Collection Management Policy
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Appendix 1 - Electronic Resources Policy
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1. Introduction
We aim to support the study, learning, teaching and research needs of students and staff of the College. To achieve these aims we will provide access to information sources of all kinds.
We work closely with teaching, research and administrative staff and all relevant
areas of work within the College to find out what users want and to plan and
provide for specific requirements – working towards continuous evaluation
and improvement.
Statistical information from the Library Management System (Talis) and provided
by Econtent providers, is utilised to evaluate the use of information resources
and inform decisions relating to their provision.
This document will act as a statement of policy; provide information for all
staff and students, and guidance on working practice.
The full attainment of the policy will depend on adequate resources being available.
2. Funding
2.1 Budget Allocation
An element of the total Library Services budget is allocated for the provision
of books, journals and multi-media resources such as videos and cd-roms, non-book
materials, electronic resources, Inter Library Loan’s, etc.
Journal subscriptions, standing orders and electronic databases are an ongoing
commitment, and are accordingly top-sliced. The remainder is allocated to Divisions/Schools
in proportion to the number of FTE (full time equivalent) students.
As soon as the budget is made available to the Head of Library Services library
staff will liase with Divisions/Schools in establishing annual spending targets,
and the percentage breakdown of these targets to the specific campus libraries
of Ambleside, Carlisle and Lancaster.
Separate allocations are made for the Associated Health Libraries of Barrow,
Kendal and Whitehaven, and Tower Hamlets in London, and they should be contacted
direct to discuss stock purchases.
2.2 New Course Development Fund
Additional funding for new or revalidated courses/modules needs to be identified
in the Application for Approval for Development (AAD), which must be signed
off by the relevant Library Liaison Co-ordinator or the Head of Library Services.
Funding is only available once the course is validated, and the library has
been informed in writing and received the money into St Martin’s Services
Ltd., via the Assistant Principal with responsibility for Academic Development
and External Affairs.
Realistic costings of new material must be submitted, and adequate time allowed
for its acquisition and processing. Recurrent costs are borne by the Faculty
allocation.
2.3 Multiple Copies Fund
This is used for the purchase of additional copies of in-demand items by analysis
of our reservation requests. Earned library income will be used to support this
activity.
2.4 Lost Books Fund
Library users are invoiced the full cost of an item declared lost. Replacement
copies will be purchased if available from suppliers.
2.5 Research
The Library is predominantly an undergraduate library, and does not receive
funding for extensive research collections. However any material that facilitates
the College’s research programme will be provided, as appropriate.
3. Access to collections
The library aims to provide equal access to all students and staff. The specific
needs of groups such as distance learners, part time students, and those with
special needs are actively addressed where appropriate, with additional services.
Access to St Martin’s library services is also available to the wider
community through external
membership schemes, such as UK Libraries Plus, Sconul Research Extra, ALLIS
(Accessing Lancashire Library and Information Services), CHELPS (Cumbria Higher
Education Institutions Library Partnership Scheme), and NoWAL (The North West
Academic Libraries).
4. Liaison and Communication
Mechanisms exist to ensure that effective partnerships are formed between Library staff and academic staff in implementing this policy. Within Library Services there are three Faculty Liaison Teams (FLTs) with named contacts for each of the cognate areas taught by the Faculty. Staff will work with Faculty Library Representatives to facilitate:
· Reading List acquisition
· Stock management decisions
· Subject spread – currency, depth and breadth
· Details of new electronic “deals” and e-content bundles
· New course developments
· Short loan, and one week loan statuses
Named contacts are on the Library web site.
The monitoring of spending targets and book ordering processes are the overall responsibility of the Resource Services Manager within the Library in consultation with FLTs.
(See also 5.3 Targets and 5.5 Partnership Agreements)
5. Ordering Procedures
5.1 Selection
Material is selected for inclusion in the library on the basis of the needs
of the College and will focus on supporting teaching and learning for all courses.
The library caters for the information needs of all students, including part-time
and those on other non-conventional courses.
Library and academic staff in partnership carry out the selection of materials
for stock.
Academic staff should supply copies of reading lists, module handbooks and other
relevant documents. Students may also recommend items for purchase, through
the library enquiry desk.
Any material ordered and paid for by St Martin’s Services will be added
to stock in the libraries for the benefit of all, or in the case of electronic
material networked within licensing rules.
Academic staff cannot be reimbursed for items purchased by them for addition
to stock.
All requests for library purchasing should be submitted via the print or the online form . (Please contact Helen Jones (e-mail h.jones@ucsm.ac.uk in the Resource Services Section for a username and password.)
On completion of the online form this will automatically go via email to your
Division/School Library Liaison Representative for authorisation, if accepted
they will forward to the Resource Services Section in Lancaster again via email.
On completion of the printed form you must send this to your Library Liaison
Representative, who will then forward to the Resource Services Section.
Any unauthorised forms will be returned.
5.2 Reading lists
The Library will purchase at least one copy of texts identified on a reading
list by Academic staff as essential, recommended or background reading for students.
One copy of an essential text will be purchased for every 15 students, up to
a maximum of 15 copies per site.
Every effort should have been made by Academic staff to include only material
that is currently obtainable.
This will come from the relevant Division/School budget on receipt of a book order request, or from information received via other means.
Academic staff must allow an adequate time for reading lists to be processed,
orders placed, items received and available for loan.
The number of copies purchased will be agreed between Library Liaison Co-ordinators
and the relevant member of academic staff.
In order to maintain a regular pattern of spend throughout the year the Resource
Services Section will set target dates for minimum spend within your Division/School.
30th November minimum of 40% of the fund
28th February minimum of 80% of the fund
31st May minimum of 100% of the fund
If orders have not reached the Resource Services Section by the target dates, library liaison staff for your Division/School will be informed and they will create orders from reading list information and data from the Talis library management system identifying demand for individual titles.
Items ordered in one financial year, but not received and invoiced until the
next financial year, become a charge on the following years accounts –
please bear this in mind and submit orders as early in the year as possible.
5.4 Budget Statement
Heads of Schools/Divisions and Library liaison representatives receive a monthly
statement outlining:
Cost to date of invoices passed for payment
Committed/on order items
Balance
The Resource Services Section can be contacted at any time for an update on
spending.
The Partnership Agreement is a document to be negotiated and agreed on an annual
basis between the Library and the School/Division. It will provide information
on the resources available in the library to support the teaching and learning
of the School/Division. It will analyse the methods of selecting new resources,
budgeting arrangements, areas for development and actions for the year ahead.
5.6 Book suppliers/discounts
The majority of orders will be sent to recognised library suppliers who fulfilled
the criteria in the tender contract negotiated by the North West University
Purchasing Consortium (NWUPC). This contract offers excellent discounts, quality
and cost-effective servicing, together with competitive supply time. The library
and NWUPC regularly reviews and monitors contract agreements to ensure value
for money is achieved.
6. Stock
6.1 Arrangement of stock
Books are arranged on the shelves according to the Dewey Decimal classification (DDC) scheme. There are 5 collections Main Collection, Teaching Practice, Short Loan, Core Text and Quick Reference.
6.2 Loan categories
A variety of loan periods are available for items; 6 week, 4 week, 7day loan,
bookable short loan and reference only.
Items can be changed from one period to another in order to increase the availability
of material.
Different copies of a title may be allocated different loan categories, please
note that long loan items reduce to 7 day loan until all outstanding reservations
are satisfied.
The introduction of a cross site reservation system has made the need to temporarily
relocate stock from one site to another redundant – however should you
still wish this to happen could you please contact the relevant Library Liaison
Co-ordinator for your Faculty.
6.3 Hardback/Paperback
The Library will normally purchase paperbacks (with reinforced covers) on the
grounds of cost, unless particularly heavy use is anticipated or only hardbacks
are available.
6.4 Donations
The library accepts donations to stock (subject to the availability of space
to house them and relevance to the Academic Strategy), we reserve the right
to select and keep only the items relevant to current teaching and research
needs, once added to stock they will be subject to current de-selection/ withdrawal
policies.
6.5 Dissertations
A copy of all PhD and MA/MPhil dissertations are added to stock, and any undergraduate
dissertations that have been awarded a first class honours degree, on a reference
only basis.
6.6 Replacements
Every effort will be made to replace lost or damaged stock when it is still
in print and relevant to current needs. Attempts will also be made to obtain
out of print items.
6.7 Short loan collection
Books that are in high demand should be placed in the Short loan collection,
in order to allow access by the greatest possible number of students.
The library is trialing a
'Core Text Collection'. This is a collection of keys texts for modules this term. Most books in this section will be in "bookable" short loan. This will ensure that sought after titles will always be in circulation.
Library Liaison Co-ordinators, in consultation with academic staff, should decide
how many copies should be in the collection based on their experience of demand
and student numbers.
The Library Management System will produce a fortnightly list of items frequently
reserved, from this we will identify in demand items and consider whether to
put a copy into short loan for the duration of a term.
6.8 Stock editing
The library will regularly and systematically undertake stock revision and de-selection/weeding
on a rolling programme.
Items are evaluated according to the following criteria.
Lack of use (due consideration will be given to the possibility that material
may be used without being borrowed)
Obsolete/out of date
Redundant multiple copies
Damaged stock
Later editions available
Library Liaison Co-ordinators will liase with academic staff to review the currency of stock. Academic staff are consulted about potential items to be discarded, before a final decision is made. Discarded books are then offered for sale to all library customers for a minimal charge. Unsold items will be offered to charitable organisations.
6.9 Reserve stock
Items that do not meet the criteria for retention or are in poor condition will
be withdrawn from stock.
As storage space is limited, items will only be placed in store if they are
rarely used, but potentially still useful.
6.10 Inter library loans
As in most academic libraries, St Martins College libraries cannot always provide
material from within its own collections.
The ILL service supplements the collections and is available to all users on
payment of a small administration charge.
Material will not normally be obtained via the ILL service if the item is in
stock, or available electronically.
Journals are selected by academic staff and funded out of the book fund allocated
to each school/division. The ratio of spending on books and journals will vary
according to the needs of each school/division, but must not normally exceed
50% of total allocation.
In order to have the widest possible coverage of journal titles, duplicate copies
of subscriptions will not generally be purchased, academic staff can decide
which campus site the journal should be held on and students can request photocopies
via the inter site loan system.
In times of financial constraint a new journal title will only be ordered when
an existing title is cancelled.
Consideration is given to electronic journals that increase accessibility.
The Library is committed to introduce electronic access to journal titles as
the standard access mode.
Subscriptions to all journals will be reviewed annually. During May all Heads
of Schools/Divisions will receive a current list of titles subscribed to across
the 3 campus sites, and detailing current price, and expected increases with
inflation. Consultation within Schools/Divisions should take place, with help
and advice from Library Liaison staff and lists should be returned to the Resource
Services Section by July indicating titles to be renewed or cancelled.
7. Online Access Policy
7.1 Online Resources
For the purposes of this document, online resources are considered to be ejournals,
ebooks, electronic indexing and abstracting services hosted on remote services,
and accessed via PC and standard web browser. The emphasis is therefore on access,
rather than collection, which has been addressed above. For the purposes of
this document, online resources do not encompass free web content, web gateways
such as the RDN or NeLH, or locally held software: networked or non-networked.
See Appendix 1 for selection criteria.
7.2 Purchasing
Consortia licensing offers value for money, a safeguard against rapidly rising
inflation rates, and changing licensing models. Current ejournal negotiations
are biased towards the “big deal” or subject clusters; licences
for ejournals, ebooks, and secondary indexing/abstracting sources usually require
a 3 year commitment. There is therefore, an associated lack of autonomy regarding
selection of econtent, and emphasis on the investment required to support recurrent
costs. Library Services continue to monitor, and seek to take advantage of national
licences negotiated by JISC, and those negotiated at local level by the NWUPC,
and NoWAL.
7.3 Licensing
St. Martin’s aims to deal with suppliers who conform to the JISC model
licence for electronic resources (attached). St. Martin’s also seeks to
achieve agreement regarding the following key points:
· Unlimited concurrent access
· Athens authentication for off-campus users
· IP authentication for on-campus users
· Guaranteed archival rights at reasonable cost
· Use of content within VLEs in compliance with current copyright legislation
· COUNTER compliant usage statistics
7.4 Access
Library Services aims to provide parity of access to online resources across
the campuses, to students studying in Tower Hamlets, Greenwich,Barrow & Whitehaven,
and to off-campus users. Where Athens authentication is not supported, Library
Services seeks to secure off-campus authentication by supplier assigned ID.
Online resources will be accessible via the webOPAC, and the library web pages;
organised alphabetically and thematically; supported by local Athens administrators
where possible. Long-term, we are seeking to provide seamless linking from secondary
indexing/abstracting services to primary resources using link resolver technology,
and hosted content via aggregators or intermediate suppliers.
7.5 Developments
The Library Service undertakes a commitment to monitor developments in online
services, access, and licensing. We also seek to work with professional organisations
such the NHS Workforce Development Confederations to achieve an appropriate
online access and econtent policy.
We will make new online resources available for trial, or set up trials on request;
to seek feedback from staff and students regarding ease-of-use, fitness for
purpose; to provide advice regarding budget implications, licensing, and access;
to maintain an overall view of online access resources across the Faculties,
and to balance this against subject-specific requirements. Online resources
will be incorporated in a review cycle appropriate to the licensing agreement.
Where possible, usage statistics will be made available to support the review.
8. Policy revision
The policy will be revised and updated annually, to take account of new developments. We also welcome feedback to the policy document.
March 2005
Appendix 1 - Electronic Resources Policy
see also Collection Management Policy – Journals
see also Collection Management Policy - Online Access
see also Online Services – Evaluation and Review
see also User Education Policy (forthcoming)
For the purposes of this appendix, electronic resources comprise indexing and abstracting services, electronic journals (ejournal), and electronic books (ebooks). An ejournal or ebook is a publication available in electronic format (html, pdf, or MS Word), held on remote or local server, compact or floppy disk, and accessible via the Internet, College Intranet or VLE, or stand-alone PC.
In order to achieve parity of service to students and staff of the College, online access to electronic resources, free-at-the-point-of-use, and channelled through gateways on the Library website, remains the ultimate goal. However, St.Martin’s Library Services are sometimes constrained, for licensing or technological reasons, to hold electronic archival content locally.
In order to increase the availability of electronic resources to students and staff of the College, St.Martin’s Library Services engages in a cycle of review and evaluation of services. A number of factors are taken into account in any decision-making process:
· Cost of an electronic only subscription compared with a combined print/electronic
subscription.
· Cost of a single ejournal or ebook compared with a subject bundle.
· Recurrent funding required to maintain access to electronic archive.
· Recurrent funding required to support multi-year, consortia commitments.
· Licensing in relation to multi-site, off-campus, international access.
· Licensing in relation to walk-in users, students on franchise courses,
or any developments relating to the College Widening Access and Participation
Policy.
· Content in relation to support for taught courses or research.
· Content in relation to embargo periods, back files of ejournals, and
current editions of ebooks.
· Platform, interface, browser and software requirements.
· Publisher, aggregator or intermediary supplier.
· Integration into Library Catalogue or other online journal list.
· Training for library, academic staff, and students.