Selected lower-division textbooks are added to provide alternate treatment of introductory material in the field. Upper-division textbooks are collected using the same criteria. Gift textbooks published more than a decade ago are seldom accepted for the collection. Multiple copies are added when a work is very likely to be heavily used. Variant editions are a minimal consideration in collecting.
Serials report the significant advances in geologic research.
Therefore, as a group they are given the highest priority of any form of publication collected. Currently there is considerable emphasis on obtaining Web access to digital full-text versions of periodicals. The numerical dominance of serially published government documents and the general importance of government publications for the geological sciences is reflected in the collections and collection-development activities. Proceedings of conferences, colloquia, and symposia are as a group collected at a priority level second to serials. The publication of applied research results as technical reports rather than as journal articles has markedly accelerated in the geological sciences, especially since the 1970s.