Collection Development Policy

The Albert B. Alkek Library and its resources exist to support the instruction and research needs of Texas State University, its faculty, students, administrators and staff. Accrediting bodies of the university’s academic departments require library support for all courses offered by Texas State University, including distance learning and courses offered at our satellite campus (RRC).

The main purpose of the Collection Development Policy is to establish guidelines for the planned development of a balanced, quality collection of materials as guided by the missions of the university and the library.

The policy intends to provide general guidelines for selecting and maintaining materials for the collection. The goals are to ensure consistency among those who have responsibility for developing the collection and to provide a tool for evaluating and improving collections for all relevant subject disciplines.

The policy statement is intended to be flexible enough to respond to long- and short-range objectives of the institution, and changes in the library operation and the publishing industry. Periodic review of this policy will ensure that it reflects any important changes to academic programs.

The primary responsibility for the selection of library material is by the Collections Team. 

Faculty and librarians assigned to specific colleges are responsible for contributing recommendations for library acquisitions to support course requirements, students’ research needs, their own research needs, as well as communicating these needs to the Collections Team.

Students, staff, and other members of university community may also submit collection development requests.

The Collections Team is responsible for analyzing the collection and maintaining a balanced and up-to-date collection. The team uses usage and turnaway data, ILL reports, citation analyses, professional reviewing tools, as well as professional expertise to make selections.

Within the context of this policy, “collection development” is understood to encompass the selection of both materials the library purchases to physically house in the library and leased or owned electronic resources to which the Library provides access.

Institutional goals, relevancy to the research and curriculum needs, quality of content and fulfillment of academic need are the primary factors taken into consideration when selecting materials.

The library is committed to intellectual freedom as expressed by the American Library Association in their Library Bill of Rights and Freedom to Read statements. In particular, we quote from Article II of the Library Bill of Rights: “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.”

Specific considerations in choosing individual items may include some or all of the following criteria:

• value or use of the content to the collection or university community
• literary merit
• strength of present holdings in subject area
• appropriateness of level of treatment
• demand or projected use
• uniqueness of subject coverage
• cost (one-time and ongoing)
• authoritativeness
• reviews in subject-specific or standard library reviewing sources
• currency of the resource’s information, if necessary for subject matter
• adequacy of existing access methods
• availability of indexing (journals)
• consortial arrangements

Disciplines may have other considerations and specific collection focus. Find out more about discipline-specific policies.

Materials may be available in more than one format (e.g. print, microform, electronic, audio, etc.). The library actively collects material in the most efficient and effective format appropriate for the dissemination of the subject content. Faculty are encouraged to consider formats appropriate to university course requirements and their research needs.

Factors taken into consideration in deciding the format include but are not limited to:

• cost-effectiveness
• anticipated use
• requestor’s / department’s preference
• ease of use/access
• permanence of access
• stability of format
• library support for format (equipment, hardware, software)
• frequency of updating
• quality of color, illustrations, tables
• support of remote and Round Rock Campus users
• licensing options and requirements (no unacceptable provisions)
• authentication options for electronic titles (IP access preferred)

The library may automatically switch format if the original format becomes unavailable, for example if the publisher decides to switch from print to electronic only format.

In general, the Library will acquire any given information source in one format. The library may duplicate formats when:

• One format is unstable or doesn’t provide adequate coverage
• A second format is free or low cost
• Multiple formats meet different needs of user groups

Collecting levels are intended primarily for the uniform evaluation of collections in libraries. They form a meaningful set of descriptors to use in the Collection Development Policy of the library.

These levels are used in each academic discipline, according to the discipline’s needs. The needs are based on degreed programs and levels, course offerings, and consultations with academic department library faculty representatives. These factors define the extent of the Library's collection within those areas.

The collecting levels are defined as follows:

   0- Out of Scope - Library does not intentionally collect materials, in any format.

   1-  Occasional or general interest – Popular or topical reading material may be collected.

   2 - Instructional – Library related material required for all course offerings at TxState  is actively pursued.

   3-  Research – Material unique to the requirements of academic research is actively pursued.

   4-  Exhaustive – Material for a doctoral program or a research collection unique to TxState is collected to the fullest degree possible.

Material collected is primarily in the English language. Foreign language material is collected when necessary, as a source of study or research within a discipline.