Collection Development

Wichita State University Libraries acquires, manages, and provides access to physical and digital resources in support of the University’s curricular and research needs. The faculty of the University Libraries manage the collections on behalf of the entire University and all of its disciplines.

While we both invite and seek input from the various constituencies across the University, it remains the University Libraries’ sole responsibility to make the decisions necessary for the management of those collections. The faculty of the University Libraries make these decisions with the utmost care and consideration.

In our collection development practice we:

• Adhere to the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions’s Statement on Libraries and Intellectual Freedom.
• Endeavor to provide access to a wide range of viewpoints and perspectives.
• Strive to make our collections accessible to all users. We work to identify and remove barriers to the use of our collections and services, ensuring that the technology platforms we invest in follow national standards for accessibility.

The ability to build collections is affected by funding, space, and availability of materials. While we work to acquire physical and digital resources through considerate stewardship of funds, our consortial partnerships also strengthen our collections. We maintain cooperative agreements for shared purchasing, preservation, and resource sharing with memberships in Lyrasis, HathiTrust, and MOBIUS.

Decisions to withdraw materials from the collections improve the quality of collections and are based on current professional standards. Criteria for deaccessioning include condition, redundancy, and format along with whether material contains dangerously outdated content. Furthermore, materials that are out-of-scope given the changing needs of the university may be withdrawn (including incomplete serials holdings, low-use items, or titles that are superseded by later editions in the collection). Materials are disposed of following guidelines for university property set by the State of Kansas.