Collection Management Policy

Mission

The Harley E. French (HEF) Library of the Health Sciences has as its mission (1) to support the programs of the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences and the College of Nursing and (2) to act as the resource medical library for North Dakota.

In order to accomplish these missions, it is incumbent upon the HEF to develop and maintain, to the best of its abilities, a collection which is responsive to the needs of its user populations. This collection should include electronic and print books, serial publications, audiovisuals, and non-print media, both current and retrospective, which support biomedical education, research and patient care programs.

Location

The HEF shall act as the primary library for the School of Medicine and the Health Sciences and shall maintain the electronic collection and house the print collection. The nature of the School of Medicine's community-integrated education programs requires that HEF's collection be accessible across the state.

Contingent upon funding HEF will maintain an electronic collection that is accessible in the teaching hospitals or clinics. Although some print resources are placed in clinical campus libraries, they are minimal and are supplemental to their existing collections.

Selection Criteria

It is the responsibility of the HEF to insure that the collection reflects need, both stated and unstated. Thus, input towards purchase selections must be actively sought and openly received from library users. Additionally, it must be insured that the collection reflects to the degree necessary the publishing output in all biomedical subject areas when recommendations are inadequate for proper collection development.

Specific criteria for the selection of materials for the collection shall involve, but not necessarily be limited to the following.

Recommendation by faculty Recommendations shall be sought from all faculty for research or teaching needs. Recommendations shall be also sought from department chairmen and division chiefs for third and fourth year education programs. Student recommendations shall not be actively sought but will be accepted.
Recommendations by HEF Librarians. HEF librarians are familiar with demands upon the collection and should request titles appropriate for the collection.
Recommendations by external clinical campus/teaching hospital librarians. Recommendations will be accepted from School of Medicine Clinical Campus/teaching hospital librarians where collections serve students and clinical faculty with their requests.
Current availability of recommended titles. In an effort to avoid unnecessary duplication, recommended titles must be compared to already available titles on local, state and regional levels, and then evaluated against need by HEF.
Cost All recommendations for purchase are subject to the availability of funds.

Levels of Development: Print and Electronic Collection

The collection shall be developed in each subject area according to the levels specified in the guidelines below.

Research Level: This level is intended to support faculty ongoing research or proposed research, research leading to a doctoral degree and post-doctoral research. It includes major published source materials necessary for dissertations or independent research, all important reference works and a wide selection of specialized monographs and journals and other secondary literature.
Teaching-Study Level: This level is intended to support undergraduate or graduate course work or sustained independent study. It includes basic monographs, a selection of representative journals, and reference tools.
Basic Level: This level is comprised of introductory, background, or basic reference works which are representative of a subject and which may be supplementary for existing research or teaching programs, or which are appropriate for maintaining a well-rounded collection. It includes major reference tools, bibliographies, general texts and a few major journals.

Responsibility

The responsibility for collection management lies with the Assistant Director and Collection Management Librarian of the HEF. The Director shall act as final arbiter in disputed decisions regarding purchase selections and may intervene in collection management activities as needed.

Faculty Publications

The Harley E. French Library will purchase faculty publications that are in monographic or audiovisual format if funding is available. If the faculty publication is in a journal that is not currently on our subscription list, the journal will be taken under consideration in accordance with the journal acquisition policies.

Language

The Harley E. French Library collects titles published in the English only. If a title is published in another language but is part of a series that is currently collected by HEF, then that title will be taken under consideration.

Consumer Health

Materials written for the lay person will be collected to represent a broad range of consumer health materials. Level and scope will depend upon availability of funds.

Gifts

The Library of the Health Sciences gratefully accepts books and other materials for its collection. Although gifts are appreciated, the library accepts only those items which have relevance to its collection and potential for use.

It is the library's policy to accept gifts with the express understanding that items not placed in the collection are subject to utilization or disposition at the library's discretion.

Estimates of monetary value cannot be given by the library to donors for their gifts. Should such an estimate be required, it will be the responsibility of the donor to obtain one from a qualified third party.

See the Gift Acceptance Policy PDF for more information.

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