Purpose
This policy describes general guidelines for collection development and management by librarians and library staff at University Library (referred to as University Library or the Library) at Indiana University Indianapolis. The Library serves students, faculty, and staff at IU Indianapolis, and supports the academic programs at that institution in their research, teaching and learning. The Library is also open to the public and lends from its general collections to Indiana residents with a borrowing card and to other libraries in the state, nation, and world through interlibrary loan. This policy is maintained by the Library’s Collections Working Group (CWG).
Scope
This policy applies to collection decisions under the purview of University Library at Indiana University Indianapolis, which includes the Ruth Lilly Special Collections & Archives, the Joseph and Matthew Payton Philanthropic Studies Library and the Herron Art Library. University Library operates separately from the professional school libraries (Dentistry, Law, and Medicine) and the University Library of Columbus and bears no responsibility or oversight for their collections. University Library provides access for use of electronic resources to IU Fort Wayne students and faculty, and access to physical resources and limited (walk-in) access to electronic resources to Purdue University Indianapolis students but does not bear responsibility to collections purchased outside of the Library.
Guiding Principles
Our approach to collection development and management is informed by University Library’s mission and vision.
- Through collection development and management, The Library acquires the resources needed to facilitate learning in the classroom and beyond, which promotes student success and supports the University Library’s mission to inform the IU Indianapolis campus and wider community of learners.
- We enable library workers to provide great service that is responsive to patron needs at time of need, while working to provide equitable access. This supports the University library’s mission to connect people with our resources, our services, and each other.
- To transform the lives of our community members by facilitating discovery, creativity, teaching, learning, and research, the University Library uses collection development and management to provide the necessary resources to promote the advancement of knowledge.
The Library has adopted a multi-modal acquisition model that focuses on providing access rather than ownership of materials that faculty, students, and staff require at point of need, as well as collecting resources necessary to support the research, teaching and learning needs of programs offered by IU Indianapolis. The Library determines the most fiscally responsible way to acquire the materials requested in a timely manner. This sustainable approach allows the library to maximize impact by providing the resources needed across all disciplines served by IU Indianapolis that will be used at time of need, as opposed to purchasing just-in-case a patron might want to use the resources in the future. This work leverages the relationships that the Library has built within the Indiana University System, Academic Libraries of Indiana, consortia, professional organizations, non-profits, and vendors. Fundamental to this work is supporting open access to scholarly communications and educational resources.
The Library’s multi-model acquisition model evaluates the best course of action to acquire access to materials, which includes considering patron-driven requests through on-demand purchasing and licensing as well as through more traditional purchasing and subscriptions. This model requires that the Library prioritizes data-informed decision-making so that we can be responsive to requests and needs. To be data-informed means to programmatically assess collection use using systems and tools that collect data while being human-centered, as library workers bring expertise and judgment that are important to consider when making complex decisions.