At first glance, one might question the need for a statement of purpose for an academic library. "Everyone knows" why an academic library exists. However, as the academic institution to which the library is attached changes over time, so will the library; as the institution redefines its goals over the years, so must the library adapt to achieve those goals. Therefore, those responsible for the library must scrutinize it regularly and carefully to make sure that it is developing in the same directions and at the same rate as its parent institution.

The primary objective of Raugust Library is to support the undergraduate curriculum. This requires a broad subject coverage rather than an especially deep one. Depth can be attempted only in those fields where a large number of upperclassmen place more than entry-level demands upon the collection. Even this degree of depth will not encompass the research materials required by graduate level study or faculty research; certainly a comprehensive collection, containing everything available upon a given topic, is beyond the scope of this library. For faculty and upper-division research, the library will gladly make use of its extensive series of networks to locate and retrieve extramural materials.

The library also attempts to provide a variety of points of view on the subjects taught at the college. A collection that is skewed to one interpretation will not help students learn to analyze positions or synthesize arguments.

The primary clientele of Raugust Library is the undergraduate population of the college. Within this group are individuals with a wide range of reading abilities, from minimal to excellent. The library collection contains materials which are accessible at every reading level, although the bulk of the materials are in the upper high school / lower college range. Where complex materials cannot be satisfactorily reduced to a simplified level in printed form, some attempt has been made to cover these areas in video tape, audio tape, kit, cd-rom, DVD, or other non-print format.

It should be emphasized that this is not an attempt to "dumb down" the collection, but rather an effort to meet the students at their own level of ability. Far more materials are held which challenge the best students and serve as gateways for further study or graduate research.

The other major user group is the faculty. The faculty have a strong tendency to use their own personal libraries rather than the college's, except for periodicals, recreational reading, and interlibrary loan. Much of their library use involves placing materials on reserve for students in their classes.

The third user group on campus is that of administration and staff members. Although this group has accounted for the smallest number of users in the past, in recent years their requests for information and materials have grown, as their jobs have become more complex. This trend is expected to continue.

Raugust Library also has a surprisingly large body of non-college borrowers. Given the geographical problems of North Dakota, the college library has become the back-up library for the school, city, and county libraries in our area, used by over 800 people with no formal affiliation to the college. One side effect of the development of the Curriculum Library is that the collection now appeals to all age groups, from pre-readers to the elderly.

Within the subject areas taught at the college, the library collects materials only on classes actually offered. For instance, while history is taught, there are no classes in South American or African history; while chemistry is taught, there are no classes in petroleum chemistry. Therefore, the library will acquire minimal amounts of materials in these areas, sufficient only to satisfy a general curiosity or to answer questions arising in the course of research into a related field. As classes and majors are added or deleted, so are collecting areas within the library. The library will make no attempt at encyclopedic knowledge in depth.

Generally speaking, in addition to supporting the curriculum, the library will supply access to online indexing and full-text databases, which will enable the user to locate materials in electronic format or in other libraries. The library will also provide a current and broad reference collection. The library does not have sufficient funds to buy adult fiction, other than copies of materials which are taught in courses, and so will not be able to supply popular fictional reading materials, except as these are received as gifts. The discretion of the librarian will determine which gift materials are accepted.

While the library staff is most anxious to strengthen the weak sections of the collection, it is important not to do this at the expense of the sections which are already strong. A systematic approach to collection development is crucial, with each collecting area examined carefully in turn in order to assess its usefulness and value to the college. After each area has been strengthened to the degree which has been determined necessary, it must be maintained at that level and still improved, if at a slower rate. To do anything less would be to backslide. One cannot build a strong collection and expect it to stay strong if it is static.

The library will acquire materials in whatever format is most useful to the user, whether print or non-print. In addition to books and journals, the library currently holds and will continue to acquire video tapes, audio tapes, laser discs, kits, games, cds, electronic books, posters, slides, overhead transparencies, microfilm, microfiche, CD-ROM's, dvds, and computer programs. Format will only be a consideration in the purchase of materials if the library does not have the equipment to access the format.

The library now licenses and will continue to license bibliographic and full text databases in appropriate content areas. The same selection criteria will apply to these databases as to any materials bought for the library.

English will be the language of the collection effort, except for those materials which are bought specifically to support the foreign language curriculum. In addition, English/foreign language dictionaries for modern European languages will be bought and reference materials in foreign languages will be updated as needed (e.g., yearbooks and supplements for foreign language encyclopedias.)

No chronological period will be excluded from the collection.

Duplicates will be bought only in cases of extremely heavy use. This should not happen more than three or four times per year. If a gift is received which duplicates material already held in the library, the condition of the library's copy will be evaluated to see if it needs to be replaced and its circulation history will be examined to see if a second copy would be a valuable addition. Otherwise, the gift will either be returned to the donor or disposed of by the library staff.

Gifts will not be accepted for the collection which do not meet the selection requirements for books bought for the collection. If the donor still wishes to give the materials to the library, they will be disposed of through the annual book sale or in some other manner. AV materials, videotapes, computer software, and other materials involving public performance rights or licensing may not be accepted as gifts unless copyright has first been cleared or a license obtained.

Currently, only one formal cooperative collection agreement exists, between Raugust Library and the North Dakota State Library. It involves the Curriculum Library, which has been designated the state resource for children's materials. Under the agreement, Raugust Library receives about 500 children's books per year from the State Library. We bear the expense of cataloging, shelving, and lending these materials, but as they are gifts to the State Library from various publishers, we do not have any control over the selection process. This has not been a problem, as all the books have been new and of very high quality, but the program should be evaluated periodically to see if it is still meeting our needs.

There are various informal agreements with other libraries as well. The Alfred Dickey Public Library purchases what might be described as more general or popular materials, oftentimes things outside our curriculum areas, and our patrons who desire these items are referred downtown for them. Conversely, the public library sends patrons who need more scholarly materials to the college library. The directors of the two libraries do not feel that competition in these areas would benefit either library or either primary patron group. In one area, at least, the public library has a fine collection which supplements that of the college library, namely, small business administration. Their collection has grown out of the need to provide assistance to the businesspeople of Jamestown, and our students have benefited from it. It makes no sense to duplicate this collection when the public library is only a mile away from campus.

Given the geographic isolation we deal with, cooperative agreements are not easy to sustain. The only other one is very informal and involves the State Library again. This simply states that if a book is borrowed on interlibrary loan more than twice during a year, the State Library should be notified so that it can buy a copy for back-up. We have invoked this policy only twice.

NCA accreditation teams take the size and quality of the library into consideration when granting accreditation or reaccreditation to a school. They do not recognize a particular set of parameters (number of volumes/student or number of volumes/school size) nor do they have a particular set of rules defining the number of employees necessary to run a library. Rather, they attempt to ascertain that the library can support whatever programs are offered by the college.

When the nursing program is examined periodically for recertification, the library is scrutinized much more closely, at least as to the nursing holdings. Problems here would cause problems with the recertification of the program.

The State Board of Higher Education has some guidelines, albeit unstated, for the curriculum libraries at institutions which train teachers; they are not articulated as clearly as could be hoped.

The Association of College and Research Libraries of the American Library Association issues a publication, STANDARDS FOR COLLEGE LIBRARIES, which is the best yardstick for determining the overall strength of an academic library collection. In past years, the standards consisted of the “bean counting” variety: numbers of books, journals, professional librarians per student or degree area, for instance. Raugust Library has improved from a grade of C- to a B over the years by these measurements.

The most recent STANDARDS, however, do not measure the quality of a library by what it holds, but rather by the effect it has on the learning of the students. This is a difficult thing to assess. The new standards need to be applied to the library every two or three years and the results incorporated into the collection development policy.

Selection levels defined:
c  comprehensive  complete & exhaustive acquisition of materials
e  excellent  deep subject coverage to satisfy the research needs of upper- division undergraduates
s  strong  broad coverage which would satisfy most lower division student needs
b  basic  standard works containing general information
m  minimal  slight or no coverage

Dewey Number
by decade  Description  Level
000  generalities  b
010  bibliography  e
020  library & info. science  b
030  general encyclopedic works  s
040  
050  general serial publications  s
060  general organization; museology  m
070  journalism, publishing  s
080  general collections  m
090  manuscripts & book rarities  m
100  philosophy & related disciplines  e
110  metaphysics  s
120  epistemology  e
130  paranormal phenomena  b
140  specific philosophical viewpoints  e
150  psychology  e
160  logic  s
170   ethics  e
180  ancient, medieval, oriental  s
190  modern western philosophy  e
200  religion  e
210  natural religion  s
220  Bible  e
230  Christian theology  e
240  Christian moral & devotional  s
250  local church & religious orders  s
260   social & ecclesiastical theology  s
270  history & geography of church  s
280  Christian denominations & sects  s
290  other & comparative religions  e
300  social sciences  e
310  statistics  s
320  political science  e
330   economics  s
340  law  b
350  public administration  b
360  social problems & services  s
370  education  e
380  commerce  s
390  customs, etiquette, folklore  s
400  language  b
410  linguistics  b
420  English & Anglo-Saxon languages  s
430  Germanic languages  s
440  Romance languages  s
450  Italian Romanian, etc.  b
460  Spanish & Portuguese languages  s
470  Italic languages (Latin)  b
480  Hellenic (classical Greek)  b
490  other languages  b
500  pure sciences  e
510  mathematics  e
520  astronomy & allied sciences  m
530  physics  s
540  chemistry & allied sciences  s
550  sciences of earth & other worlds  b
560  paleontology  m
570  life sciences  e
580  botanical sciences  s
590  zoological sciences  e
600  technology (applied science)  s
610  medical sciences  e
620  engineering & allied operations  m
630  agriculture & related technologies  m
640  home economics & family living  m
650  management & auxiliary services  s
660  chemical & related technologies  b
670  manufacturers  m
680  manufacture for specific uses  b
690  buildings  b
700  the arts  s
710  civic & landscape art  m
720  architecture  s
730  plastic arts (sculpture)  s
740  drawing, decorative, & minor arts  s
750  painting & paintings  e
760  graphic arts (prints)  s
770  photography & photographs  s
780  music  e
790  recreational & performing arts  s
800  literature (belles-lettres)  e
810  American literature in English  e
820  English & Anglo-Saxon literatures  e
830  literatures of Germanic languages  s
840  literatures of Romance languages  s
850  Italian, Romanian, Rhaeto-Romanic literatures  m
860  Spanish & Portuguese literatures  s
870  Italic literatures (Latin)  b
880  Hellenic literatures (Greek)  b
890  literature of other languages  b
900  general geography and history  e
910  general geography (travel)  s
920  general biography & genealogy  b
930  general history of the ancient  e
940  general history of Europe  e
950  general history of Asia  e
960  general history of Africa  b
970  general history of North America  e
980  general history of South America  b
990  general history of other areas  b

Within these areas, criteria for considering the purchase of any particular item will include, but not be limited to, the following:

1. demand for and projected use;
2. whether or not it is in a subject area taught at the college;
3. whether or not the subject is currently covered in the library's collection;
4. whether or not the approach/point-of-view is covered in the library's collection;
5. quality of the item as reflected in available reviews;
6. cost;
7. projected long-term value of the item to the collection;
8. equipment needed to access the item.

In order to maintain a strong and useful collection, materials must be removed from the collection as well as added. The function of a college library is not to serve as a warehouse of old books.

Weeding must be done very carefully. The librarian should use standard and specialized bibliographies, consultations with faculty in doubtful cases, knowledge of the school and curriculum, and professional instincts and experience in deciding which books to discard.

The criteria for discarding materials from the library include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. timeliness;
2. whether or not a more current edition is available;
3. whether or not multiple copies can be discarded, leaving only one or two copies;
4. whether or not the subject area is being taught or is likely to be taught in the foreseeable future;
5. circulation history;
6. physical condition of the material.

Academic libraries are rarely challenged on account of the materials they collect and hold. However, it is appropriate to have a policy in place to deal with any challenge to materials held in the library.

If any patron objects to any material in the library, s/he will be asked to fill out a form and turn it in to the director. The director will then arrange a meeting with the patron during the following week to discuss the concerns raised. If the matter cannot be resolved, it will be referred to a meeting of the patron, the director, and the academic dean.

However the matter is resolved, a formal report will be made to the dean and the North Dakota Library Association Intellectual Freedom Committee. The name of the patron initiating the request for reconsideration will be kept confidential in this report.