The University of Waterloo Library has collection development policies in place for all of its academic departments. These are updated regularly and provide an opportunity to the librarians to thoroughly review the current research and teaching needs of the departments and make changes as faculty members retire and new ones are hired. We are just finishing an update of our policies. It is a lengthy and involved process. However we find it to be useful in several ways.
Completed policies are signed by the Liaison Librarian, Faculty Library Representative, Chair of the Academic Department and by the Associate University Librarian. As our policies include a description of the academic department, areas of specialization and the degrees offered, the Chairs and Faculty Library Representatives take great interest to ensure that the information is correct. It is amazing how much our librarians learn about the department through this discussion. Often a particularly thriving research and teaching area becomes redundant when a faculty member leaves the department. An updated collection policy is one of the ways to document the change.
As we use Approval Plans for the collection, policies are very useful in determining the overlap between disciplines and to broaden or tighten the plan. Librarians find collection development policies very useful in rejecting "gifts in kind" if they do not fit the current and or future needs.
Our policies include the LC classifications for the collecting areas. This comes in really handy in preparing OCGS and other reports.
University of Waterloo Library
200 University Avenue West
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1
519 888 4883
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