What is Collection Development?
Part of the mission of the Wichita
State University Libraries is to develop the library collections to
meet the teaching and research needs of the WSU faculty, staff, and
students. Collection development involves evaluating the strengths and
weaknesses of current collections, assessing the needs of the
university community, carefully selecting new materials in all
formats, promoting the use of library materials, and continuing the
effort to find the most effective means of providing information to
the WSU community.
Subject Librarians
At WSU Libraries, Subject Librarians
are library faculty who not only serve as Reference Librarians
but who have been assigned the responsibility for evaluating,
selecting, and otherwise developing the collections in one or more
subject areas. As Subject Librarians, they serve as library liaisons
to the corresponding academic departments and units. They not only
handle faculty requests for library materials, but they also offer
library instruction specially designed to meet the needs of specific
classes, provide library orientation to new faculty, and are available
for consultation by faculty or students for specialized
reference.
The library encourages department and
program chairs to meet regularly with the relevant subject librarians
in order to keep the library informed of changes in emphasis of
programs and to learn about new library resources and services.
For a list of Subject Librarians, please
click here.
Acquiring Books
Subject Librarians work to maintain a
strong book or monograph collection that meets the needs of faculty
and students even during fiscally challenging times. There are three
basic methods of acquiring books:
- To make "direct" orders,
subject librarians use input from faculty and students, book
reviews, advertisements, etc. as a basis for selection. Faculty,
staff, and students are encouraged to make requests for specific
books. They may forward written requests to the appropriate Subject Librarian or fill out the Purchase
Request Form which will be forwarded to the appropriate
librarian.
- Other books come to the library
"on approval" through a book vendor according to
predetermined subject and other criteria. Some of these
"approval" books are selected by the subject librarians;
others that are not needed are returned to the vendor.
- Some books, called
"continuations" are part of book series and come on
subscription as "standing orders"; all issues in these
series come automatically.
Acquiring Journals
WSU Libraries has a collection of over 3800 periodical
subscriptions. At this time, new periodicals cannot be added to the
collection without canceling current subscriptions of comparable
cost.
However, faculty and students are
encouraged to forward any requests for new periodicals to the
appropriate Subject Librarian as wish
lists are maintained and consulted when funding becomes available. You
may also fill out a Purchase Request
Form.
In addition to the print subscriptions,
WSU Libraries is continuing efforts to provide access to electronic
journals and selected packages, whenever possible. Click
here for a list of WSU electronic
journal subscriptions.
Acquiring Electronic Databases
WSU Libraries provide access to a wide
variety of electronic databases and other digital reference sources -
both general and subject-specific - including several full-text
resources. Most of these databases are available on the Web. In recent
years, the purchase of some databases has been done in conjunction
with consortia in order to insure cost savings. Click
here for a list of the library's online
databases.
Faculty, staff, and students are
encouraged to provide librarians with feedback about the available
databases and with suggestions for new resources. As networking
throughout the university increases, so will remote access to
databases that are housed on the library network and those that are
available via the Internet. If faculty and students have any questions
about how to access a database, please come to or call the Reference
Desk at 978-3584 or contact the appropriate Subject
Librarian.
