April 19, 2007; Revised April 17, 2014, Revised June 25, 2018; Revised October 18, 2018; Revised October 23, 2019, May 20, 2021, June 17, 2021, April 2022
The Oakland Community College Libraries provide information literacy education, resources, and services to support the curricula offered by the College and the research needs of students, faculty, staff, and administration. The Library supports general information needs and helps to foster intellectual exploration and critical thinking among constituents within the college and community.
The OCC Campus Libraries and its collection development policy support the Mission, Values and Vision of the parent institution, Oakland Community College:
Link: https://www.oaklandcc.edu/about/mission-strategic-priorities-vision.aspx
CONTENTS
This collection supports the academic and research needs of the Oakland Community College students and faculty. This Collection Development Policy will describe the procedures for selecting and maintaining the collection.
OCC Libraries support and demonstrate the general principles of intellectual freedom outlined in the Library Bill of Rights of the American Library Association and further interpreted in the Freedom to Read Statement, The Freedom to View Statement, and the Intellectual Freedom Principles for Academic Libraries as adopted and approved by the American Library Association (ALA) and Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) June 29, 1999, amended on July 1, 2014. The core of these principles holds that intellectual freedom is critical to the development of academic library collections to dispassionately meet the education and research needs of a college or university community.
For the objectives of this policy, the OCC Libraries have adopted those sections applicable to collection development, as follows:
Decisions are made in consultation with the collection development tools mentioned in the Selection Tools section of this document. All faculty, students, and staff are encouraged to recommend library material. All final decisions to add titles to or remove titles from the collection, however, will be made by the Library Faculty.
All collections are available for the use of the entire college community. However, because each campus has specialized programs and classes, each campus will be responsible for its own selection while taking into account the collections of the other campuses. In addition, OCC has shared collections (e-collections including library databases, e-books, streaming videos, government documents) about which the Library Council makes collective decisions.
Items are selected which are deemed to support the curriculum of Oakland Community College.
Print resources
The size of the library holdings in print varies by campus. The majority of this collection is in the circulating collection. Additionally, current titles in reference and a copy of some required texts are on reserve to ensure accessibility to all our students.
Electronic and Digital resources
OCC subscribes to a variety of electronic resources, including: journal databases which provide citation and some full text access to current and historical articles, reference resources, multimedia databases (image, audio, video, etc.), and books. Students and faculty also have access to some current and previous years of direct subscription journals in electronic form.
Media resources
Audiovisual media supports the curriculum and are closed captioned/accessible.
In order to provide the most current and relevant titles for students and faculty, Librarians inventory, weed and use various collection development tools. Librarians access information/reviews regarding current titles through Books in Print, Choice and Library Journal. In addition, special collections at the various campuses will use collection development tools specifically designed for those subject areas. Librarians may also seek additional input from the Librarians at the various Oakland Community College campuses, the OCC faculty, or others who possess knowledge in the specific subject area being evaluated.
If a library patron needs material that is not available at OCC, the Reference Librarian will assist the patron in identifying a library where it is available. To obtain materials outside of OCC, the Library will interloan material only for OCC students and staff. Other patrons will be referred to their local public library. For incoming requests, OCC will lend circulating material for the normal loan period (three weeks) at no charge, unless the material has been catalogued for institutional use only.
Reciprocal borrowing is another method of resource sharing used by the OCC Libraries. Oakland Community College Libraries participate in a reciprocal borrowing arrangement with several other area college libraries. Consequently, currently enrolled OCC students and staff can go directly to participating reciprocal libraries and check materials out.
Ongoing weeding and maintenance are goals of the OCC Libraries. The collection is weeded to ensure current and relevant materials are available to our students and faculty.
The selection criteria indicated above are followed when determining what can be weeded. In addition, these other criteria are considered:
Disposition of discarded/weeded materials:
The materials, resources and services provided by the Oakland Community College Libraries are selected in accordance with the Libraries’ Collection Development Policy to support the academic and research needs of Oakland Community College students, faculty, and staff. As outlined in the policy’s Statement of Intellectual Freedom (Section 2 above), it is essential that collections that support these principles contain materials representing a variety of perspectives on subjects that may be considered controversial. The selection of any resource for the collection does not infer endorsement or advocacy of the ideas or statements found therein.
Procedures for Reconsideration / Challenges of Collection Material
To initiate a request for reconsideration of a specific resource in the collection, the following steps must be taken by the initiator:
Title: ____________________________________________
Author: ________________________________________
Resources consulted: (include policies, articles, reviews etc.)
______________________________________________________________________________
Materials Reconsideration Committee decision:
______________________________________________________________________________
Justification and comments: (include majority and minority positions)
______________________________________________________________________________
Materials Reconsideration Committee Members:
Date: ______________________________________
Policy Review:
This policy may be reviewed and revised as needed to address changes and current practices.
Oakland Community College Library Council, April 2022