LAC Collection Development Budget

THE LIBRARY

PURDUE UNIVERSITY CALUMET

MEMORANDUM

TO:	All Faculty
FROM:	Rebecca House Stankowski
	Assistant Library Director for Technical Services
RE:	Collection development budget : Library materials allocations

The Library's budget for collection development supports the instructional and scholarly information needs of students and faculty.  In this era of ever-expanding electronic access, the onsite collection is increasingly curriculum-focused since there is a universe of information available electronically and through document delivery, including Interlibrary Loan, to support faculty research.

In 2000, the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs convened the Task Force on Library Collections Development and Information Access Policy, which included representation from all schools.  The Task Force developed a plan for identifying information needs, considering options for gaining access to information to fill those needs, and determining priorities for doing so within a budgetary framework.  In developing this plan, the Task Force reviewed alternatives for gaining access to information in all formats, reviewed procedures for budget allocation and reviewed options for collection evaluation and assessment.  The Vice Chancellor accepted and encouraged implementation of the final plan; the report in its entirety may be accessed on the Library's Web site at http://library.calumet.purdue.edu

The Task Force made the following recommendations:

·  That the Library assess the information needs of the Purdue Calumet community on an ongoing basis

·  That the Library adopt a dynamic model for providing access to information that assigns highest priority to materials that will serve the broadest needs and relies on document delivery for specialized resources

·  That any interested party may submit prioritized purchase requests directly to the Library for action.

Your input is essential to building a collection that can best serve the needs of our students.  You are asked and encouraged to submit purchase requests to Library Acquisitions as you have done in the past.  Following the recommendations outlined above, individual selection decisions will follow the model of assessing need and then assigning priority based on that need.   Priority for purchase vs. document delivery will be ranked as follows:

·  General reference use

·  Undergraduate coursework

·  Undergraduate research

·  Graduate coursework

·  Graduate research

·  Faculty course/program development

·  Faculty research

You are encouraged to assign one of the above categories to each of your orders; please mark the appropriate box in the online order form or note it under "Special Instructions" on the order card.

The Task Force also recommended that the collection development funds should be allocated to best meet the needs of all disciplines.  Towards this end, this year the Library is pooling departmental funds into broader groups which are discipline-oriented rather than strictly departmental.  By doing this we hope to accomplish several goals:

·  Facilitate the purchase of big-ticket items that have broad use

·  Allow departments to pool funds to purchase materials of common interest

·  Incorporate flexibility into the selection and purchasing of materials

·  Relieve individual departments the burden of solely funding expensive materials

To begin implementation of this discipline-oriented model, this year the Library will pool funds into four broad categories:  Social Sciences, Humanities,  Sciences and Technology.  To fund these pools, the Library will take the traditional departmental fund allocations and channel them into an appropriate pool.  We will begin with the divisions below and refine them if it seems necessary, but the goal is to keep them broad and as flexible as possible.

 

Social Sciences	Humanities
Behavioral Sciences	Communication & Creative Arts
Education	English & Philosophy
Political Science	Foreign Languages
Management	History

Sciences	Technology
Biology	Construction Technology
Chemistry & Physics	Electrical Engineering Technology
Mathematical Sciences	Engineering
Nursing	ISCP
	METS

The Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs has convened a Collection Development and Information Access Advisory Committee, a broadly representational group which reviews assessment data and fund allocations and advise on collection development.  If you have any comments or suggestions about  the implementation of these new collection development procedures, please do not hesitate to contact the Library or one of the members of the Advisory Committee.

Book order requests can be submitted via the electronic ordering form on the Library's Web site under Electronic Library Services ( http://library2.calumet.purdue.edu/purchase.htm ) or sent in writing on order cards to Library Acquisitions, SFLC-348.  Please indicate on either the form or card, under "Special Instructions," the priority ranking and any other special information.  Feel free to contact us regarding the current status of individual book order requests or other related matters at Ext. 2430.

We look forward to working in partnership with you in this vital area of educational support.