Collection Development Policy
Table of Contents
I. OVERVIEW
A. Library objectives:
B. Collection History:
C. Collection Development Goals:
II. SELECTION:
A. Selection Criteria:
B. Jurisdictional Considerations:
C. Formats:
D. Languages:
E. Chronological Periods:
F. Rare Books:
G. Supplementation:
H. Duplication:
I. Government Depository Materials:
J. Gifts:
K. Weeding:
L. Retention:
M. Preservation:
III. SELECTION MECHANISM, BIBLIOGRAPHIC CONTROL, AND PROCESSING:
A. Selection Mechanism:
B. Bibliographic Control and Processing:
IV. FUNDING:
A. University Materials Fund:
B. Gift and Endowment Funds:
V. FIVE YEAR GOALS:
COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT POLICY
The collection development policy of the Kresge Law Library includes decisions concerning the appropriate titles and subject areas of material purchased for the library and types of material (print, microform, electronic, audio, video, or other media) appropriate for the collection. The collection development policy also sets out goals for the storage, retention, weeding, and preservation of library materials. Access to information housed in the library or available through the library is also considered.
I. OVERVIEW
A. Library objectives:
The primary role of the library is to satisfy the curricular and research needs of the Notre Dame Law School. Satisfaction of these needs requires not only responding to current curricular and research interests but also the development of a quality research collection capable of supporting a wide variety of interests now and in the future. A secondary role includes providing legal information to the remainder of the university community. Tertiary roles include providing some leisure reading for the law school community and legal information to affiliated public and professional interest groups.
The library’s roles are served through its book, microform, and audio-visual collections, and through electronic resources. Additional support is realized through extensive cooperation with the university’s general library and access to national, regional, and local interlibrary loan networks. It should also be noted that the library aspires to be a contributing member of these national and regional networks by acquiring some limited specialized collections that could be shared with others.
Since the Notre Dame Law School is approved by the American Bar Association and is a member of the Association of American Law Schools, and since the Kresge Library is a selective depository of United States government documents, standards of the ABA, AALS, and the Depository Library Program must be observed.
B. Collection History:
To place current collection development goals in perspective brief mention of the collection’s historical development should be given. The Library’s collection was significantly under funded for most of its history resulting in sparse holdings in many subject areas and an absence of titles in legal areas not directly tied to the curriculum.
In 1985 collection funding was enhanced through University support and a generous gift of $500,000 awarded over a five year period. This influx of funds allowed for significant new and retrospective purchases. Unfortunately when the five year period expired no new source of funding was immediately developed to replace the lost gift funds. From 1991 to 1995 the Library was forced to reduce the acquisition of current publications and to curtail retrospective purchasing.
A significant addition to the collection occurred in 1990 with the purchase of the library of the Chicago Bar Association. From this acquisition nearly 20,000 treatise titles and many new serial runs were added to the collection. The CBA materials allowed the completion of all fifty state reporters and filled gaps in many periodical runs.
Beginning with the 1995/96 fiscal year the University has committed to adding $100,000 each year to the Library’s base budget for the next six years. At least half of this funding will be used to support collection development thereby placing the Library once again in a position to aggressively collect new publications and attempting to fill the remaining historical gaps. Additionally, efforts by the University Development Office have resulted in securing gifts and endowments that will enhance the collections of the library for generations to come.
C. Collection Development Goals:
It is the library’s intention to acquire the following basic classes of material for the collection:
1. Primary source material collection, i.e. cases and statutory law for the United States, the separate states, U.S. territories, and to a lesser extent Great Britain, Canada, Ireland and international associations; administrative materials for the United States and government documents of the United States. The law library has been an active selective depository since 1986.
2. Secondary source material collection, i.e. treatises and serials which annotate and analyze the primary source material or present philosophies thereof; treatises and serials which are peripheral but helpful to the further understanding and implication of the primary legal source material.
3. Finding tools, i.e. indexes, digests, encyclopedias, dictionaries, directories, citators, and compendiums leading to better use of both primary and secondary source materials.
4. It is the ambition of the library to cover all legal subjects, with depth of coverage in each subject guided by law faculty research interests and by emphases within the law school curriculum. Additional collection development areas are as follows:
a. Notre Dame Publications:
In addition to subject-specific goals, the library maintains a collection of Notre Dame publications including:
- all publications of all Notre Dame Law School faculty
- annual law school bulletins
- Hoyne’s Code
- the Notre Dame Report
b. National Institute for Trial Advocacy:
The Law Library will also attempt to maintain a complete collection of publications in all formats of the National Institute for Trial Advocacy which is closely affiliated with the University and Law School.
c. Center for Civil and Human Rights:
The Law Library will maintain a complete collection of all publications of the Center for Civil and Human Rights.
d. Legal Association Publications and Publications Related to Legal Education:
Publications of the American Bar Association, American Association of Law Schools, and other legal professional organizations will be collected, as well as other publications relating to legal education.
II. SELECTION:
A. Selection Criteria:
Criteria for evaluating all prospective purchases within the library’s priorities are:
- significance of the subject matter
- importance of the author
- accuracy of information and data
- potential for use by patrons
- importance to total collection
- authoritativeness of publisher or producer
- importance of title in significant bibliographies, lists, and recognized reviewing media
- current and/or permanent value
- availability in Hesburgh Library or elsewhere in the region
- scarcity of materials on the subject
- purchase price
- continuation costs
- format (e.g., book, newspaper, cd-rom, microform)
- physical quality (e.g., binding, paper, print)
- duplication
- available space
- technical processing and maintenance costs
- longevity of format
B. Jurisdictional Considerations:
The library has established four categories of emphasis for collecting materials from various jurisdictions. Listed after each category are the appropriate collection goals:
Category 1. Federal law of the United States and the state law of Michigan and Indiana.
The following primary source materials will be comprehensively collected: constitutions, session laws, statutes, codes, court rules, court decisions, administrative codes, regulations, registers, and decisions.
Additionally, strong efforts will be made to collect secondary sources and finding tools to the extent they support the research and educational goals of the law school community. Specifically, selected practice books and form books for the United States, Michigan, and Indiana will be collected to support legal aid efforts associated with the law school.
Category 2. Law of the remaining states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories.
The following primary materials will be collected comprehensively: constitutions, session laws, statutes, codes, court rules and decisions.
Selected secondary sources, particularly journals, citators, indexes, directories, reference works, encyclopedias and digests will be collected.
Category 3. Law of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, Latin America, the European Union, the United Nations, the Organization of American States, International law, and International human rights law.
For Category 3 jurisdictions the following primary sources on the national or international level are collected: constitutions, statutes, and court decisions.
Selected secondary sources including treatises, journals, and encyclopedias will be maintained. Within the broad category of international law, special emphasis will be placed on collecting international human rights law and public international law.
Category 4. The law of other nations, legal systems divergent from the common law and comparative law.
Category 4 materials will be collected on a selective basis, in English only, and with particular focus on the subject areas of constitutional law, family law, human rights law, jurisprudence, law and religion, and legal ethics.
C. Formats:
As the result of changing technology, legal information is now available in a wide variety of formats (microforms, books, online databases, cd-Roms, the Internet, audio and video cassettes). Each of these formats present advantages and disadvantages for patron service and collection building. In determining the appropriate format for selection, the following are guidelines are to be used:
-authoritativeness of content
-ease of access
-readability
-storage considerations
-longevity of format
-currency of information
-potential historical significance.
Certain formats will not meet all the above guidelines which may necessitate purchasing information in multiple formats. For example a statute online may provide the most current information, but will not provide any historical record once the statute is updated in the online system. Therefore, the Library may choose to purchase statutory material in book or microform as well.
The specific guidelines for individual formats are described below:
1. Paper Formats:
a. Books
The predominant format of the Notre Dame Law collection has been the printed book. The book, because of its readability, remains the preferred format for many library patrons. Preference should be given to this format whenever ease of use, permanent acquisition of information and readability are the highest goals. Production on acid free paper should be considered before selecting expensive book sets.
b. Newspapers
Paper subscriptions to major legal newspapers relevant to Kresge’s patrons and the New York Times are purchased on a weekly or monthly subscription basis. Paper copy are retained until available online or replaced with microfiche editions.
The Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune and major newspaper for the geographic region, are purchased on a daily subscription basis and retained for one to two weeks. Additional newspapers are purchased for leisure reading, but these are not kept beyond one week.
c. Newsletters
Paper copies of a newsletter may be purchased if it is of reasonable cost and if it provides an important current awareness service that is not otherwise available. Newsletters published by the American Bar Association, other national professional legal organizations, national and regional professional law library associations, and any other newsletters purchased by the Law Library will be cataloged and made a permanent part of the collection.
Other legal newsletters that are received gratis, are not indexed in any standard periodical indexes, or are of peripheral value to the collection are given low priority for selection and processing. A decision may be made to temporarily retain such newsletters without further processing, to catalog and add to the collection, or to route to interested faculty members.
d. Journals
The collection will include in paper journals indexed in the Index to Legal Periodicals and Current Law Index, plus major international, comparative, and selected foreign law journals.
2. Microforms
Microforms provide a means of augmenting the collection in a way that is particularly efficient in terms of cost, space, and permanence. Moreover, some material is now only available in microformat. Positive image, silver halide or diazo microfiche with a reduction ratio of 24 x or 42 x is the preferred microformat.
3. Audio-Visual
Audio and video VHS cassettes may be purchased when materials appropriate to the collection are produced in those formats.
4. Electronic Resources:
Library materials in electronic format can be divided into those which are locally owned and physically located within the library (specifically CD-Roms, DVDs, and floppy disks) and those which are accessed via Internet connections to servers located outside the library’s location and control. CD and other physically-present electronic resources are purchased and collected generally as ancillary to print collections, providing updating or indexing services, or when such materials represent the only available format for a particular title. Internet sources are further divided into those which are generally available to anyone and those which are available to the library’s specific patron group. In the former category are many government documents and databases which are relevant to the library’s patrons. As the more important of these sources are identified, access to them will be offered to patrons via entries in the catalog or through library or law school web pages. Those Internet sources which are more restricted in their access and/or which require payment for use are selected according to criteria listed in Section II (a) and, further, by whether or not the availability of the source in question in a web environment is appropriate for the library’s users.
D. Languages:
Most materials are now purchased in English, if available. Materials in other languages are purchased selectively; usually only when specifically requested by a scholar who will use the material. A growing Latin American collection will increase the purchases of Spanish and Portugese language materials.
E. Chronological Periods:
The chronological focus of the collection is the time period since the establishment of European colonies in North America, and more precisely, since the establishment of a federal government for the United States. At present, there is emphasis on current law and on historical research materials necessary to support the study of Anglo-American legal history.
F. Rare Books:
If possible, a small amount of each year’s annual expenditure will be set aside for the purchase of rare legal materials. Selection decisions will be based upon the significance of the work to the development of the Anglo-American legal system.
G. Supplementation:
As a general rule all currently published supplementation will be purchased for titles in the collection. Decisions not to supplement a specific title may be made after consideration of the cost, duplication, use, and quality of the supplements available.
H. Duplication:
Duplication is to be avoided in the collection except for:
1. materials used heavily in connection with a law school course, e.g., hornbooks.
2. other materials known to be used heavily.
3. materials continued or replaced in another format, e.g. ABA Journal in paper and microfiche.
Parallel works will be purchased or selected as government depository items for proper, complete citations, e.g., official reports and unofficial reporters for state court decisions.
I. Government Depository Materials:
As a selective Federal Depository, the Law Library acquires those publications produced by the government which are relevant to legal research and reference.
Please see the United States Government Documents Collection Development Policy attached to this document.
J. Gifts:
Gift materials are treated in the same manner as other potential acquisitions. That is, they are accepted, retained, discarded, exchanged, sold, circulated, and located in accord with collection development policies of general application. As with free government depository items, the cost of processing, cataloging, binding, filing, and storage should be considered in the decision to accept gift materials. Conditional gifts are not favored and may be refused.
K. Weeding:
The Law Library has undertaken the process of developing a collection capable of supporting in-depth, scholarly legal research. In light of this goal, weeding is limited to the removal of material replaced by microform or other format when the original print material is in poor condition or shelf space is limited. Weeding may also be done to remove excess copies of an outdated work; one copy of each title unique to the collection must be retained. Superseded supplementary material completely replaced by later editions or supplementation should also be discarded.
L. Retention:
The primary objective in developing a research collection is to insure that materials will be available for current and future scholarly use. As with any activity that attempts to anticipate the future, predicting the needs of legal scholars in the coming decades is uncertain. In light of this, retention decisions will be based predominately on maintaining the presence of information in the collection rather than on the probability of future patron use.
Other factors which should be considered in the retention decision include the cost and ability to adequately preserve the physical format of the information, cost and availability of content replacement in another format, shelving space, and duplication of information in other sources.
M. Preservation:
The Kresge Library will attempt to preserve all materials in the collection in the original physical format where it is economically and physically feasible to do so. Where costs, deterioration, or damage prevent the preservation of materials, attempts will be made to replace items valuable to the collection in reprinted editions or alternative formats. New items added to the collection will be subject to conservation measures, if warranted, to extend their usefulness.
III. SELECTION MECHANISM, BIBLIOGRAPHIC CONTROL, AND PROCESSING:
A. Selection Mechanism:
- The Head of Technical Services and the Acquisitions/Serials Librarian will review all promotional literature, publishers’ lists, faculty purchase suggestions, approval books, and other pre-order sources for potential purchases. They will make purchase decisions for all publications which fit easily within the policy guidelines.
- For particular subjects or types of materials, other librarians will be designated as resource experts in those areas. Purchase decisions in those areas will be made in cooperation with, or at the recommendations of, or with the approval of those designated experts.
- Monthly review of acquisitions from representative law libraries will be undertaken to compare our purchasing decisions and to assess our activities.
- An annual review of the Collection Development Policy in conjunction with an annual report of collection purchasing activities will be used as a basis for changing the Policy as necessary and incorporating changes into this general plan; however, suggestions for changing the Policy can be entertained at any time.
B. Bibliographic Control and Processing:
All materials added to the collection will be cataloged and classified according to national standards as expeditiously as staff resources permit. Some deviation from national standards will be permitted where local necessities dictate.
IV. FUNDING:
A. University Materials Fund:
Funding provided by the University will be used for normal purchasing and supplemented by gift and endowment funds as necessary.
B. Gift and Endowment Funds:
Un-designated monies received through endowment income or gifts will be used to supplement the normal purchasing of continuations and monographs as required. Any additional undesignated funds will be used to purchase special materials for the enhancement of the collection.
Designated gifts and endowment funds will be used to purchase titles within the specified subject area or time period.
The library’s current endowment funds include:
| Anton Bottum Fath Gregory Hartigan Law Book McCarten McCarthy Meagher Murphy Noznesky O’Connor Powers Regelbrugge Shierl Schoonhoven L. Smith L. Smith Smith Stephan Vuono Welsh |
technology undesignated undesignated undesignated undesignated undesignated undesignated undesignated New York Law undesignated undesignated Irish legal materials undesignated Natural law Legal issues of the Civil War era Labor law Ohio law Legal ethics Michigan legal materials undesignated International law undesignated |
V. FIVE YEAR GOALS:
During the next five years the library will attempt to maintain its rate of current acquisitions of all suitable material within the guidelines discussed above. Additionally, the library will seek out opportunities for enhancing particular areas of the collection through special purchases or because of development opportunities that might arise.
