New York State Library
Table of Contents

Introduction

Scope and Purpose

The New York State Library's Collection Development Policy defines what material should be collected to support the goals of the Library as detailed above. It also outlines the general policies for building, maintaining and preserving collections to implement the Library's objectives.

The Library's Collection Development Policy was formulated taking into account other library resources in the State's library systems, other State-funded library collections, and library resources available in the Capital District. Use of standard format and language ensure compatability with collections of other libraries.

The collecting levels (see II. Definition of Collection Levels) are based upon the WLN (formerly Washington Library Network) collection codes that have been used in several American Library Association publications.

This Collection Development Policy contains several major changes from the previous edition:

  1. Decreases in the acquisitions budget over the past several years, coupled with the increase in the availability of electronic information available directly to end users, have compelled the Library to examine its previous collection development policy with a view toward a more focused approach. The emphasis will be to collect materials that support the specific goals and objectives of the Library rather than to try to collect heavily in a wide subject range.
  2. To reflect this more focused approach, the Library is much more restrictive in the acceptance of gifts (see Appendix, Gift Policy).
  3. This revised Policy contains statements (see I. General Policies) that give the criteria for selecting electronic information resources as well as criteria for format selection.
  4. Representative materials in the Spanish language will be selected.

Policy Revisions

Because of an ever-changing fiscal environment and its impact on the Library's budget, rapid technological advances, expanding information resources, and opportunities for resource sharing with other institutions, no collection development policy should remain static.

This Policy should be regularly updated online as circumstances change and a major revision should be conducted every five years.

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