Collection Building Goals
Auraria Library provides access to digital, streaming, and physical materials to support the learning, teaching, and research needs of students, faculty, and staff of Auraria Campus.
How are Materials Chosen?
Collection Development Librarians are responsible for ensuring users have the appropriate print, media, digital, and streaming materials readily accessible to them.
Methods and processes we use to assure the selection of relevant resources include:
- Monitoring curricular offerings and changes
- Staying abreast of campus research initiatives
- Understanding changing discipline resource requirements and needs through faculty interactions, professional reading, and accreditation standards
- Encouraging and facilitating suggestions for books, videos, journals, online collections, and other resources through the Recommend a Purchase Form:
- Soliciting input from users on database trials
- Reviewing book titles forwarded by academic book distributors from publishers worldwide
- Monitoring the emergence of relevant resources by communicating with publishers, vendors, and other distributors
Collection Development Guidelines and Policies
- General Collection Development Guidelines
- Special and Digital Collections Development Policy
Does the Library Buy Textbooks?
As a general rule, the Library does not purchase textbooks.
The Library can help faculty and instructors in choosing alternative, open, and affordable classroom materials. The Library’s Open Educational Resources Research Guide supplies strategies for pursuing such materials.
What Other Materials do you Have Besides Books?
The Library purchases a variety of materials to support learning, teaching, and research including:
- databases, including article, data, image, primary sources, and journal databases
- statistical sources
- journals
- streaming videos
- DVDs
- streaming music
- music CDs
- maps
- special collections, photos, and rare materials
- technology, including wifi hotspots, cables, chargers, and video cameras
- special items, including anatomy models, skeletons, calculators, and State Park passes.
What Type of Streaming Media Do You Have?
The Library provides access to extensive streaming media collections. All media titles may be found through Start My Research on the Library’s homepage. Video collections are described in the Videos & Streaming Media Research Guide, and online music collections are highlighted in the Music Research Guide.
The Library does not purchase spoken-word audio titles since most available are non-academic. Local public libraries offer substantial audiobook collections.
Are Your Videos Closed Captioned?
Every effort is made to purchase videos with closed captioning. If closed captioning is unavailable, a transcript is sought. Non-captioned films, which were purchased before the closed captioning mandate, exist in the collection. Efforts continue to decrease the number of films without closed-captioning or transcript options.
Does the Library Purchase Dissertations and Theses?
Since dissertations and theses frequently address niche issues, the Library buys only a small percentage of dissertations. Many dissertations from non-Auraria campus schools are available at no charge. See the Library’s Dissertations & Theses Research Guide for finding strategies and sources.
Most University of Colorado dissertations and theses are searchable through the Dissertations & Theses at University of Colorado System collection, with full-text supplied for most post-1996 titles. Auraria Library archives campus-produced theses and dissertations. Consult the Digital Collections Manager on the deposit process.
Why Does the Library Remove Materials from the Collection?
Library collections may appear to be static but they are constantly evolving. To insure an active, academically useful collection, materials are regularly evaluated for possible withdrawal and cancellation. Factors considered in removing or discontinuing access to materials include:
- relevance
- cost
- overall use
- recent use
- quality
- space capacity
- format
- condition
Can I Recommend Purchases, Subscriptions, or Trials?
Yes! If there is a resource you feel would complement the Library’s collections, use our Recommend a Purchase form to share your recommendation. A librarian or staff member will review your request. determine if the resource is a good fit for our collections, and inform you of our decision.
Can I Donate Books or Other Materials to the Library?
See our Book and Media Donations page for information about the types of materials the Library may be interested in.