Library Policies

Circulation Policy

As amended November 16, 2016

Objectives

• To encourage circulation of materials based on the assumed term of need. Employees and seniors often have longer needs, underclass students and guests usually have shorter-term needs.
• To maximize availability of materials to users through browsing. A book on our shelves is more likely to be identified as a good source.
• To take advantage of Interlibrary Loan (ILL) as a faster and less disruptive alternative to recalling books which are in use and acquiring materials not owned.

Loan Periods and Renewals

The following chart describes the length of loan periods (L) and number of allowed renewals (R). Unless otherwise noted, the renewal period is the same as the loan period.

	Employees	Seniors	Other Students	Alumni & Visitors
Books	L: 1 yr R: 20	L: 1 sem R: 2	L: 4 wks R: 2	L: 4 wks R: 0
Reference	special permission	special permission	special permission	noncirc
Faculty Development	L: 30 days R: 1	special permission	special permission	special permission
Special Books	L: 4 wks R: 2	L: 4 wks R: 2	L: 4 wks R: 2	L: 4 wks R: 0
Journals	special permission	special permission	special permission	noncirc
Film (lower floor)	L: 1 wk R: 1	L: 1 wk R: 1	L: 3 days R: 1	noncirc
Film (Access Services area)	L: 1 wk R: 1	L: 3 hrs R: 0	L: 3 hrs R: 0	noncirc
Equipment (general)	L: 3 days R: 2 days	L: 3 days R: 2 days	L: 3 days R: 2 days	noncirc
Equipment (departmental)	Rules are set by the owning department	Rules are set by the owning department	Rules are set by the owning department	Rules are set by the owning department
Laptops	L: 1 wk R: 1	L: 1 wk R: 0	L: 1 wk R: 0	noncirc
Reserve Videos	L: 3 hours R: 1	L: 3 hours R: 1	L: 3 hours R: 1	noncirc
Course Reserve	Loan periods and renewals vary, depending on faculty instructions	Loan periods and renewals vary, depending on faculty instructions	Loan periods and renewals vary, depending on faculty instructions	Loan periods and renewals vary, depending on faculty instructions
ILLiad	L: 8 wks R: 0	L: 8 wks R: 0	L: 8 wks R: 0	noncirc
EZBorrow	L: 4 wks R: 1	L: 4 wks R: 1	L: 4 wks R: 1	noncirc
Microform	noncirc	noncirc	noncirc	noncirc

Notes

• Employees: Books due annually on February 15th.
• Seniors: Books due at the end of the semester/summer
• Renewals are not allowed if another patron has requested the material.
• Recalls can cut loan periods short if another patron needs the material.
• Interlibrary loan periods may be limited by the lending library.
• Summer borrowing rules are the same as regular rules.
• Senior privileges begin at the end of classes in their Junior year.

Checkout Limits

• Checkouts to employees and students will be unlimited.
• Checkouts to retired employees, employee children and spouses, and alumni will be limited to 20 items at one time.
• Checkouts to guests, students or faculty from other colleges, and other special users will be limited to 2 items at one time.

Holds

When a patron (except a visitor or alum) needs material that is already checked out, they will be asked to use ILL as the preferred way to obtain it. If it is not available through ILL they may contact staff and ask that a hold be placed on the item. Holds on materials reserve that item for a patron as soon as it is returned to the library at the end of its normal loan period. Holds prevent the current borrower from renewing. Holds may be placed with or without recalls.

Recalls

Any patron who places a hold for a checked out item can ask for the item to be recalled. The original patron is guaranteed exclusive use for the first 4 weeks of a loan. After that recalls will be issued only if unavailable through ILL. Patrons are expected to return recalled materials within 2 days of the notice, which will be delivered by email.

Notices

Notices will be delivered by email except in unusual circumstances. The patron is responsible for reading and acting on emails.

Journal Circulation

Employees can take out periodicals without special permission. Bound journals can go out for 3 days. Non-bound, individual periodicals can go out for a week (these will need barcoded on the fly). If they require either of these longer, they will need special permission. Students need special permission to take out any periodicals, the circumstance will need to be evaluated.

Fines

College employees are charged fines only on recalled items and ILL items. Other patrons are charged as follows:

Material	Overdue week 1	Overdue week 2-3	Recalled
Book	$.25 per day	$1 per day	$1 per day
Video/DVD	$.25 per day	$1 per day	$3 per day
Equipment (major)	$10 per day	$10 per day	$10 per day
Equipment (headphones, etc.)	$1 per day	$1 per day	$1 per day
Reserve*	$1 per hr	$1 per hr	$1 per hr
ILL/EZBorrow	$1 per day	$1 per day	$1 per day
Laptop	$5 per day	$5 per day	$5 per day

Collection Management Philosophy

As amended March 2017

Allegheny’s Pelletier Library is committed to providing students, staff, and faculty seamless access to the information resources they need to fulfill the educational mission of the College. The purpose of the Library’s collection is to provide the finding aids and resources needed to support the undergraduate curriculum at the time of need. To make best use of the College’s resources in support of the curriculum, the Library’s collection is focused on three types of resources:

Indexes, which may contain full-text content but are purchased primarily for their value as tools to find resources
Print and electronic journals, particularly those that support work in introductory and intermediate level course
Monographs, which includes print and electronic books, as well as video and audio titles.
To support students and faculty pursuing more advanced work, the Library is committed to locating and acquiring materials that are not held in the Library’s collection when needed.

§1. Acquisitions

Material Format

Since digital resources are more broadly accessible and more heavily used by our student population, all materials are usually acquired in an appropriate digital format. Materials will be purchased in other formats if the digital version is in some way inferior to the analog format, the digital version is cost prohibitive, or the expected use justifies the purchase of an analog format. For example, digital representations of artworks are often inconsistently rendered, so for art references, a print format is often preferable to a digital version; the scholarly value of some works is enhanced by being able to see the context in which they are displayed, which again argues for print over digital; and although digital monographs are often preferable for fast retrieval and quick reference, the limits of current technology suggest that extended reading is typically better done on print copies. When requested to do so by faculty to support the College’s curriculum, the Library will purchase print versions of works it has in digital form or digital versions of work it has in print form, provided such purchases are not unduly expensive.

General Selection Criteria

The Library staff encourage faculty and students to participate in selecting materials for the Library’s collection. The Library is seeking materials that are relevant to the curriculum and meet one of the following criteria, which are ranked in order of their importance:

1. Material that supports the curriculum is our highest priority. Such material is likely to be placed on course reserve, to have specific reference made to it in a course, or to be used for class preparation. Required textbooks are an exception to this preference. The Library does not normally acquire such works.
2. Material that supports students preparing papers or projects is also a high priority, particularly if it is likely to be used by multiple students over a multi-year period.
3. Material that provides broad subject coverage, adds alternative perspectives, or supports a basic liberal arts education are valuable additions to the Collection, and are acquired as resources allow.

The following factors help determine which materials within the above categories will be purchased:

• Faculty recommendations
• Authority (reputation) of creator
• Reviews such as those found in Choice reviews or disciplinary outlets
• Currency and enduring value of material
• The strength of the Library’s present holdings in the subject and whether the material fills a gap in the Library’s coverage or supplements existing materials
• Licensing restrictions and the balance between cost and value
• Ease of patron access and use
• Expense related to the Library’s management of the material

Specific Criteria — Indexes

The Library seeks to provide adequate index coverage for every academic program offered by the College, although cost constraints make it impossible to purchase the primary index in every field of study. Factors that contribute to the selection of indexes for the collection include:

• Uniqueness of searching capabilities as related to discipline or program needs
• Uniqueness of content
• Level of use relative to cost
• Faculty recommendations

Specific Criteria — Journals

The Library seeks to provide a journal collection with broad coverage for each area of study offered by the College. Coverage is expected to be sufficient to meet immediate needs in introductory courses and to serve as a starting point for more advanced research. As with indexes, the quantity of good titles and the cost of journal material makes it impossible for the Library to purchase significant quantities of advanced material other than that acquired in the process of selecting materials needed to meet introductory needs in a discipline. The Library works with advanced students and researchers to acquire copies of more specialized content. Recognizing the importance of specialized content in supporting student and faculty work, the Library invests in technologies and processes to facilitate rapid acquisition of journal articles needed by students and faculty once such articles have been identified.

Factors that contribute to the selection of journals for the collection include:

• Ensuring appropriate support for general and introductory-level inquiries in all areas of the curriculum
• Level of use relative to cost
• Faculty recommendations
• Assessment of document delivery requests to identify gaps in the collection coverage

In most cases, journals are acquired in large packages because of the efficiency of such purchases (as measured by cost per use) relative to the purchase of individual titles.

When a new package or title subscription is added, it will be assessed after 2 – 3 years. All long-standing subscriptions will be assessed every year. Assessments of long-standing subscriptions will be based on the most recent 4 years of use because usage levels are affected by changes in the the curriculum and interests of students and faculty.

Individual journal subscriptions which are available in our JSTOR Archive with a gap of three or fewer years will normally be cancelled.

Journals without use data (primarily print journals) are reviewed on a regular basis to determine if there is a continuing need for that journal to support the undergraduate curriculum.

Specific Criteria — Monographs

The Library will purchase or borrow, if at all possible, any monographic publication requested by Allegheny students, faculty, and staff. The Library’s decision whether to purchase or borrow monographic materials is based on the following criteria:

• Relevancy to the curriculum
• Proposed use and need (e.g., for course reserves, ongoing project)
• Appropriateness for the collection
• Authoritativeness of the author, editor, publisher, and content
• Price
• Timeliness of materials
• Demand or patterns of borrowing materials

The Library does not normally purchase duplicate monographs or textbooks, although exceptions are made in accordance with warranted use and available funds.

When purchasing monographs, electronic formats are preferred over physical formats unless there are countervailing circumstances such as faithfulness of color reproduction, a particular use case that argues for physical format, or price concerns. When purchasing books, soft cover books are preferred over hardcover when there is a significant cost difference.

Recent experience has shown that demand-driven-acquisition or subscription services for electronic monographs provide a better return on investment than traditional purchasing models since they provide immediate access to a large volume of material yet require payment only for those titles that are actually used by Library patrons. Consequently, the Library elects to subscribe to such services in lieu of purchasing individual titles or bundles of titles when appropriate opportunities arise.

Since it is usually possible to acquire print titles within a few days of request and the cost of acquiring, managing, and storing a monograph just in case it might be needed can be a significant drain on Library resources, the Library does not normally acquire print monographs unless there is a faculty request for a specific print title that conforms to the guidelines outlined in this policy.

§2. Gift Policy

Due to the resource investment required to evaluate and appropriately steward print books and other materials, the library does not normally accept gifts of books intended for the general collection. Potential donors that have materials that may be appropriate for Special Collections or the College Archives should contact the Director of the Library, who will make decisions about whether to accept such gifts in collaboration with the Special Collections Librarian, College Archivist, and Provost. Such decisions will be based on the alignment of the potential gift with the College’s mission and the institution’s ability to steward the gift appropriately.

§3. Deselection

Significant time, budget, and space are required to manage the Library collection, and good materials can become lost in the collection should the volume of lower-quality or outdated materials grow large enough to hide good materials. As a consequence, good resource and collection stewardship practices include a thoughtful program of deselection and deaccession.

The Library considers for deselection materials that are likely to be available from other sources should they be be needed in the future, and that exhibit one or more of the following characteristics:

• In poor physical condition
• Duplicate copies
• Judged to be inappropriate for a College library collection
• Outdated or superseded by newer editions
• No longer being used or likely to be used by Library patrons
• No longer relevant to the curriculum

 

The Library reserves the right to rely on the discretion of Library staff when electing to deaccession materials that are in poor physical condition, duplicate existing materials, or are judged inappropriate for an academic library or outdated. The Library will consult with faculty before deaccessioning any materials the Library believes may no longer be useful to support the College’s curriculum.

Deselection Process

Each year, the Library reviews a portion of the collection and flags items meeting six conditions:

• The item was published 20 or more years ago.
• The Library has had a copy of the item on the shelves for at least 10 years.
• The item has no more than two circulations ever.
• The item has no documented circulation, course reserve, or internal use in the last 10 years.
• Library staff know of no impending curricular change or other reason to believe the item will be used in the future.
• The item is available for interlibrary loan from multiple other academic libraries.

Once materials have been flagged for possible deaccession, the Library will notify the chairs of programs that might be affected. Faculty in programs that might be affected will be given a reasonable amount of time to visit Pelletier to review those items being considered for removal, with the length of the review period depending on the volume of texts to be reviewed. In no case will such review periods be less than two weeks. At the end of the faculty review period, the Library will deaccession any materials that faculty have not requested be retained.

*Reserve fines will be charged for 72 hours, after which the book will be declared lost and billed.

The following time-table will be used to alert patrons to overdues and assess fines:

• A few days before the due date, we will send a courtesy notice alerting the patron
• The first 3 days after the due date will be a grace period, and no fines will be charged if the material is returned during that grace period. If it is returned after the grace period, fines will be charged for those days. The grace period for reserves is 15 minutes.
• After that initial fine period, all fines will be increased for succeeding days/hours until the material is declared “lost.”

Lost and long-overdue materials

If material is not returned in a reasonable amount of time, we will assume the material is lost and the patron will receive a replacement bill.

If material which is billed as lost is returned, replacement and processing fees will be waived, and the patron will be charged the total overdue fine.

Anyone who loses library or ILL materials will be charged:

• The true cost of replacement or, in the case of ILL, the lending library’s cost
• Processing and billing fees
• Any accumulated overdue or recall fines

If a student has not paid their bills by the end of the semester, the bill will be sent to Student Accounts and a $5 processing fee will be added.

Visitors

Visitors who consistently have overdue or lost books will lose their borrowing privileges.

Special Collections Collection Development Policy

As amended July 2019.

Purpose

The Special Collections Department of Allegheny College Pelletier Library creates access to and provides assistance in using materials of significant historical and/or research value for faculty and students of Allegheny College and for scholars of other institutions.

We are primarily interested in collecting materials that enhance the existing collections. Over time, we may have opportunities to re-evaluate collections and build new ones. Because initiating a new collection creates a commitment to both build and care for it, decisions to add a collection will be made by the Library Director in consultation with the Special Collections Librarian and with the College administration.

Considerations for Selection Decisions (in existing collections)

The various collections within Special Collections have been created through gifts and donations to Allegheny College; we expect this to continue to be the primary source of additional materials. The Special Collections Librarian will review and recommend items for addition to the collections, and for occasional transfers of items from the general collection. Stringent criteria will be used to assess the acceptance of new gifts because of limitations on space, staffing and preservation resources.

The following criteria, together or separately, will be considered in deciding whether to add to the Special Collections

• if they add value or complement existing collections
• if they have potential long-term research use for the College
• if the volume and condition can be maintained in Special Collections
• if they are rare
• if they are free of access restrictions and become property of Allegheny College

Artifacts will be accepted and added in extraordinary circumstances and when the item enhances or complements an established collection.

Considerations for De-Accession Decisions

The removal of any item from Special Collections is a serious matter. An item will be considered for de-accession when a collection is surveyed and that item qualifies as stated below. The many gifts in Special Collections were given to the College for the specific purpose of making them available to our scholars and enhancing the College’s scholarly materials. To preserve this intent of the donors, any income from the sale of an item from the existing Collections shall be put into a fund that will be used to enhance the existing Special Collections; the collections will not be considered a source of general income for the College. The Special Collections Librarian will review and recommend materials for de-selection, with input from the Library Director.

The following criteria, together or separately, may contribute to removal of an item from Special Collections:

• lack of significance to the history of Allegheny College
• lack of relevance or usefulness to any existing, cohesive collection
• more appropriately shelved in Archives or the General Collection
• extremely poor physical condition

Before any Special Collections item is removed completely from the Library, the Library Director will contact the Development Office to discover the source of the item and any wishes that the donor may have had with respect to its handling. The Director will also consult with faculty in any related fields to determine if the item is of value to the curriculum. If these sources indicate that the removal can proceed, the Library Director will present a brief written proposal to the Provost of the College describing the item(s) to be removed, how the above criteria apply, and how a fair price for the item(s) will be determined. Once the Provost of the College has granted approval for sale of the item(s), the Library Director may proceed with removal and, if possible, sale. Final approval for sale of items valued at more than $25,000 must be given by the College President.

Subjects for Collecting

(a draft list based on current collection strengths)

• Bibles
• Artist Books
• Chautauqua (Redpath societies)
• Civil War histories
• History of the Sciences
• History of the Book (incunabula)
• Lincoln
• Local history, Meadville or Crawford County
• Local oil / railroad histories
• Materials relating to Ida M. Tarbell

Types of Materials that will be considered:

• Artists Books
• Books published by Allegheny alumni
• Books with unique physical characteristics:  binding, paper, year of publication, signed
• Diaries, journals, letters
• Historical Works
• Manuscripts
• Pamphlets
• Personal papers
• Photographs
• Works that complete a series

Merrick Archives Collection Development Policy

As approved June 27, 2019.

Statement of Purpose (Mission Statement)

The Merrick Archives will identify, collect, organize, describe, preserve and exhibit, historical records of enduring value to Allegheny College. This material shall be preserved in a central location to make it available to administrators, faculty, students, alumni and outside scholars.

Collection Priorities and Donor Gifts

The official records of the college, produced or received by employees of Allegheny College engaged in official college business, is the primary focus of our collections. Transfer of official college records is governed by our records management policy.

We will consider gift donations of unofficial records of historical importance for preservation, depending on the available space and resources. These may include:

• Illustrative Materials (Photographs, portraits, drawings, posters, postcards, slides, videos, audio recordings etc.)
• Publications of faculty, administrators, and staff
• Publications related to the history of the college
• Memorabilia
• Scrapbooks
• Clippings
• Albums
• Commemorative objects, jewelry and other artifacts
• Contemporary Comment on the College
• Reminiscences
• Oral Histories

The archives does not actively collect items that are not directly related to the history or work of the college or personal papers and/or writing of Alumni or Faculty/Staff related to their post college life.

Potential gifts will be evaluated by the archivist in consultation with the Associate Director of the Library. The Director of the Library and the Provost will be consulted as needed, particularly for larger collections. Decisions will be based on appropriateness of the gift to our collections, space available, and estimated time and costs to process the material. All manuscript and archival collections donated by individuals or organizations other than Allegheny College will be transferred by a Deed of Gift signed by both parties. A letter or email of acceptance and thank you will serve as a record of receipt and transfer for any individual items which are not donated as part of a whole collection (e.g. a single yearbook, image, or athletic medal), unless the donor owns and is also transferring copyright in the item(s). In that case, a deed of gift will be required.

Donated materials are accepted according to the following conditions.

CONDITIONS OF GIFT:

1. Allegheny College will store and maintain these materials according to accepted archival principles and procedures to ensure both preservation and accessibility to researchers. Allegheny College shall not be liable for damage or destruction of materials by fire, water, or other casualty.
2. The college will dispose of any surplus materials as indicated by the donor in this agreement. Surplus materials are any items which are determined to have no enduring value or historical interest, are outside the scope of materials collected by the college, or those items which cannot be adequately housed. If the donor does not specify disposition instructions for surplus materials, the college will use its own discretion in disposing of unwanted materials.
3. All materials will be made available to all qualified researchers on equal terms of access. Donors who require restrictions on access or use of their materials for reasons of privacy or confidentiality must complete a separate restricted materials agreement form to be filed with this deed of gift.
4. Researchers using these materials will be supplied copies, upon request, of items from the collection(s) in accordance with policies of the Merrick Archives, unless the donor restricts such copying in a separate restricted materials agreement filed with this deed of gift. This type of restriction must have an expiration date.
5. The college will refer all requests to publish or quote the materials to the owner of the copyright of the materials.
6. If copyright is transferred, Allegheny College, as owner of copyright transferred by deed of gift, may exercise or transfer to a third party the right of quotation or publication of materials in this collection.

The Merrick Archives is a division of the non-profit entity Allegheny College. Donations may qualify as tax deductible. IRS regulations do not permit the Archivist or other college employees to appraise gifts. Donors who desire an appraisal should make arrangements to have that done before making a donation to the archives.