Developing and Managing the Brown University Library Collections

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Developing and Managing the Brown University Library Collections

Mission and General Goals

The Brown University Library, in support of the University's educational and research mission, is the local repository for and the principal gateway to current information and the scholarly record. As such, it is simultaneously collection, connection, and classroom, primarily for the current and future students and faculty of the University, while also serving other colleagues in the University community and our regional, national, and global communities of learning and scholarship

In support of this mission, the Library acquires information resources in a variety of formats: e.g., books, journals, newspapers, CD-ROM's, video and audio tapes, digital files. We also acquire access to information, through direct licensing from authorized providers, establishing connections to free resources, or making consortial or exchange agreements with publishers, libraries, or other organizations. This document will refer to all of these resources as the Library's collections, whether they are owned, leased, or borrowed, and whether or not they reside physically in the Library.

The Library selects resources for its collections primarily in support of the current and anticipated curriculum of the University, and secondarily in support of the current and anticipated individual research needs of our faculty and students. Beyond these goals, we seek to maintain the vitality of particular collections of notable strength in relation to other regional, national, or international collections.

In additional to collecting these resources, the Library is called to promote their use among the Brown community and outside of it, through cataloging the collections as well as more focused outreach to potential users. We are also charged with the ongoing maintenance and preservation of those resources that may be of long-term usefulness for our selected fields of research.

Selection Criteria: General

Since the Library, like its counterparts at other universities, does not have sufficient resources to acquire everything published in areas pertinent to the University's programs, library materials selectors employ the following general criteria when evaluating titles to be added or removed from the collections. Particular criteria assume greater or lesser importance depending on the type of material under consideration, the resources available, the stated acquisitions commitment level as detailed elsewhere in this policy statement and the subject matter covered.

Relevance to the actual or potential needs of Brownâs educational and research programs
Library materials selectors maintain close ties with the departments, institutes, and research programs, which comprise the primary user group for a particular subject or area. Additionally, they keep, for resource development purposes, records of research activities, grants received, and the curriculum for their areas. This information permits selectors to anticipate and provide for current and changing needs of Brownâs faculty and students.

Scope and content
Selectors must gauge each acquisition in terms of the breadth and depth of information needed by their primary user groups and quality of the research being presented. Overall, however, library materials selectors comprehensively collect important general monographs related to the research interests of the Brown community, and selectively acquire more specialized treatments. Similarly, for periodicals, preference is given to titles whose coverage is of sufficient breadth to be of use and interest to an entire department, while those of interest to a small number of individuals, are collected selectively.

Depth of the existing collection in the subject and local availability of the item
When considering the purchase of a new title, a selector must also consider the strengths and weaknesses of the existing collection in which the new title will be located. While we do generally build upon strengths, unneeded redundancy is avoided. We do purchase duplicates where high use is expected. Availability of expensive or tangential titles through consortial arrangements is also considered and an access instead of ownership option may be considered.

Quality
The quality of a title must be evaluated weighing several subjective factors collectively, i.e., its sponsorship; scholarship; level of creativity; lasting value; the reputation of the author, the publisher, the contributors, the editorial board; the quality and importance of the illustrations; bibliographies included, etc. None of these is the deciding factor alone but each are considered as they contribute to or detract from the overall quality of the item under consideration.

Currency and timeliness
Many disciplines, particularly in the sciences, require up-to-date information. In those areas, preference is given to titles which report new and revised information in a timely fashion.

Bibliographic accessibility
The contents of periodicals, particularly, require bibliographic indexing and abstracting (I/A) tools to insure sufficient user access. Inclusion or exclusion from the major I/A tools is one of characteristic employed by selectors when evaluating the subscription to a periodical magazine or journal.

Price
The value of a book, periodical, newspaper, etc. to the collection cannot be measured only by considering its price. The price, however, in addition to the other criteria mentioned here, has to be considered when evaluating a purchase. When evaluating "free" materials, the cost of acquisitions processing, cataloging, shelving, and preservation must also be considered.

Language and country of origin
The language of the primary and secondary users of each title under consideration must be considered. The Libraries do collect social science and humanities materials in most languages to support its extensive area studies programs.

Selection Criteria: Specific Formats

a. Serials
Serials represent a long-term, continuing commitment of library funds for subscription costs, processing, and housing. Because the selection of periodicals and serial publications exerts an important influence on the shape of the Library's collections (and a major impact on the Library's budget), it is essential that each title be reviewed in relation to the guidelines below.
Priority is given to titles that are directly relevant to the curriculum, to the research needs of students and to faculty course preparation. Specialized titles intended primarily for individual faculty research will be purchased on a highly selective basis and must meet other criteria cited below.
Titles selected are appropriate to the level of study, based on the prospective audience and use.
Periodicals are evaluated within the context of existing library resources and projected library support for the purchase of other subject-related materials.
Titles that overlap with existing collection resources will be reviewed in terms of the unique contribution they make to the subject area.
In new program or collection areas, available resources are evaluated to ensure that an appropriate balance between periodical and monographic expenditures is possible and sustainable.
Titles of an interdisciplinary nature are considered both in terms of the support they provide to the requesting department as well as the potential relevance to course offerings and student research within other departments.
Preference is given to those titles indexed in printed or electronic sources that are available in the library.
Availability through the Boston Library Consortium, through other local collections, or through full-text electronic retrieval is balanced against the need for on-site access. Subscription cost is a particularly relevant factor in this aspect of the title's evaluation.

See:
Periodicals at Brown University Library.
"Science Library sees red over rising journal prices
(George St. Journal, March 1-16, 2000)
b. Newspapers
Newspaper subscriptions are carried by the University Libraries in order to support teaching and research, to provide sources of national and international news and general intellectual and cultural awareness for faculty and students.
Major non-United States newspapers are collected in direct support of teaching and research, and to provide some limited coverage of major regions of the world. Brown currently subscribes to more than 70 U.S. and foreign newspapers. Specialized newspapers are considered on a title-by-title basis. Newspapers of permanent research value at Brown University are collected in microform; paper copies of others are acquired only for current awareness purposes.
See Periodicals at Brown University Library
c. Electronic Resources
Selection of electronic information for the collection, as with other formats, must support the teaching and research needs of the university community.
For the purposes of this policy, the library considers electronic resources equivalent to print materials as long as the policies and procedures for their use permit at least an equivalent information-gathering experience.
Materials in electronic format are considered for purchase on the basis of their merit in the context of the collection development policy for the particular subject. There should be demonstrated demand or a potential audience for the resource. Since materials in electronic format are frequently more expensive than print equivalents, selectors need to determine that some value will be added by the electronic, as opposed to traditional, format. Selectors should recommend the format which best serves the instructional and research needs of the subject. If the item is an electronic version of a resource in another format, it should contain or cover the equivalent information to the extent appropriate and desirable.
Consideration should be given to the equipment required to support electronic products. The selector should determine if hardware for the requested item is already in place or if hardware would need to be purchased. Additionally, the selector should determine if software can be purchased separately, or if the product is sold only as a package which includes hardware.
An effort should be made to assess the impact of the tool on Public Services operations. The selector should be prepared to indicate the intended location of the product and whether the purchase would require the cooperation of the other Brown University departments.
d. Internet Resources
See Guidelines for Selection of No-Fee Web Resources for Cataloging in Josiah
e. Maps
The Libraries selectively collect maps through the U.S. federal government depository program, purchases, exchanges, and gifts. Included within the map category are globes, aerial photographs, wall maps, and three-dimensional maps. Atlases, that is bound collections of maps and other information, are selected under the guidelines of monographs.

Collecting Levels

Comprehensive. A collection in which a library endeavors, so far as is reasonably possible, to include all significant works of recorded knowledge (publications, manuscripts, and other formats), in all applicable languages, for a necessarily defined and limited field. This level of collecting intensity is that which maintains a "special collection", the aim, if not the achievement, is exhaustiveness.
Research. A collection which includes the major source materials required for dissertations and independent research, including materials containing research reporting, new findings, scientific experimental results, and other information useful to researchers. It also includes all important reference works and a wide selection of specialized monographs, as well as a very extensive collection of journals and major indexing and abstracting services in this field.
Study. A collection which is adequate to support undergraduate or graduate course work, or sustained independent study; that is, which is adequate to maintain knowledge of a subject required for limited or generalized purposes, of less than research intensity. It includes a wide range of basic monographs, complete collections of the works of more important writers, selections from the works of secondary writers, a selection of representative journals, and important reference tools and fundamental bibliographic apparatus pertaining to the subject.
Basic. A highly selective collection which serves to introduce and define the subject and to indicate the varieties of information available elsewhere. It includes major dictionaries and encyclopedias, selected editions of important works, historical surveys, important bibliographies, and a few major periodicals in the field.
Minimal. A subject area which is out of the scope of the library's collections, and in which few selections are made beyond the very basic reference tools.

Fund Allocation

The materials budget is split into three major categories: serials, approvals, and firm orders. To these we might add a fourth - sets - but in the final reporting this category appears among the firm orders.

The serials budget is allocated first, because it is used to pay for ongoing subscriptions. We know about what these will cost, based upon last year's expenditures and predicted inflation rates. These are commitments we have already made before the year begins, and are easily apportioned among the various disciplines.
The approval budget is also somewhat predictable, and an ongoing commitment. We know the approval books from Yankee Book Peddler (YBP) will continue to arrive through the end of the fiscal year, and we must be sure we still have the funds to pay for them at the end of the year. These, too, are generally apportioned among the disciplines based to a great extent upon past expenditures.
Firm orders refer to orders made outside of serials, standing orders, sets, and approvals. They are orders for known, specific, items, from specific dealers. Since most of the U.S. production comes through YBP, the items that we firm order are either foreign or older materials.
Sets are standing orders for both multi-volume works (dictionaries, collected papers, etc.) and monographic series. Many of these volumes are not produced on any regular schedule, making it difficult to predict what the expenditures will be for a particular set (or even all the sets in a discipline) in a given year. However, since the collective expenditure for sets tends to be about the same each year, we are able to budget for these. Again, because these are ongoing commitments, the funds must be allocated to be sure we can still pay for items corning in at the end of the year. This is why sets expenditures are tracked separately, but still counted as firm order expenditures at the end of the year.

Fiscal and programmatic funds.
The money for information resources actually resides in numerous funds, the largest of which is the general annual allocation from the University. This fund is unrestricted. Most other funds, including endowments and cash funds, are restricted to purchasing certain kinds of material or particular subjects. The allocations we make to support the various academic programs are, in effect, another layer placed over these existing funds, which we will call fiscal funds. The Acquisitions Department tries, through the year, to fit the fiscal funds (restricted and unrestricted) to our theoretical programmatic allocation. The programmatic allocation, then, is flexible, and should not be viewed as concrete. Under-expenditures in one discipline may well be offset by over-expenditures in another, without any formal reallocation of funds.

The programmatic allocations have generally been made according to historical precedent. That is, they are based largely upon past expenditures, with some adjustments made to accommodate changes in publishing and in program needs. It is expected that changes, adjustments, and overlaps in fund allocations for programmatic areas will be dealt with more efficiently in the context of the recently established broad Discipline Groups - History & Area Studies, Humanities, Science & Medicine, and Social Sciences.

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