Revised 12/2/2022

Bryan College Library Policy

Introduction

The overarching philosophy controlling BCL Collection development is the library mission: “The Bryan College Library (BCL) supports the Institutional Mission, Educational Goals, and Strategic Plan of the college with high quality library facilities, information resources, services, programs, and information literacy instruction centered on four imperatives: 1) Facilitating informative connections; 2) Inviting productive activity; 3) Provoking critical thought; and 4) Inspiring academic and spiritual excellence.” The applicable goal for assessment in this area reads: “The Library will provide access to useful information resources of sufficient scope to fully support the BC curricula that are also cost-effective.” (For the current measures of this goal, see the most recent Institutional Performance Assessment Document.)

The decision to update a part of the collection depends on the following criteria in order of priority:

1. Need for coverage in an area of study in the curricula
2. Quality of current items covering that area in the collection
3. Quantity of current items covering that area in the collection
4. Condition of current items covering that area in the collection
5. The percentage of the BC population that will be accessing that part of the collection.

7.1.1 Selection

Materials are added to the collection in various formats including, hardcopy, DVDs, eBooks, and databases at the request of the faculty in conjunction with the librarians.  When possible, the library also devotes attention to what additional materials students, faculty, and staff might need in their independent research. The library does not add adopted textbooks or popular fiction to the circulating collection.

Specific criteria for selection of specific purchases are listed below. Necessity dictates that cost is an overriding criterion, and for that reason each of the others is weighed against the cost. For each purchase we consider:

1. Need: Does it support an area of the curricula that is currently not covered well?
   1. Has it been recommended by our faculty?
   2. How many interlibrary loan requests have there been for this or similar resources in the last few years?
2. Quality: What value does it add to the collection?
   1. Scope: Does its coverage justify the cost?
   2. Authority: Is it scholarly?
   3. Uniqueness: Does it fill a gap in the collection?
3. Quantity: How much coverage does it provide for a designated part of the curriculum that it is supposed to support?
   1.  Is there already sufficient cost–effective coverage of that area in the curriculum?
   2.  Does it give the same or better coverage of that area in the curriculum for the same or less cost?
4. Accessibility: Is it accessible enough to be useful to those in the program it is to support?
   1. Format: physical vs. online: Online is preferred as it is accessible to everyone and not just those with easy access to the library building. Online also saves the cost of handling and storing the physical item.
   2. Number of simultaneous users: Is the higher cost of more simultaneous users justified by the average number of students attempting to access the resource most of the time?

7.1.2 Approval Plans and Subscriptions

The library’s budget and staff time are generally too limited to allow purchase of any items by approval or blanket purchasing agreements that must be kept up with to avoid spending on unwanted items.  Therefore, the BCL only enters into such agreements if they offer extraordinary cost-efficiency in providing materials that support Bryan’s curriculum. However, BCL does participate in consortial buying of electronic resources, which often function as de facto blanket purchase plans. The subscription packages are reevaluated each year for continuing relevance and the degree to which they have been used and to which they meet the needs of the College as seen through the selection criteria set forth in this policy. The library only maintains periodical subscriptions (print or ejournal with a preference for ejournals) that are not readily available as part of a reasonably priced database aggregation.

7.1.3 Standing Orders

Most physical items that would have been purchased as standing order in the past are now available electronically and therefore purchased that way because of the many advantages of that format. Exceptions to this are:

• Some Bible commentaries

7.1.4 Out of Print Materials

Out-of-print materials are sought at the request of a faculty or staff member to fill a specific need that must be determined to justify the cost and effort in obtaining such materials. Short-term needs will be filled through interlibrary loan borrowing of the item.

7.1.5 Gifts and Exchanges

The Bryan College Library will accept donations from alumni, professors or persons in the community who desire to give a gift of physical item(s).  These items should be in good condition and there must be no other stipulations from the donor regarding the gift.  The library staff must be able to dispose of items which duplicate part of the library collection, items which are in poor condition, items which do not fit with our curricula, and those items which have very outdated content.  The library will not accept old issues of journals and or magazines unless they are of significant relevance to one of our special collections.