UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON
COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT AND MANAGEMENT POLICY

Goals and Priorities:

The continued maintenance of quality library collections and the development of electronic information resources are the primary goals of the UW-Madison libraries’ mission to support teaching and research.

Principles of Collection Development and Management:

Access and Ownership: It is inappropriate to expect libraries to acquire and maintain all information resources. Collaborative agreements among institutions to develop and share collection resources are essential to ensure broad access to necessary scholarly resources.

Intellectual Freedom and Censorship: In selecting materials, librarians consider appropriate for inclusion all information that is needed to support the educational mission of the University and do not exclude sources on the basis of their origin, affiliation of the author(s), intellectual level, or view on current or historical issues.

Campuswide Coordination: To assure the prudent allocation and expenditure of monies for collections and other information resources, campus libraries are viewed as a coordinated whole rather than as individual or autonomous entities developing collections without regard for need or duplication.

Collection Scope:

The UW-Madison librarians continue to acquire nearly all known formats of information, including print resources, microformats, media, digital resources, software, and realia. Ideally, information resources will be acquired for the University community at a level that meets the functional needs of each discipline. Yet the manner in which these needs are met will vary due to differences in the types and intensity of information required by individuals and by various disciplines. The finite nature of budgets will restrict the institution's ability to fulfill all information needs, and institutional program priorities will also suggest priorities for developing collection resources.

Criteria for Acquiring and Licensing:

Strategies for Acquiring and Licensing:

Although unprecedented increases in publishers’ prices have occasioned annual serial cancellation projects, long-established collection development and management strategies remain firmly in place to assure that locally owned collections and access to other information resources meet faculty and student needs and expectations.

Collection Preservation:

In order to maintain the University's collections for future use, the libraries' preservation programs routinely address issues of repair, replacement, and reformatting in accordance with recognized standards, priorities of consortial programs and participation in CIC NEH preservation grants.

Collection Retention and Disposition:

Materials are periodically withdrawn from campus libraries in order to maintain the integrity of collections and effective use of resources (e.g., superseded, deteriorating, or duplicated items or resources available from another source).

Collection Development Librarians:

The UW-Madison libraries divide responsibilities for building and managing collections among a number of librarians, most with advanced academic degrees, each of whom is responsible for one or more subject areas. These librarians, or selectors, determine which books, periodicals, electronic information, and other resources should be acquired or licensed by the libraries. Selectors’ decisions are made on the basis of their knowledge of current curriculum needs, faculty research interests, research and publication trends in the relevant subject areas, and the strengths and weaknesses of the collections and other information resources already provided by the libraries. Communication between the selectors and the faculty is essential in developing library resources, which both meet current needs and anticipate near- and long-term modifications in teaching and research programs.

L. Pitschmann, January 1999