Collection Development Policy

Through resilience, inclusivity, and adaptability, WVU Libraries commits to sustained growth, responsive service, and a deepened impact across the University and beyond.

Materials Budget

The Downtown, Evansdale, and Health Sciences Libraries, and the West Virginia & Regional History Center receive funding from the University, the WVU Foundation, and the WVU Research Corporation.  

George R. Farmer Jr. Law Library

The Law Library controls its own budget and purchases its own materials.

Divisional Libraries

The Charleston Division of the Health Sciences Center Library, the Mary F. Shipper Library at Potomac State College of WVU, and the WVU Tech Library control their own budgets and purchase their own materials. The majority of electronic resources are purchased through the WVU Morgantown Libraries at the discretion of the library administration and the Collections Strategist. Whenever contractually possible, electronic resources are shared with the divisional libraries.  The Mary F. Shipper Library’s collection development policy is outlined here.

West Virginia & Regional History Center Policies

The West Virginia & Regional History Center collection policy is described here.

The West Virginia University Archives, part of the West Virginia & Regional History Center, has their collection policy outlined here.

The Rare Books Collection, part of the West Virginia & Regional History Center, has their collection development policy outlined here.

Collection Development

The Libraries develop collections that support the curricular and research programs of the University. The Collections Strategist considers the following in the selection process:

• Faculty, student, and staff recommendations or requests
• Potential support of or use by WVU research or teaching programs
• Cost

Subscriptions involve long-term spending commitments.  Additional information is considered when starting and renewing subscriptions.

• Licensing terms including user privacy, ILL use, reuse of content, and accessibility
• Use (including number of downloads and searches)
• Reasonable annual cost increases
• Continuing resources should be relevant and appropriate to a significant segment of the Libraries' user community and should reflect current academic needs and the University's mission.
• If a continuing resource proposed for addition duplicates another resource already available in the Libraries, the former should offer some value-added enhancement, for example, wider access or greater flexibility in searching. If a product changes format, it should be reevaluated and a selection/retention decision made accordingly.
• In addition to product cost, hidden expenses such as licensing fees, hardware, software, staff training and continuing education, cataloging, updates, and maintenance should be considered.
• Priority will be given to supporting resources that contribute to the WVU Libraries’ commitment to Open Access when possible. For example, a publisher operating with a subscribe to open (S2O) model would be given priority over a similar portfolio with a legacy subscription model.  
• The final decision on the product will be determined after a discussion between the Collections Strategist and the Collections Advisory Committee and reflect the fiscal needs of the Libraries.

Generally, a single copy of a title is acquired unless factors such as patron accessibility or course use substantiate the acquisition of multiple copies. Discoverability is another important consideration. The contents of periodicals, particularly, require bibliographic indexing and abstracting (I/A) tools to ensure sufficient user access. Inclusion or exclusion from the major I/A tools is weighed when considering subscriptions to periodicals. WVU Libraries collect primarily in English.

Media are acquired to support the curriculum and research mission of the university while considering disciplinary needs, vendor reliability, and quality of product available.

Wherever possible, WVU Libraries collects media in the most current and dependable formats. Preference is given to multiple user networked digital form, either through licensing to provide content online or through subscription with authorized content vendors. However, physical copies of media may be the only format available. 

The decision to purchase digital rights to materials will be made on the basis of: 

• cost; 
• technical and contractual restrictions; 
• nature of the material and course requirements; 
• frequency with which it will be offered; and 
• the number of users involved. 

Some providers/distributors do not offer digital rights to their materials or place such restrictions on their use that purchase of digital rights is not practical.

Requests are a key element of Just-in-Time collection development. Requests for one-time purchases up to $500.00 are typically fulfilled at the discretion of the Collections Strategist, except for course reserves, which are ordered directly through the Course Reserves system at the request of the instructor.  As noted above, new continuing resources, i.e. journal and database subscriptions, involve long-term spending commitments.  Budget constraints make it impractical for the Libraries to initiate trials of new databases at this time. University faculty or staff may submit new database suggestions. These will be added to a list for future consideration.  Contact the Collections Strategist to discuss specific needs or concerns.

Donations/Gifts

The West Virginia University Libraries welcome gifts of very recent publications suitable for the leisure reading collections or the Shining Minds textbook collection, and rare or unique books and publications related to West Virginia and Central Appalachia.  The WVU Libraries also accept donations of rare or unique books and publications suitable for the History of Medicine Collection.  Offers of large donations must be discussed with the Collections Strategist.  Donations of rare or unique books or West Virginia/Central Appalachian publications must be accompanied by an inventory and should be directed to the Rare Book and Print Collection Archivist. 

Donations to the general circulating collections are vetted for condition and relevance to the Libraries’ mission due to the high cost of the gift process.  Generally, gifts of materials that are more than 10 years old will not be added to the collection unless fewer than 20 libraries nationally own the title.  A search of the Libraries’ catalog, WorldCat, will indicate whether or not a specific title is in the collection and the number of libraries that own it.

Open Access

Open Access (OA) refers to free, immediate, permanent online access to digital full-text scientific and scholarly material, primarily research articles published in peer-reviewed journals. There are limited copyright and licensing restrictions on open-access articles, meaning that anyone with Internet access may read, download, copy, and/or distribute them.

The WVU Libraries are committed to supporting Open Access resources.  To this end, the Libraries have used a portion of their materials budget to support subscribe to open (S2o) efforts, and memberships that support Open Access journals and books, such as the Open Library of Humanities. The WVU libraries have also negotiated agreements with other publishers that allow WVU affiliated authors to publish OA without charge and agreements for discounted article processing charges (APCs).

To provide an additional means of making authors works OA the WVU libraries supports author self-archiving, also known as green OA through the Research Repository @WVU. WVU authors can often make a version (normally the author’s accepted manuscript) of an article freely available.

For further information about open access initiatives at WVU, see  https://lib.wvu.edu/about/open-access/.

Material Challenges

For the WVU Libraries’ policy on material challenges please see Retention of Challenged Materials Policy.

Continuing Resources Retention

Continuing resources will be evaluated periodically for retention by the Collections Strategist. Primary evaluation metrics include cost per use and continued relevance. The renewal period, often annual, is the appropriate time to consider new resources to replace less relevant resources. Because these resources are contractual, decisions must factor in the contract period and are subject to the Libraries’ fiscal needs.

Print Collection Maintenance

Like decisions to acquire new titles, decisions to discard specific items are made within the context of the overall collection guidelines. Removal of unneeded materials enhances the integrity of the collection. Materials identified for discard in one library are first made available to WVU’s divisional libraries. If the divisional libraries decline the material, it may be sent to an external book resale operation. When materials are so unfit for use that disposal through any of the above channels is impractical, those materials may simply be discarded.

Physical materials may periodically be removed from the general stacks based on circulation and/or space needs. They may be either transferred to the Depository or removed from the collection entirely. Except in cases of rare books or books that are held by fewer than 20 libraries nationally, no more than two copies of a title will be held at the Depository. 

Repair Policy

The WVU Libraries do not have staff trained to make in-depth book repairs. Collection repair and binding are outsourced as needed.  Materials requiring involved repair will be evaluated and handled on the following basis:

1. Older, valuable, and/or materials owned by fewer than 20 libraries: No repair. Access Services staff will place in an archival box and transfer to Depository.
2. Paperbacks, items that need repair beyond rebinding, and/or items owned by more than 20 libraries: Access Services staff will record circulation statistics and refer to Collections Strategist for replacement/removal decision.
3. Non-paperback materials that are not brittle and have a margin of more than 1” in the gutter of the spine may be sent to an outside vendor for rebinding.
4. Damaged DVD/CD and other AV materials will be evaluated and either discarded or replaced.

Approved: Library Faculty Assembly, February 24, 2026; WVU Faculty Senate Library Committee, May 2026