Collection Development Policy

Revised 2012
Reviewed & edited 2019, 2024

Overview and Goals

The primary goal of COCC Barber Library's collection development program is to acquire and maintain online and print collections supporting the curriculum and instructional programs of Central Oregon Community College and the needs of students, faculty, and staff of the college. These print and online collections must appeal to community college students, be current, and easy to access and use.

Online and print collections include electronic books, print books, academic websites, electronic and print journals and professional magazines, electronic databases and reference resources, software, DVDs, and streaming video and hybrid formats. Print and online resources are available to COCC and walk-in community users during library hours. COCC students, faculty and staff throughout the COCC service district will have 24-7 access to authoritative, academic content within Barber Library’s collection of electronic books, e-reference items, electronic journal article databases, e-journals, online maps and streaming videos.

Barber Library serves a community of life-long learners with a broad range of interests and prior educational experiences. Therefore, online and print library resources will also include a variety of general information resources in subject areas not covered by classroom instruction, but generally supportive of a learning environment.

Selection of materials by the Library does not imply endorsement of the contents or the views expressed in those materials. No material will be excluded from the collection because of the race, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, political or social viewpoint or controversial nature of either the author or of the material.

Resource Sharing

For those members of the college community whose scholarly or research needs are beyond the scope of the Barber Library collection, librarians will help to identify, locate, and borrow such materials through our consortium Orbis Cascades Alliance, from local area public libraries and via interlibrary loan.

The Library is involved in resource-sharing agreements that expand the range of materials available to the college community, including the Orbis Cascades Alliance, a network of academic libraries in the Pacific Northwest.

The Barber Library collection also serves as a resource for the Central Oregon community, especially in those subjects not covered by area public libraries. Generally, community patrons have access to library e-holdings and periodical holdings within the Library building and can acquire a community patron card to check out print monograph collections.

Intellectual Freedom

In recognition of the responsibilities of librarians and libraries in making materials available to the public, Barber Library supports the following policy statements by the American Library Association and the Educational Film Association:

1. Library Bill of Rights
2. Freedom to Read
3. Intellectual Freedom
4. Freedom to View

Patrons with a complaint about an item in the collection will be referred to the Collection Development & Acquisitions Librarian (Cat Finney, cfinney@cocc.edu) or the Library Director (Tina Hovekamp, thovekamp@cocc.edu), who will ask them to submit their concerns in writing. A committee of librarians and faculty members will review the complaint and the materials in question, and make a recommendation to retain or withdraw the item. The complainant will receive a written response.

Selection Responsibilities

Faculty

Faculty are encouraged to make recommendations in their respective disciplines and to incorporate library materials into course development. Faculty recommendations are required to support the curriculum and instructional programs of COCC and the needs of students, faculty and staff of the College.

Faculty are encouraged to confer with the Collection Development & Acquisitions Librarian and to employ professional discipline-related journals and other review sources in determining their collection recommendations. Electronic CHOICE, other sources, and a library book order form are available at the Library’s Collections page.

COCC’s course and program proposal forms now include a section pertaining to library materials. Faculty and staff planning new courses and new programs are encouraged to contact the Collection Development & Acquisitions Librarian and discuss resources needed to support those programs.

We highly encourage faculty to take full advantage of Orbis Cascades Alliance access to research library catalogs and book delivery for their own research needs. There may be some cases in which advanced material should be ordered from the library book budget to support faculty research.

Librarians

Because the Library staff and faculty can best judge the balance of the total collection and have daily access to current reviewing sources, final decisions concerning acquisitions rests with them.

The Collection Development & Acquisitions Librarian has primary responsibility for collection-related decisions and coordinates the selection process.

All library users are invited to make purchase recommendations to the Collection Development & Acquisitions Librarian.

Library Collections—Key Selection Criteria

The major criteria influencing acquisition decisions are, from the library’s perspective:

1. Relevance to curriculum based needs of students
2. Relevance to instructional needs of the faculty
3. Relevance to existing and new COCC programs
4. Accuracy and objectivity, currency, interest level
5. Academic level primarily appropriate for community college students and/or general readers.
6. Reviews and reputation of the author, publisher, and/or producer
7. Captioned or visually described resources are preferred over non-accessible choices.

In most subject areas, collection development activities will be directed towards “basic level” and “initial study level” as defined by the Resources and Technical Services Division, American Library Association.

Initial Study Level

A collection which is adequate to support undergraduate courses. It includes a judicious selection from currently published basic monographs (as are represented by Choice selections) supported by seminal retrospective monographs (as are represented by Books for College Libraries), a broad selection of works of more important writers, a selection of the most significant works of secondary writers, a selection of the major review journals, and current editions of the most significant reference tools and bibliographies pertaining to the subject.

Basic level

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.

Book Allocations

Curricular areas of the College are represented by Library book/e-book allocations. Allocations are calculated at the discretion of the Collection Development & Acquisitions Librarian. Allocations are based on curricular relevance, program size and student needs, publishing costs within specific disciplines, balance of collection, and general overall collection needs. Faculty and staff planning new courses and new programs are encouraged to contact the Collection Development & Acquisitions Librarian and discuss resources needed to support those programs. The amount of Library capital budget reserved for book allocations may fluctuate depending on periodicals and continuations costs.

Collection Maintenance

Evaluation and de-selection of library electronic and print materials occur regularly in order to maintain a current, authoritative, attractive, accessible collection for student use. Faculty members are encouraged to survey their subject areas and recommend additions to and withdrawals from the collection. Out of date items and seldom-used materials are withdrawn from the collection according to subject and discipline related criteria (including use/circulation statistics) established by the Collection Development & Acquisitions Librarian. Lost and damaged books will be replaced at the discretion of the Collection Development & Acquisitions Librarian.

Policies by Use/Format of Material

Reference resources

Barber Library encourages the purchase of online reference resources; both online and print reference resources are selected according to curricular application, availability, pricing relative to print version, and consortial discounts. Reference allocations and selections are determined by the Collection Development & Acquisitions Librarian. Librarians and department faculty may recommend reference resources for purchase.

Continuations

Continuations are selected and reviewed on an annual basis and are selected by the Collection Development & Acquisitions Librarian. All continuations support programs and courses at COCC.

Electronic Books

Electronic books are purchased as single titles and as collections. E-book purchases must be relevant to COCC curriculum and especially those programs with high student enrollments outside of Bend. E-books will be evaluated based on the key selection criteria listed above. Additional selection criteria include relative pricing (as compared to print formats) and relative ease of use (platforms) and ease of access. In the current e-publishing climate, multiple platforms are unavoidable (and generally not an obstacle to many students) but effort will be made to coordinate e-book package platforms within the Library. Generally, e-books will not duplicate print titles. E-books will be weeded on a regular basis. Use statistics for stand-alone e-book titles and e-book packages informs future purchases.

Subscription Databases

Subscription databases are researched and proposed for purchase by the Collection Development & Acquisitions Librarian. Department faculty and library staff have the opportunity to experiment with and comment on trial versions of most databases under consideration for purchase.

COCC librarians collaborate to make the final decisions on database purchases. Database purchase decisions will be made depending on applicability to COCC programs and curriculum, full-text vs. citation access, review sources, pricing, indexing and searching viability, pricing, trial use statistics and feedback, and consortial purchasing participation and pricing agreements. Databases are renewed depending on continuing relevance to COCC programs and curriculum, price increases, platform and content alterations, and use statistics.

Textbooks

Textbooks may be added to the collection if they are the most appropriate means of representing community college level information in specific fields. At this time, the Library does not purchase print or electronic textbooks required for COCC courses. Faculty and/or departments who wish to help students with access to print textbooks may provide copies for the Library's Course Reserves collection.  

A pilot program (for AYs 23-25) will explore library mediated licensing for e-textbooks using department funding. Please reach out to Cat Finney (cfinney@cocc.edu) for more information. Finally, note that our existing consortial library ebook collections are searchable via the library's catalog and may include e-textbooks.

Paperback/Hardback/E-book Formats

The decision on whether a paperback, hardcover or e-book version of a given title should be purchased will be made depending on the lifespan of the knowledge content being purchased, availability of format, and the access needs of the most likely audience for the item.

Periodicals

Electronic periodicals available in subscription aggregated databases and online collections are our primary access to journal titles. Aside from general news and current events sources, periodical subscriptions must be relevant to COCC programs and courses. Periodical titles (both online and print) are regularly reviewed for curriculum and program relevance, price increases, content changes and use statistics. The number of subscriptions per subject area depends on the size of the program, research needs of students in the program, and costs of subscriptions in that field. Faculty and staff planning new courses and new programs are encouraged to contact the Collection Development & Acquisitions Librarian regarding potential subscriptions. While the library emphasizes electronic collections, it will also retain an active, attractive browsing collection of journals and magazines (current events, leisure, special interest titles and professional magazines related to COCC programs). These titles are usually not held longer than 5 years. For the most part, Barber Library depends on aggregated database holdings (example: EBSCO) and online journal holdings (example: JSTOR) for access to retrospective journal literature.

Gift Periodicals

Barber Library accepts a limited numbers of gift periodical subscriptions. Gift periodical subscriptions must be relevant to COCC programs and courses and, usually, not otherwise available full-text via our electronic journal databases. Donors wishing to provide a gift subscription must indicate the number of years they plan to commit to providing that subscription. Gift subscriptions must be sent directly to Barber Library. The Collection Development & Acquisitions Librarian and/or the Library Director reserve the right to refuse acceptance of any gift subscription.

Gifts of closed runs of print periodicals not currently in our collection—especially those whose final dates are more than two years old—are rarely accepted.

Gifts of runs of periodicals missing significant numbers of issues are rarely accepted, unless they may be used to fill in missing issues to the Library's existing collection.

Foreign language materials

Items written in languages other than English are purchased when they support the language curricula of the college.

Popular works

Barber Library maintains a small collection of contemporary, popular fiction and non-fiction suitable to the reading levels and interests of our student population. Popular works may be purchased in print or online formats, including Kindle editions. Use statistics will be reviewed regularly to determine whether “popular works” is a viable collection development effort.

Video

The Library purchases DVD and streaming video items based on our standard collection development criteria. Many stand-alone video titles are expensive—Barber Library encourages faculty to preview video material before requesting purchase. Expensive video titles should be very closely related to course curriculum (for at least one if not more courses) and actively used in the classroom. DVDs, and streaming video packages and standalone titles are regularly reviewed for curriculum and program relevance, price increases, content changes and use statistics.

Barber Library does not typically secure Public Performance Rights (PPR) with video purchases. However, many distributors of our educational videos include PPR in the purchase price, which means these videos can be shown anywhere to anyone. In this case, the performance rights are included.

In very limited cases, Barber Library will purchase a film/video in cooperation with another department on campus (for example, Student Life), which pays the performance rights. This would be particularly suitable if the video in question has lasting merit for both the library collection and for campus as a publicly screened item. In that case, the video will be placed in the library collection and be identified as having performance rights.

In most cases, COCC departments and clubs will be responsible for securing PPR for a particular performance of a video.

Barber Library patrons are responsible for appropriate copyright use of library video materials. Please see our Copyright Resources Guide for more information.

Gift Books

Gift books are accepted at the discretion of the Collection Development & Acquisitions Librarian. The Library accepts gifts with the understanding that the materials for the Library collection will be evaluated according to the same criteria as items that the Library purchases. The Library will accept gift books with the understanding that such donations become the property of the library; the library reserves the right to dispose of gift books that are not suited to the library collection, because of age, format, topic, physical condition, to other libraries, to book auction organizations, to book sales, or by any other means that for us seems reasonable.

All sales proceeds will be directed towards additional collection development. Any gift book added to our collection will include a gift plate with the donor's name, if the donor can be identified.

Items not Supported by Barber Library Collection Development

Personal books

Library funds will not be spent to buy books for the exclusive use of a single faculty member. Any books which faculty members need to keep continuously in their offices should be purchased from their own personal or department funds.

Reserve books

The Library will not usually purchase books to be placed in our Reserves collection, nor will we typically purchase textbooks used in COCC courses. Faculty and departments are strongly encouraged to support students by providing copies of current print course material to the Library's Course Reserves collection. Department funds may be used for this purpose. Please see the Course Reserves page for additional information.

A pilot program (for AY 23-25) will explore library mediated licensing for e-textbooks using department funding. Please reach out to Cat Finney (cfinney@cocc.edu) for more information.  

Books permanently kept outside the library

In general, this is a small campus and there is little need to set up branch libraries or department libraries. Only in unusual situations at the discretion of the Library Director will the library purchase such titles. The item would have to be for student use and the department involved would have to provide for at least half the funds from its own account for the initial purchase. The department would have the item permanently checked out and would be responsible for the full price of its replacement should it become lost or stolen.

Multiple copies

The library will occasionally purchase multiple copies of a book in response to high use or to support library or campus programs.