A. Anticipated future trends
The subject areas of collecting emphasis described above will continue to remain significant for the collection for the foreseeable future. Access to scholarly journals online has become and will continue to be essential for researchers, while the importance of access to printed journals is diminishing. Online reference works are also increasing in importance and demand over their print counterparts.
Adding research data is a potential step for this subject collection. For guidelines, please see MSU's Digital Research Data Collection Development Policy.
B. Relationships with other resources
1. On campus branch or format collections
The Gull Lake Library at the Kellogg Biological Biological Station also collects monographs in the area of microbial ecology. Other ecology areas covered by the Gull Lake Library fall outside the scope of this collection development policy.
2. Regional or network resources
Libraries at the University of Michigan and Wayne State University have strong collections in these areas of biological sciences, as do all of the other CIC institutions. Several consortial purchases have been made by the CIC for electronic journal packages including these subject areas.
C. Relationships to resources treated in other policy statements
Because of the interdisciplinary nature of biological research today, many biological materials may fall under more than one collection policy. Other collection development policies that cover some of the biological sciences and overlap somewhat with this policy include:
Biological Sciences/Natural History: zoology, entomology, ecology, systems biology
Human Medicine: clinical medical research and textbooks
Veterinary Medicine: clinical veterinary research and textbooks
Chemistry: chemistry as it relates to biological subjects
Botany: plant biology in all areas, particular that is not molecular, genetic, biochemical, or physiological in nature
Agriculture: applied areas of biology related to agricultural research
Animal Science: applied areas of biology related to food animal agriculture and breeding