General Materials Selection

The following are generic guidelines intended to assist librarians in the process of considering titles for inclusion and retention in all library collections, regardless of designation, format, or audience. It is recognized that the suggested criteria will be weighted differently in specific situations, and that few titles will meet all of the criteria listed below.

Relevance to Instructional Programs
Materials which directly meet student curricular needs in the class and programs offered by the GSE and the SFC, including required and recommended reading or viewing material to support student papers and reports, including reference and bibliographical works which facilitate finding and using these materials which may be drawn upon in faculty preparation of class instruction.

Quality of Content
All titles, regardless of format or audience, should be favorably reviewed by experts through written journal reviews and/or recommendations by faculty and librarians. Fiction should have literary merit; nonfiction should present information that is current, accurate, and intelligible, with sources of factual information clearly indicated in references.

Estimated Use
The library will acquire and maintain only those titles that promise to be of a direct benefit to students, faculty, and staff. The library will make use of current technologies, such as Patron Driven Acquisitions (PDA), in which electronic materials such as ebooks can be added to the catalog, but only purchased once the item is used. This guarantees a cost benefit to purchasing items for the collection that are of value to the patrons.

Cost
If a title is deemed of good quality and relevant to programs, then the criteria of cost is applied. Any title costing $100 or more will be rigorously examined, subject to the criteria of estimated use and instructional needs.

Faculty Publications
Whenever possible, the library collects faculty publications for the collection or for Bank Street’s open access institutional repository, Educate.