Collection Development Policy
Our users
The Schusterman Library at the University of Oklahoma – Tulsa is the home library for all OU-Tulsa students, faculty, and staff.
The library is part of the University of Oklahoma, whose mission as a whole is to provide the best possible educational experience for its students through excellence in teaching, research, and creative activity, and service to the state and society.
The University of Oklahoma-Tulsa is a nationally recognized center for higher education excellence. Students can choose from a varied selection of more than 30 graduate and selected undergraduate programs in the colleges of Allied Health, Architecture, Arts and Sciences, Education, Engineering, Fine Arts, Liberal Studies, Medicine, Nursing, and Public Health. OU-Tulsa is the only campus in the state where these different disciplines are all in one location, providing a unique opportunity for interdisciplinary research and study. Many of our degree programs place heavy emphasis on community engagement -- in fact, some of them were created with community needs in mind.
The Schusterman Library’s stated vision is that “We help students become scholars.” The Library serves not only the students of OU-Tulsa but its faculty and staff as well. The Library is also open to the public, although its primary focus is on users directly affiliated with OU-Tulsa.
History of collections
In 1974, the Tulsa County Medical Society agreed to provide library services to University of Oklahoma College of Medicine students and staff. At its location at 1136 S. Troost, the library maintained a collection of over 15,000 individual items. Clinton (Marty) Thompson became the head librarian in 1976, and shortly thereafter the OU College of Medicine acquired the Tulsa County Medical Society library outright and moved to a new building on 21st Street.
In 1980 the library moved to 2808 S. Sheridan, where Sara Hill was the library director. In 1982, Janet Minnerath was appointed Library director. The library had grown to over 18,000 volumes at that point and subscribed to 600 journals. It also provided access to the first online medical databases provided by the National Library of Medicine.
The library moved to the Schusterman Campus on 41st at Yale in 2000 as part of the consolidation of OU programs in Tulsa. When the campus and library opened for classes in August of that year, the library contained over 40,000 medical books and journals. Elaine Johnston then became the Library Director.
Stewart Brower became library director in 2007. The Schusterman Library was built with funds donated by the Schusterman family. Groundbreaking occurred in 2009 and the library opened for business in May of 2011. Currently the library houses over 80,000 individual items, including books, journals, audiovisual materials, and loanable equipment. It houses student study rooms, a number of individual study carrels, an Arts & Information Gallery, the Founders Legacy Room and Archives, and an information commons staffed by graduate assistants from the OU School of Library and Information Studies.
Support for Intellectual Freedom
This academic library adheres to the principles of intellectual freedom outlined in the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights, the Association of American Colleges' and the American Association of University Professors’ 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, and the Association of College & Research Libraries’ “Intellectual Freedom Principles for Academic Libraries: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights” and “Standards for Libraries in Higher Education.”
Responsibility for selection
The Library Director delegates the responsibility for the selection of library materials to the Technical Services Librarian, who is qualified by education, training, and experience to select library materials in all formats.
Our general collection development goals
The Schusterman Library develops its collection to support the curricular and research programs of OU-Tulsa. The library strives to provide a balanced collection with diverse and differing points of view or intellectual thought
Since it, in common with libraries at other universities, does not have sufficient resources to acquire everything published in areas pertinent to the OU-Tulsa programs, the Library employs the following general criteria when evaluating titles to be added or removed from the collections. Particular criteria assume greater or lesser importance depending on the type of material under consideration, the resources available and the subject matter covered.
Our general selection guidelines
The Schusterman Library purchases materials using some or all of (but not limited to) the following criteria:
- Relevance to the curriculum and usefulness to the OU-Tulsa academic audience
- Timeliness and lasting value of content and format
- Price of material
- Strength of present holdings on the same or similar subject
- Frequency of requests to include material in course reserves
- Frequency of document delivery requests for material on the same or similar subject
- Reputation of the author, issuing body, and/or publisher
- Presentation and usability (style, clarity, intuitiveness, and organization)
- Aesthetic considerations: (1) literary, artistic, or social value; (2) appeal to the imagination, senses, or intellect
- Special features: (1) accurate, usable index; (2) bibliography; (3) footnotes; (4) pictorial representations
- Physical and technical quality: (1) paper, typography, and binding and (2) stability
- Holdings of other libraries in appropriate resource-sharing networks
- Where materials have a geographical focus, a preference for materials relating to Tulsa, northeastern Oklahoma, and the state of Oklahoma.
Faculty are welcome to request that the library purchase print books, audio-visual materials, and print journals that assist in student research, for reserve or faculty teaching. Please submit your requests by e-mail to the Technical Services Librarian at toni-hoberecht@ouhsc.edu. E-Journal, e-book, and database decisions are made by the librarians at Robert M. Bird Health Sciences Library and Bizzell Memorial Library. Librarians at the Schusterman Library will gladly convey requests for new electronic resources to the appropriate library.
Purchases made through the library budget are for the library collection and will be cataloged and housed in the library.
Selection of Materials on Controversial Topics
The Schusterman Library supports the free exchange of ideas with collections that provide access to a selection of material on all subjects that support the university’s mission. The library provides access in accordance with the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights, the Freedom to Read Statement, and the Freedom to View Statement. The Library strives to balance access to, and ownership of, information resources that offer the widest possible range of viewpoints. Material will not be excluded because of frankness of language or controversial approach or because the political, moral or religious, sexual, social, economic, or scientific views expressed or because of the race or national origin, politics, or religion of the author.
Duplication policy
The Schusterman Library does purchase duplicates where high use is expected. In general, however, only single copies will be purchased.
Weeding and Discard Policy
De-selection of library materials, the process of removing items from the collection, is essential for the maintenance of an active, academically useful library collection. De-selection provides quality control for the collection by elimination of outdated, inaccurate, and worn-out materials. The Schusterman Library conducts an ongoing de-selection effort to maintain the quality of the collection. The same guidelines used for selection of library materials provide the underlying principles for de-selection. In addition to those guidelines, the following rules of thumb are applied:
Materials in the health sciences more than five years old are generally considered out of date, apart from historical surveys, biographies, bibliographies, and seminal works.
Materials from discontinued academic programs are generally weeded due to space constraints.
Local materials are generally not weeded, with the exception of superfluous copies.
Materials identified for discard in the Library may first made available to other departments on campus. If there is no interest at this level, these materials will be discarded.
Gifts
The Schusterman Library at OU-Tulsa is not able to routinely accept most donations of books and other materials for the general circulating collection. This policy is due to significant space constraints and the high cost of sorting, reviewing, and processing donated material. Donors should consider other options for sharing their materials, including public libraries, used bookstores, or charitable organizations.
If a donor feels a potential gift is of critical research interest to the Schusterman Library at OU-Tulsa, such as items of local interest, they should provide the Library with a description and characterization of the material via one of the following contacts:
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Stewart Brower 918-660-3222 |
Toni Hoberecht 918-660-3231
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Library staff cannot appraise the value of the gift material. Donors may have independent professional appraisals performed for especially valuable gifts.
Reconsideration Policy
Materials in the library are selected to support the instructional and research needs of the OU-Tulsa community. A patron who wishes to request the reconsideration of library material for any reason may meet with the Library Director. If the patron is not satisfied after speaking with the Library Director, they may begin the process of filing a formal complaint, which consists of a formal written request for reconsideration using the library-provided form. The request will be reviewed by the Library Associate Director and the Technical Services Librarian. Together, these librarians will develop a recommendation. The Library Director is responsible for making the final decision.
Special policies and collections
Interlibrary Loan/Document delivery: No library can hope to meet all the information needs of its community, exchange of materials with other libraries and document delivery are necessary service components. The Schusterman Library utilizes a host of services and agreements to provide access to library collections and facilitate resources sharing. These include library to library borrowing, reciprocal-borrowing agreements, and electronic delivery of documents.
The Schusterman Library Archives: The Schusterman Library Archives collect official records of OU-Tulsa, materials related to the history of OU-Tulsa, and other collections documenting the history of medical education in the Tulsa area, for use by students, the academic community, and external researchers. The Archives store, preserve, and arrange these collections according to standard archival practices, and provides patrons with access to original materials and through online digitization, finding aids, and exhibits. As part of the Schusterman Library, the Archives support research, scholarship, and learning on campus and throughout the broader Tulsa community.
OU-Tulsa Theses and Dissertations: The Schusterman Library collects print copies of theses and dissertations written by students graduating from Norman-based OU-Tulsa programs. These reside in a non-circulating collection in the Quiet Reading Room.
Graphic Scholarship Collection: This collection consists of comics, graphic novels, and heavily illustrated monographs where comics/sequential art techniques are applied. Also included are scholarly communications (monographs, journals) that contribute to comics scholarship, particularly in the areas of graphic medicine, graphic science, graphic social science, graphic history, or any graphic scholarship that contributes to any of the disciplines represented at OU-Tulsa. This collection also includes other comics or non-comics materials that support the aims and objectives of the Graphic Scholarship project, including zines with a connection of any kind to Graphic Scholarship.