Collection Development Policy

Collection Development is the acquisition and maintenance of library materials to support our programs. Librarians evaluate collection content and quality, select new material, and replace worn and damaged material. Since the Library’s intent is to build a coherent and cost-effective collection centered on the curriculum, we welcome faculty participation in the process. We have issued the following collection development policy to communicate our plan for building the collection.

On this page:

January 2014

Library Mission

The Edwin H. Mookini Library is a gathering place and a gateway to many sources of learning and knowledge for the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo and Hawaiʻi Community College ‘ohana as well as our diverse Hawaiʻi Island community. With a spirit of aloha and commitment to excellence, the Library provides resources, instruction, and services to encourage academic success and develop information-literate, lifelong learners.

Policy Purpose

The purpose of this collection development policy is to outline the Library’s responsibilities that support the curriculum and scholarship of the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo and Hawaiʻi Community College. In support of the Library’s strategic plan, this policy reflects our commitment to regularly assess and maintain our collections to ensure they meet the needs of our users.

Responsibility for Collection Development

The Role of the Library

Ultimate responsibility for collection development rests with the library director, who delegates responsibility for the various subject areas taught at UH Hilo and Hawaiʻi Community College to individual librarians (“subject liaisons”). The subject liaison responsible for a discipline is the contact person for any questions or issues relating to collection development in that discipline, including book and serial requests or withdrawals. The subject liaison for an area taught at both UH Hilo and Hawaiʻi Community College is responsible for serving the needs of both programs.

The Role of Instructional Faculty

The Library needs to draw on the expertise of instructional faculty in building its collections, inasmuch as the faculty develops the curriculum and delivers the instruction that library materials support. Academic departments ordinarily designate a faculty member to serve as a library coordinator for that department. These coordinators serve as liaisons to the Library, facilitating communication between the department and the Library and alerting the Library to curricular changes. A coordinator often channels requests for the purchase of materials from faculty members in the department to the responsible librarian, but individual faculty members may send purchase requests directly to the appropriate librarian if they prefer.

The faculty’s role is advisory, as responsibility for the coherent development of the collection belongs to the library director, who balances the needs of all programs within the limitations of the Library’s budget. Every effort, however, will be made to accommodate faculty requests that are within the scope of this collection development policy.

Faculty are not limited to selecting materials just within their disciplines but are encouraged to recommend purchases in related disciplines and in interdisciplinary areas. Where faculty do not participate in collection development, or where librarians feel more materials need to be purchased, librarians will initiate orders in anticipation of student use.

Faculty should also be aware that their encouragement of students to use the collection through assignments is the determining factor in whether or not what we collect here actually reaches its intended audience. Thought must be given not only to what material is being ordered but also to how it will be used.

Curriculum Changes and Expansion

The Library recognizes its responsibility to support new programs and to expand existing subject areas to meet curriculum changes. However, when new academic programs or changes are established, administrators and program coordinators must consider how library requirements will be met.

Plans may need to be made to obtain special funding to pay for initial materials as well as ongoing purchases until the collection is adequate. Such plans may involve allocating special funds to the Library or grant funding may be pursued.

The regular book budget, at the discretion of the library director, may also be used to build collections in new areas. For programs requiring substantial support, collection adequacy will ordinarily be attained over a period of time. If insufficient funding is provided to support new programs, building an adequate collection for a new program may involve cutting back purchasing for existing collection areas.

Purpose of the Collection

Materials are collected to enrich classroom instruction for each discipline taught at UH Hilo and Hawaiʻi Community College and to support:

• General research for students in all areas of the curriculum (UH Hilo and Hawaiʻi Community College, courses both on- and off-campus) by supplying materials for term papers and collateral reading.
• Faculty course and lecture preparation, current awareness, and research. Greatest emphasis is on supporting teaching activities.
• The general-interest, cultural and recreational reading needs of students and faculty. The Library collects a limited amount of material serving to expand the horizons of our students, enhance their understanding of life, and help them develop new interests.
• The administrative operations of UH Hilo and Hawaiʻi Community College. However, the Library will not ordinarily purchase to support individual, non-credit, continuing education classes or workshops.
• The community-service mission of UH Hilo and Hawaiʻi Community College. The Library does not support with its resources the day-to-day work of local service agencies, schools, etc. with which individual faculty members may become involved.

Collection Levels and Emphases

Collection Levels

Collections in specific subject areas should be commensurate with the educational level that the collection must support. It is assumed that a library will avoid building a collection suitable for graduate work where the university offers only undergraduate instruction. In these areas, the Library collects at the Research Libraries Group Conspectus Collection Level 3: Study or Instructional Support Level as defined by the Association for College and Research Libraries Guidelines for University Library Services to Undergraduate Students. Through our intrasystem and interlibrary loan services, research materials beyond this collection level may be obtained from other libraries.

Collecting Emphases

The Library collects more heavily in those subject areas with high course enrollment and those whose teaching faculty require the most library use of their students. Material that has to do with Hawaiʻi, especially Hawaiʻi Island, whatever its primary subject (e.g., biology, geology, anthropology), is collected more heavily than other literature. The Library also emphasizes materials relating to the Pacific Islands and East Asia.

Faculty Research Materials

The Library does not collect comprehensively in any subject of study at UH Hilo or Hawaiʻi Community College as it is not funded as a research library and cannot hope to build a research-level collection. Nevertheless, we attempt to facilitate faculty research by building and maintaining research-level bibliographic access, providing a high level of interlibrary loan service, and purchasing for the collection a limited number of broadly useful materials in support of faculty research. The Library will generally avoid purchasing materials for short-term research projects.

Selection and Deselection Criteria

The Library reviews materials to add or remove from our collections according to criteria that include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Support for UH Hilo or Hawaiʻi Community College curricula and relevance to our existing collections
• Anticipated use
• Contribution to the field of knowledge
• Breadth, scope and accuracy of information
• Reputation of the author and publisher
• Timeliness and timelessness
• Literary quality and style
• Level of treatment
• Language and format
• Cost
• Duplicate copies
• Physical condition

Additional criteria for electronic resources:

• Full-text coverage
• Reputation of journal or inclusion in a prominent abstracting and indexing source
• License and access terms
• Interface features and usability
• Administrative functions and reporting capability
• If not owned, interlibrary loan request activity

Electronic Resource Access & Use

Access On & Off Campus

Access to licensed electronic resources outside the Mookini and West Hawaiʻi Center Libraries is controlled by our authentication servers that verify users as UH Hilo or Hawaiʻi Community College affiliates. Electronic resources may be licensed for one or both campuses. Users should follow the appropriate links for their campus when accessing electronic resources from the Mookini Library or West Hawaiʻi Center Library website. Non-authorized users (including alumni) with UH Hilo or Hawaiʻi Community College may access licensed electronic resources only when physically present in the Libraries and when access has been mediated by library staff.

Acceptable Use Policy for Library Electronic Resources

The Edwin H. Mookini Library provides electronic resources (e.g. e-books, e-journals and databases) to the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo and Hawaiʻi Community College communities. Access and use of most electronic resources are governed by license agreements that have been negotiated between the University of Hawaiʻi and publishers or third-party vendors.

Authorized users (i.e. faculty, staff and students) are expected to comply with the terms of these agreements when using library electronic resources. Terms of use may be found on the resource’s website or users may direct questions to the Mookini Library. While each resource’s license terms are unique, users should adhere to the following general guidelines:

• Systematic downloading of licensed content is prohibited. Print/save a single copy or limited portions of electronic resource content for individual use.
• Commercial use of licensed content is prohibited. Licensed content is for non-commercial, educational or research purposes. View more information on copyright and fair use.
• Sharing or redistributing licensed content with individuals not affiliated with UH Hilo or Hawaiʻi Community College is prohibited. Redistribution of licensed content is limited to small amounts of content properly attributed to the author.
• Posting licensed content to a public website is prohibited.

Textbooks and Study Guides

Textbooks are inappropriate for permanent library collections: the Library does not normally purchase textbooks or study guides to support classroom use, except for those recognized as standard reference sources or the best sources of information on a topic.

Gifts / Donations of Physical Materials

In accepting gifts, the Library will follow the procedures stipulated in UH Administrative Procedure A8.620, “Gifts.”

The Library welcomes gifts that support the instructional and research programs of the University and a limited selection of other library materials that are in good condition (see table below). Please be aware, however, that:

• upon receipt, gifts become the possession of the library;
• the library will not accept temporary deposits of gift items;
• gifts are not automatically added to the collection;
• gifts are always accepted without commitments to final disposition and with the understanding that materials are not automatically added to the Library's collection;
• the library reserves the right to retain or dispose of any gift materials and to decline gifts without explanation;
• gifts will be assessed by a librarian and may be added to the collection, exchanged, sold in the library’s book sale, or otherwise disposed;
• the library does not keep records of donations.

Please also note that the library does not assign or validate a monetary value for gifts.

• The gift appraisal for tax purposes is the responsibility of the donor, who must bear the cost.
• In order to avoid conflict of interest, the Library will not appraise gifts made to it.
• The acceptance of a gift that has been appraised by a third party in no way implies that the Library endorses the appraisal.

There is a limit of 20 individual items from each donor per week. Donors must bring gifts to the Circulation Desk.

Intellectual Freedom

The Library does not promote particular beliefs or views. On controversial issues, the Library tries to provide materials across a broad spectrum of opinion so that readers can examine issues freely and arrive at their own conclusions. We subscribe to the American Library Association's “Library Bill of Rights” and “Freedom to Read” statements.

With respect to questioned or challenged material, the Library asserts its duty to collect a representative selection of materials that have a bearing on the university's curriculum, including materials on controversial questions.

Additionally, when the Library is requested to add, either by gift or by purchase, material promoting the viewpoints of a particular Library user, the main test of a controversial item will be its contribution, direct or indirect, to the academic program of the university. Other selection considerations outlined in the collection development policy also apply.