The main purpose of the Collection Development Policy is to establish operating guidelines for the planned development of a quality collection of materials to meet the educational needs of students and faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater as guided by the missions of the University Cluster, the University and the Library. The Library is a vital instruction and information resource for the University.
Primary users are the undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and staff.
Its collection should serve instructional, curricular and research needs of its primary users. At the same time, the exploding production of books, periodicals, audiovisual media and computer software, rising costs and a limited budget demand a prudent selection policy which acknowledges the need to rely on cooperative resource sharing. For less frequently used materials, recent technological improvements make access to remote information resources an acceptable alternative to ownership. The policy intends to provide general guidelines for allocating funds fairly, establishing collection levels for each subject area, and formulating objective selection criteria. The goals are to ensure consistency among those who have responsibility for developing the collection and to provide a tool for evaluating and improving collections for all relevant subject disciplines.