The library's first selection priority is to build and support the reference, research, and curricular needs of the university's faculty and students.
All requests for materials are reviewed and compared to selection guidelines. Student and faculty requests are welcomed and will be reviewed by the same standard as requests from other sources. Any member of the academic community, faculty, staff, or students may initiate recommendations for purchasing library materials.
Guidelines for Selection of Materials:
a. Relevancy to the curriculum and appropriateness to the clientele
b. Timeliness of material; lasting value
c. Reputation of the author, issuing body, and/or publisher
d. Presentation (style of writing and readability)
e. Aesthetic considerations. Material should have literacy, artistic, and social value and appeal to students' imagination, senses, and intellect.
f. Special features (e.g., details, logical, accurate index; bibliography; footnotes; pictorial representations-diagrams, maps, drawings)
g. Physical and technical quality:
1. Paper, typography and design
2. Physical size
3. Binding
4. Durability
h. Appropriateness of medium; suitability of form to content
i. Strength of present holdings in the same or similar subject
j. Demand; frequency of ILL requests for material on the same or similar subjects
k. Price/relative cost of material concerning the budget and other available material
Textbooks
Textbooks are not purchased. Exceptions are when a textbook is the only or best source of information on a particular topic. Textbooks will be evaluated and added to the collection based on the guidelines stated above.