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Overview

On this page

• Introduction
• Mission
• Objectives and strategies
• Context
• Responsibility
• University of Otago Profile
• History of the Library
• Decentralised Library System
• Library Users
• Finance
• Donations

Introduction

The Collection Development Policy sets out the collecting responsibilities and priorities for onsite and remote access collections of the University of Otago Library. It defines and describes the purpose and content of these collections and provides a general framework against which current and future collection development, selection and budget allocation decisions can be made. It has been prepared in the context of the strategic direction of both the Library and the University. It provides guidance to those involved in the selection, preservation, and weeding of Library materials.

Collection development and selection of onsite and accessible information resources takes place within the broader range of Information Resources responsibilities which encompass the systematic development of the collections, selection and acquisition, organisation and description, evaluation, distribution and preservation. These activities are undertaken in a cost efficient and user relevant manner, to meet specific institutional objectives. The policy sets out the Library’s aspirations while acknowledging the implementation may be dependent on the availability of resources.

The University of Otago is a major research institution and a provider of high quality undergraduate education over a wide range of disciplines.  The Library has a responsibility to provide a collection to support both research and teaching roles. 

The first part of this policy lists basic principles upon which the policy is based.  It is followed by an overview and general policy statements.  The last part contains individual policy statements for subject and special collections, and branch libraries.

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Mission

The Library is committed to facilitating access to and preserving the information and knowledge resources needed by the university community by enabling access to an impartial, enriched environment for learning and research.

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Objectives and strategies

The strategies identified in the Strategic Plan to achieve the Library objective to "Develop quality information resources and collections" are to:

• Select, acquire and preserve information resources in line with the needs of the University community.
• Identify and analyse user needs for resources and provide information resources which meet user needs.
• Select high quality information resources in the most appropriate format for each resource.
• Maintain up-to-date resource policies and communicate these.
• Use a range of strategies to manage rising costs of resources and enhance purchasing power.

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Context

The Library is the University’s key access point for information resources in support of current and anticipated teaching and research. The Library selects, acquires, preserves and provides access to appropriate resources locally and internationally. The Library provides suitable study environments for its users. Library staff assist in providing access to information and knowledge and training in information literacy skills.

The Library supports the research and teaching goals of the University including current and future research and teaching needs, taking into account as far as possible, the development and introduction of new teaching programmes and new areas of research interest.

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Responsibility

The University Librarian is responsible to the Vice-Chancellor through the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic and International).   
The Library Services Standing Committee, a committee of Senate, provides advice to Senate on policy relating to the University Library, advise the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic and International) as to the financial and other resource needs of the Library and assists in the planning process.  It is comprised of the following members;

• Nominated Chair
• Representative of the School of Business
• Representative of the Division of Health Sciences
• Representative of the Division of Humanities
• Representative of the Faculty of Law
• Representative of the Division of Sciences
• Representative of the Academic Staff
• Representative of the Hocken Collections Committees
• Two undergraduate and one graduate students nominated by the OUSA Executive
• The University Librarian (ex officio) (Convener)
• Information Resources Manager (ex officio)
• Corporate Services Manager (ex officio)
• Access and Development Services Manager (ex officio)
• Information and Education Services Manager (ex officio)

The Library Resource Management Policy and Planning Group is charged with the following terms of reference:

• To develop policy relating to resource management for the Library system
• To provide a forum for the communication and discussion of resource management issues and developments
• To consider the proposed budget allocations for Library resources, amending as appropriate prior to their being presented to the Library Services Committee for endorsement
• To report on resources expenditure, notable acquisitions and gifts for the previous year
• To determine the use of the various resource funds for major new items
• To make recommendations to the University Librarian on resource management issues

Members: Information Resources Manager (Chair), Assistant Information Resources Librarian, Assistant Librarian (Collection Development), Orders Librarian (Minutes Secretary), Serials Librarian, Health Sciences Librarian, Hocken Librarian, Law Librarian, Reference Librarian, Science Librarian.

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University of Otago Profile

The University of Otago was founded in 1869, the first university to be established in New Zealand.  The University grew rapidly, and with the exception of a brief period in the early 1980’s, this growth has continued.  In 2005 the University’s student population was 17,830 EFTS. This growth in the student body has lead to an increase in the academic, research and general staff of the university to 3,307 equivalent full-time positions in 2005. 

The University offers a wide range of subjects.  It has the senior of the two medical schools in New Zealand, and unique schools for New Zealand in dentistry, pharmacy, physical education, surveying and consumer and applied science.

The university is divided into four academic divisions: Commerce, Health Sciences, Humanities (including Law), and Science.  The Humanities Division is the largest group for student numbers with 28.67% of total EFTS in 2005.  Percentages for the other divisions are Health Sciences 26.09%, Sciences 24.69% and Commerce 20.53%. 

As a result of the merge with the Dunedin College of Education, from 2007 a Faculty of Education will be created as part of the Humanities Division.

The main University campus is located in Dunedin where the majority of students live and work. The Christchurch and Wellington Schools of Medicine as part of the Health Sciences Division, provide clinical teaching to undergraduate students as well as conducting research and postgraduate teaching programmes. A facility in Auckland provides for continuing education programmes. The Wellington Stadium Centre serves as a base for a number of University activities in the Wellington region. Distance learning activities extend throughout New Zealand and abroad. 

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History of the Library

The decision to found the Library was made in 1869 at the first University Council meeting.  By 1872 there was a collection of 528 volumes and by 1910 this had grown to 10,000. The first full-time University Librarian was appointed in 1914 and by 1942 he reported that the Library held 80,000 volumes.

In April 1965 a new University Library building which had been planned for a number of years, was finally opened.

The 1960's and 1970's was a time of rapid growth, and although the economic downturn towards the end of this period had an adverse effect on the Library, by 1989 the total collection had reached more than 1.4 million volumes (including newspapers, archives and manuscripts).

Dramatic increases in the cost of many publishers serial subscriptions combined with a falling New Zealand dollar in the late 1980s and 1990s saw periodicals and standing orders cancellations in 1991, 1996, 1997 and 2001.

A Library Review took place in 1992, followed by a Sequential Review in 1994 and subsequent substantial increase in the Library’s budget from 1993-1995.  

Following the space needs identified in the reviews the Library undertook a major building programme which resulted in relocating Hocken Collections to a renovated building in Anzac Avenue, a major renovation of the Science Library and in 2001 the completion of the Information Services Building complex in which the Central Library is the major occupier. 

By the end of 2005 the Library housed 2,871,114 items (including over a million photographs in the Hocken Collections), 7,234 print subscriptions and access was provided to 70,536 electronic serials.

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Decentralised Library System

The Library collections are decentralised following the recommendations of the McEldowney Report in 1963 and the policy statement adopted by the Council in 1970 (amended 1973).   The Library system comprises the following major units:

Bill Robertson Library.  Following the merge of the University and the Dunedin College of Education in 2007, the Bill Robertson Library became a branch of the University Library system.  This branch holds the education collections in support of the new Faculty of Education. The Bill Robertson Library is also the library for the Otago Polytechnic, with library services provided by the University of Otago Library via a service level agreement.

Central Library.  The Central Library is the major occupier of the new Information Services Building (ISB), completed in 2001. Situated at the heart of the campus the Central Library houses the collections for arts, humanities, commerce, education, physical education, social sciences, theology, and general reference. Special Collections and the main Audiovisual collection are also housed in the Central Library.

Hocken Collections. (New Zealand, the Pacific, early Australia and the Antarctic). This Library was presented to the University in 1910, and from the 1930's the Library took over responsibility for its staffing. In 1979 it moved from the Otago Museum into the University's new Hocken Building, since renamed the Richardson Building. In 1989 archives and photographs moved to Leith Street to alleviate the pressure on space. In 1998 all collections were reunited in the present Anzac Avenue location.

Medical and Dental Libraries. A medical collection had been in existence from the founding of the Medical School, but it became a staffed library for the first time with the opening of the Scott Building in 1916. It remained a faculty library, with funding from the Medical School's own budget, until 1964 when it officially became part of the University Library system. The Dental Library, by contrast, had been part of the Library system from its founding in about 1950.

Sir Robert Stout Law Library. It was established in 1959, and after being housed in Dunedin's Supreme Court buildings, moved to the University site in the late 1960's. In 1973 the first Library staff appointment was made. It is presently housed on floors 7 to 9 of the Richardson Building.

Science Library.  This Library was established in 1978, with some staff and stock being moved from the Central Library, and with some stock from Science Departments also being deposited in the Library.  It is located in the west block of the Science III building.

Storage. The Library has two off-campus storage buildings, collectively known as Leith Lending which hold older or less used material.
Leith Lending I at 137 Leith Street houses journals from the Central, Medical/Dental and Science Libraries. It also holds books from the Medical/Dental Libraries and microforms.
Leith Lending II at 109 Leith Street houses books from the Central, Law, and Science Libraries, and some audiovisual material.

The Library itself is divided administratively into 4 units:
Information Resources, previously called Collection Management, includes Library Resources budget, Collection Development, Acquisitions, Serials, Electronic resources, Cataloguing and Physical processing.
Access and Development Services includes Lending Services (Borrowing Services, AudioVisual Services, Reserve), Digital Projects and Systems.
Information and Education Services includes Helpdesks, Document Delivery, Remote Services, Special Collections , User Education and Information Literacy.
Corporate Services includes Administration, Finance, Human Resources, Copying Services and Bindery.

As well as the Dunedin Medical School the University has medical schools in Christchurch and Wellington, with medical libraries attached to all schools. These libraries are cooperative ventures between the University and the District Health Boards. Advice and support is provided to these libraries from Dunedin. Funding for the medical school libraries in Christchurch and Wellington is divisionally based.

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Library Users

University students and staff are the key library users.  Borrowing privileges are extended beyond the University’s students and staff to members of the University Council, graduates, retired University staff living in the Dunedin area and approved academic visitors.

Staff and students from institutions with reciprocal lending rights with the University have borrowing privileges as do people approved by the University Librarian. Libraries which use the interlibrary loan service have limited borrowing rights.  Members of the general public may use the Library for reading and reference.

Online resources are generally only available for use by students and staff of the university because of licensing requirements.

Eligibility to use the Library Policy

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Finance

Sources of Funding

The University makes an annual recurring allocation to the Library through the Academic Division for the purchase of onsite and accessible library resources and sundry expenses. The Library also benefits from a number of trust funds.

Collection Funds

The Library splits the allocation into funds. Funds are spent in accordance with general Library policy as determined by the Library Services Committee and the Library staff's appreciation of the needs of the Library's users.

In order to establish budgetary control, the Library sets each department a target figure for the purchase of books and other “one-off” items based on a formula derived by a working party of the Library Services Committee. These figures are not allocations, and if some departments do not forward suggestions to the appropriate level, other departments with pressing needs may be allowed to extend beyond the target figure. A report is made to the Library Services Committee each year, showing the amount committed from this fund for the previous year.

A fund is available for the purchase of standing orders, that is multiple volume works which appear, and are billed, at often irregular intervals over a lengthy period.

Library staff estimate the amount which will be required to pay for existing serial subscriptions both print and electronic resources with ongoing costs, in the light of reported price movements and taking into account the possible exchange rate fluctuations.

General funds are used for purchases made on the recommendation of members of the Library staff and of academic staff in fields other than their own. Expensive major works and back numbers of important works are purchased from general funds.

The purpose of the Collection Development Fund is to enable the Information Resources Manager, in conjunction with members of academic staff to undertake a programme of strengthening sections of the collection: to take advantage of special opportunities which cannot be financed in any other way, to provide for new interests arising, for example, from the appointment of new staff members, or the establishment of new courses of study.

Funds for purchase of Library materials are set aside for publications for the Hocken Collections. This does not cover all the Hocken Library's needs, some of which must be met from Trust fund earnings.

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Donations

Gifts

The resources of the University of Otago Library have been developed through judicious purchase of materials and the acceptance of many valuable and useful gifts. The same selection principles are applied to gifts and exchanges as are applied to purchased material for the library collection.

Because of the nature of a university library collection, certain conditions need to be met when receiving gifts. If the item is outside of the collecting policy of the Library the gift will not normally be accepted. Exceptions are when collections are offered that may provide a catalyst to developing new teaching or research interests.

If gifts of marginal value to the collection would involve considerable technical processing the cost of adding them to the collection may outweigh their value. The purchase price of any item is only a part of the cost of placing that item on the library shelf.

Careful consideration of the costs, versus the value to the collection, is needed when acceptance of a gift would involve the Library in providing preservation or similar work. Similarly, if a collection would need ongoing purchases to maintain its currency. Available shelf space should be considered before large collections are accepted.

• The Library will determine the classification, housing and circulation policies of gift items as it does with purchased items.
• The Library may dispose of material because of duplication, physical condition, or because it is outside the current scope of the collection.
• Gifts of library materials added to the collection, or library materials purchased with money given to the Library are incorporated within the collection. No special collection shall be set up. A bookplate to identify donors is placed inside books if requested.

From time to time gifts are offered to the Library which are not particularly valuable, duplicate existing holdings, or are outside the scope of the library collections.  Those items which are clearly outside the collecting interests of the Library should not be accepted, but alternative more appropriate libraries may be suggested as possible recipients.  When evaluating gifts for the Library there may be items which duplicate existing holdings and are not required.  It should be made clear to the donor what will happen with those items. 

Order of preference for disposal is:

• Return unwanted items to the donor.
• Suggest alternative recipient libraries.
• Offer to University staff with an interest in the subject matter.
• Offer to Regent Book Sale, or similar.

All gifts should be acknowledged.  A form letter is sufficient for most, but gifts of special value should be acknowledged with a personal letter.

Exchanges

Exchange arrangements involve libraries connected with institutions which publish their own materials exchanging these publications for the works produced by other institutions. The best arrangements give access to University publications for  free or at substantial discount.  Any exchange arrangement should proceed from the needs of the Library, rather than from a desire to distribute scholarly materials.

Last revised: 5 October, 2009