Michigan State University

Collection Development Policy Statement: Special Collections

Factors Influencing Collection Policy

A. Anticipated future trends

Special Collections current collecting activities focus on collecting to strengths and within funding guidelines, as well as responding to gift and purchase opportunities that serve academic and research needs, both current and future. All formats are collected as appropriate. After almost a half-century of collecting within set collecting guidelines, Special Collections has developed deep, research level collections in several select areas. The goal in collecting now is to fill in gaps and keep abreast of any new developments within these collecting fields. Additionally, primary documents, which may not fall within any of the collection strengths, should be acquired for bibliographic instruction purposes as “teaching tools.”

Gifts of materials and/or endowments should be carefully considered on a case by case basis if they do not fall within collection policies.

B. Relationships with other resources

The holdings in Special Collections are in great part complemented by the print, electronic, and audio sources in the MSU Libraries. Patrons are always encouraged to check these collections for additional information.

There are a number of outstanding special libraries and collections in Michigan and in the region. Currently there are no formal, co-operative agreements among these libraries.

C. Relationships to resources treated in other policy statements

Given the broad collecting nature of Special Collections, there is overlap with a variety of other collection policies, including for example:

Veterinary medicine

Biological sciences

Film studies

Literature

History

Gender studies