard and special bibliographies, publishers’ announcements and catalogs, and other sources of information to identify candidate materials.
5. Depth of Collection and Subject Analysis
The Gavilan Library acquires materials appropriate to the level of instruction at a community college: lower- level undergraduates and two-year vocational programs. Materials appropriate for upper-division undergraduates are generally out of scope for our collection. Most acquisitions will be in English and were identified by studying professional reviewing publications.
6. Reference Collection
The reference collection of print and electronic materials provides basic reference works in subject areas covered by the curriculum, as well as general information requests.
7. Periodicals
The Gavilan Library subscribes to periodicals in print and electronic format. These subscriptions are intended to provide students with a full range of general interest, academic, professional, trade journals and newspapers that fit Gavilan’s educational goals. In determining whether to subscribe to a print publication vs. an online publication, priority will be given to online in most cases due to our communities’ reliance on immediate access anywhere.
8. Special Collections
Library archives include college catalogs, course schedules, sabbatical reports, archives of the faculty senate; agenda and minutes of the governing board and the Associated Students; College publications, flyers, photographs, and ephemera.
9. Audiovisual and Electronic Materials
Non-print media include video cassettes, audio cassettes, compact discs, CD-ROMs, and subscriptions to online media collections. Materials are selected according to all the criteria mentioned about, in addition to the following:
- support classroom instruction
- meets budget parameters
- displays technical quality
- complies with accessibility policies.
10. Materials Donation
The Library welcomes gifts that are consistent with our collection development policy. Because all items added to the collection generate processing and storage costs, gifts are accepted with the understanding that materials not added to the collection will be disposed of in ways most advantageous to the library. In addition to the general criteria listed above, additional factors to be considered in evaluating donations include the physical condition and currency of the information in the donated item.
11. Challenge Policy
The Gavilan Library offers a forum for information and ideas. We offer free and equal access to those ideas and resist censorship in all its forms. Complaints about an item in the collection should be submitted to the Gavilan College Head Librarian.
Objections to a specific item or items in the collection should be presented in writing and include the following information:
- Complainants should identify themselves both by name/address, and by their interest in the material (i.e., as a parent, student, religious leader, etc.)
- The complainant must have read/seen the entire work to which (s)he objects;
- Complaints must be specific about the reasons for the objection and should suggest a work or alternative assignment that addresses the same topic.
- As an academic library committed to the principles of intellectual freedom as articulated in the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights and its documents on Intellectual Freedom Principles for Academic Libraries, decisions about what remains in the collection are to be made by library faculty in a way that is consistent with these principles.
10. Criteria for Deselection
To maintain currency and relevance to the college’s overall educational goals and the research needs of our users, and, as well, to meet limited shelf space requirements, the Gavilan Library routinely evaluates and deselects items in the collection. Criteria for deselection include materials which are factually inaccurate or outdated, and content which is no longer relevant to the academic or personal research needs of the Gavilan community.
11. Copyright & Licensing
The Gavilan Library complies with existing copyright laws and promotes copyright compliance among its users and staff. For online subscription resources, the Library will comply with vendor licensing agreements.
December 15, 2016