Aerial view of campus with Williamsport, the Susquehanna River and Bald Eagle Mountain as a backdrop

Collection Development Policy

Library Mission

The mission of Snowden Library is to support the faculty, students, and staff of Lycoming College by providing a learning environment essential to the liberal arts through instruction, services, and collection access.

Partial Mission Statement, adopted by the Snowden Library Faculty Library Advisory Committee May 28, 2003; Modified September 2016.

Selection Responsibility

The Head of Library Systems and Collections is responsible for coordinating and administering collection development procedures and policies. All requests for materials are reviewed for adherence to the selection guidelines in this policy. Librarians provide liaison services for departmental subject areas and solicit selections from faculty in their respective areas of expertise. Students and staff requests for acquisition of materials are also encouraged, and are reviewed using the same standards that apply to requests from faculty.

Fund Allocation

The materials budget is allocated in broad categories to fulfill collection development needs. Snowden Library is the primary library for the College and does not support acquisitions for departmental collections.

Specific amounts of the library materials budget are not formally allocated to individual academic departments. Materials are purchased primarily to support the curriculum rather than to build individual research collections for faculty research. Faculty are asked to prioritize their requests from the most important to the least important. The liaison librarians monitor faculty ordering in subject areas, review the book selection literature, and order materials to supplement faculty requests. Identified through faculty input, the highest priority in times of budgetary stress is to maintain access to databases and journal literature.

Selection Guidelines

Materials are evaluated for selection based on the quality of content and the extent to which they support the undergraduate curriculum at Lycoming College. Criteria used in selecting individual items include some or all of the following:

  • Lasting value of the content
  • Appropriateness of the level of treatment
  • Strength of the present holdings in the same or similar subject areas
  • Cost
  • Suitability and usability of format for student and faculty use including print, e-book, electronically accessed full-text, and other emerging information formats as appropriate
  • Anticipated use as indicated by faculty recommendation

Other Guidelines and Exceptions

  • Textbooks are not normally purchased. The exceptions are those titles that are recognized as classics in their field, or a textbook that is the only or best source of information on a particular topic. Faculty are welcome to place their own copy of a textbook on reserves.
  • Duplicates are purchased only under unusual circumstances as approved by the Head of Library Systems and Collections.
  • When there is a choice among formats such as hard copy, electronic access, microform, the choice is based on expected use, consultation with the appropriate academic department as to assignments given, and appropriateness of the technological format for teaching and student access. Microforms are considered only in exceptional cases.
  • Lost or stolen materials are evaluated for replacement based on the same criteria used for selection of new titles.
  • Materials are acquired in the English language except for materials that support the modern and biblical languages studies curriculum.
  • The library primarily purchases in-print, current materials. Out-of-print materials are purchased when necessary to support new programs, new courses, or to supplement heavily used sections of the collection. These purchases are coordinated with the appropriate faculty members.
  • Children's literature acquisitions are generally limited to the major award and honor books, such as the Caldecott, Newbery, Coretta Scott King and Orbis Pictus recipients.
  • Faculty research is generally not supported within the mission of the library and financial constraints but is supported through document delivery/interlibrary loan.
  • The library also purchases, subscribes to, or otherwise acquires materials that support a holistic student experience, such as leisure reading, board games and video games, crafts supplies and zines. These purchases are made through funds separate from those dedicated to materials that support academic research and learning.

Reference Collection

Reference materials support general reference, the college curriculum, and the instruction program. Resources are selected, updated, and retained based on their immediate usefulness for faculty and student information needs. Electronic delivery with campus-wide and authenticated remote access is the preferred format for abstracts and indexes.

Serials

Because journals, periodicals, newspapers, and cataloged serials represent an ongoing financial commitment, the procedure for budgeting and selection is more restrictive than for books. Each new journal subscription request is evaluated using the following criteria:

  • The library's current journal holdings in the subject area.
  • The journal's relevance to the undergraduate curriculum.
  • The journal's inclusion in full-text publisher collections or availability through services that gather full-text articles from different journals or publishers.
  • The availability of content in electronic format and need for archival access.
  • Cost.
  • The availability of indexing for the journal.
  • Online only is the preferred format for receipt.

Video and Streaming Video Collection

The Video and Streaming Video Collection supports the undergraduate curriculum and academic programs at Lycoming College. To that end, within a defined budget allocation, Snowden Library will:

  • License streaming video through established platforms configured for institutional access.
  • Prefer streaming video as the format of choice for purchases, but acquire DVDs that are directly related to classroom use or co-curricular/enrichment activities when the streaming format is not available or prohibitively expensive; VHS tapes will not be purchased. Purchase only formats for which there is viewing equipment readily available on campus.
  • Purchase/license with public performance rights (PPR) where available. (Snowden Library cannot add items to the collection unless they are produced in compliance with copyright law.)
  • Snowden Library cannot provide access to films and TV shows exclusively available on consumer subscription platforms such as Disney+, Hulu, Apple TV, and similar services. Faculty wishing to incorporate these resources may guide students to subscribe independently, as we are unable to license these services institutionally.

College Archives/Local History Collection

Most materials for the College Archives are acquired by donation. A small number of items that were originally published by Lycoming College or relate to the early years of the college are purchased each year.

Selected items relevant to local history are purchased and maintained in the Historical Collection located in the College Archives. Rare books are not actively purchased.

Lycoming College Institutional Repository

The Lycoming College Institutional Repository provides online open access to Lycoming College student and faculty scholarship, institutional publications and materials from the Humanities Research Center (HRC). Materials are submitted by students with faculty approval and by faculty and staff.

The following materials will be collected systematically in the Institutional Repository, based on the permissions given by the author(s) and their faculty supervisor:

  • Honors papers
  • Haberberger projects
  • Humanities Research Center (HRC) outputs
  • Award winning student work (ex: Richard L. Mix ’51 Miriam S. Mix Research Writing Prize in History and Ed Gabriel First-Year Writing & Research Prize)

Other materials can be submitted to the Institutional Repository, including but not limited to:

  • Capstone projects
  • Student conference posters and presentations
  • Faculty and student research collaborations
  • Accepted manuscript, when the author is allowed by the publisher to self-archive (see more in the FAQ on Green Open Access)
  • Oral histories and podcasts
  • Artworks and image galleries
  • Grey literature and white papers

Gift Materials

Gift materials are reviewed according to the same standards used for purchased materials. Departmental faculty are generally consulted and invited to evaluate gift materials in their subject areas before final decisions are made. Gift materials not acceptable for the permanent collection are usually sold at library book sales or through third parties.

Collection Maintenance and De-selection

De-selection of titles is based upon the continuing need of the library to support an undergraduate curriculum with appropriate, current, and course-related materials. When materials are deselected, they are done so in cooperation with faculty from that particular subject area and the entire faculty is invited to review the deselected items before permanent withdrawal of the items.

Consortia Participation

The library belongs to three consortia, ACLCP (the Associated College Libraries of Central Pennsylvania), PALCI (Partnership for Academic Library Collaboration and Innovation), and Lyrasis. Lycoming College has a responsibility to support borrowing and lending within these cooperatives through current purchasing. Participation in these consortia also allows us to benefit from group negotiations.

Intellectual Freedom

As an academic library, Snowden Library collects, preserves, and provides access to materials that support the curriculum, faculty research, and student scholarship. Because these collections span historical periods and scholarly traditions, some materials may contain language, perspectives, images, or descriptions that are outdated, biased, or harmful by contemporary standards.

Historical research and academic inquiry often require engagement with primary and secondary sources that reflect the social, political, legal, and cultural attitudes of their time, including those that supported discriminatory or exclusionary practices. These materials are essential for understanding the development of ideas, institutions, and systems, as well as for critically examining and challenging them in the present.

In accordance with the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights and the Freedom to Read Statement, the Library does not censor, remove, or restrict access to materials solely because of their content or the viewpoints they express. Academic study involves exposure to a wide range of ideas, some of which individuals may find offensive, disturbing, or objectionable.

At the same time, the Library recognizes that descriptive practices—such as subject headings, catalog records, and finding aids—may perpetuate harmful or biased language. Snowden Library actively engages in ongoing efforts to improve description, provide appropriate context, and address gaps in representation within the collection.

Challenge to Library Materials

As a private liberal arts college governed by its own Board of Trustees, Lycoming College does not review requests for material removal from persons or groups outside the institution.

When a library patron affiliated with Lycoming College requests that an item be removed from the collection, librarians and library staff will inform the patron of the collection development policy, emphasizing the library’s affirmation of the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights and the Freedom to Read Statement.

If the patron wishes to formally request the removal of an item, they should do so in writing to the Head of Library Systems and Collections. The signed letter must include:

  • Name of requestor and affiliation with Lycoming College
  • Date of request
  • Material that is being challenged
  • A justification for the challenge based on the material’s failure to meet the requirements of the library’s collection development policy, including the Library Bill of Rights

The Head of Library Systems and Collections will review the challenge in consultation with the library’s leadership team and, in some cases, the college provost. The library’s response to the challenge will be issued to the patron in writing. Challenged items will remain accessible to normal use by all library patrons during the duration of the challenge.

Policy revised and approved by the Faculty Library Advisory Committee, 9/06, 9/30/2010, 9/26/2013. 5/27/2017, 1/15/2025.