Collection Development Policies: Introduction

Western Washington University has been designated by the Legislature of Washington State as a regional university whose mission is “to offer undergraduate and graduate education programs through the master’s degree, including programs of a practical and applied nature, directed to the educational and professional needs of the residents of the regions they serve…” (RCW 28B.35.050). To accomplish this mission the university is organized into a Graduate School and seven colleges: the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, the College of Sciences and Technology, the College of Business and Economics, Huxley College of the Environment, the College of Fine and Performing Arts, Fairhaven College, and the Woodring College of Education.

The university library is an integral unit of the university’s academic program, and the collections of materials in a variety of print, digital and other non-print formats are built in direct response to the university’s stated curriculum. The library provides study level collections adequate to the needs of the university’s students, and advanced level materials in those areas with intensive and specialized upper lever undergraduate curricul and those with master’s level programs. In addition, the library must be aware of and attempt to provide basic level materials in broads areas of scholarly endeavor, and must provide broad interest materials on matters of regional, national and international concern.

Western Washington University is funded as a regional rather than research level institution, and the resources allocated to the library reflect this. The library must nevertheless facilitate faculty and master’s level research topics which fall outside the range of the instructional curriculum. To do this, the library has elected to build and maintain research level reference collections and provide extensive access to online databases. In addition, the library provides high-level of inter-library loan assistance, at no cost to our patrons, and provides patron-initiated borrowing through the Orbis Cascade Alliance’s Summit cooperative catalog.

There are perhaps some half million titles published every year in the world, and the Ulrich’s databases lists more than 257,000 titles in its extensive international catalog of journal and serial titles. Given these numbers, it is clear that the library must be highly selective in making decisions on potential acquisitions. At the same time, the library must provide for the broad base of information distinctive to each discipline taught at the university, keep up with current scholarly efforts in those disciplines and sub-disciplines, and still try to anticipate and prepare for future shifts in emphasis in the University curriculum. To accomplish this, the library seeks to expand its useful collections in a variety of ways, including direct purchase, the leasing of digital collections and databases, and linking to open access sources on the Internet. The library also works with a variety of partners to purchase databases and journal and monograph collections in digital formats. In addition, the library is part of a 35-library consortium, the Orbis Cascade Alliance, which permits students, faculty and staff of its member institutions to directly borrow circulating material from any library in the group.

The making of those acquisitions selections is a complex intellectual undertaking which is the specific responsibility of library faculty subject specialists. In addition, a number of teaching faculty members offer the assistance of their specialized knowledge of academic disciplines. This collection policy is intended to provide a framework within which these decisions can be made.

It is important to keep in mind, while reviewing the policy statements, the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of the curriculum and the collections, indeed, of much of scholarship itself. The collection policies address aspects of collection scope and collection intensity, current needs and long-term goals. Collection development is a never-ending process. The policy statements must and will be subject to revision and modification as the University itself revises and modifies its curriculum emphasis. The collection development engaged in by the library reflects the University’s commitment to scholarship and learning.