| |
 |
|
•
Relevance to Cooper's educational programs
• Scope, content and quality
• Indexing
• Strength of the existing collection
and availability in Consortium
• Currency and timeliness
• Cost
• Preservation, maintenance and deaccessioning
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
Relevance
to Cooper's educational programs |
|
| |
As current or former members of the curriculum committees, the
director and librarians are well-acquainted with the current curriculum
as well as imminent changes and long-range planning. Therefore,
they can anticipate and provide for current and future needs while
shaping the collection. They also stay in close contact with the
faculty and students within their specialized subject areas, and
they actively solicit faculty requests for specific titles as well
as general recommendations on the range and direction of the collection.
|
|
| |
Scope,
content and quality |
|
| |
The director and librarians evaluate each potential acquisition
in terms of its relevance to the needs of the students and faculty,
its place within the existing collection and its intrinsic quality.
A monograph is evaluated in terms of its scholarship and depth
of research; the reputation of its author, publisher or sponsor;
the caliber and fidelity of its illustrations; the thoroughness
of its bibliographies and indexes. A new subscription to a periodical
or index is initiated only if it provides sufficient breadth
and depth of coverage of a given subject area while remaining
of interest to the majority of library users working within
that area.
|
|
| |
Indexing
|
|
| |
A new periodical subscription is also evaluated in terms of the
accessibility of its content, so it is highly important that the
periodical under consideration is included in a major bibliographic
indexing and/or abstracting tool, such as the Avery Index to Architectural
Periodicals, Art Abstracts or Applied Science & Technology Abstracts.
|
|
| |
Strength
of the existing collection and availability in Consortium |
|
| |
Special care is taken to fill the gaps in the existing collection
within the areas of art, architecture and engineering, and to
build on the collection's strengths without creating redundancies.
Due to
space considerations, duplicate copies of books are not purchased,
and if donated, they are not added to the collection. Exceptions
are made for material in high demand.
The holdings
of the Consortium libraries are also taken into consideration
during the selection process. If a title is considered important
to the programs at The Cooper Union, the Library will acquire
it even if it appears in a Consortium library's catalog. The
Cooper Library relies on the Consortium primarily for material
in disciplines for which the Cooper Union does not grant degrees.
|
|
| |
Currency
and timeliness |
|
| |
For some disciplines, particularly engineering and the sciences,
up-to-date information is of special significance. In those areas,
preference is given to material that contributes new or revised
information in a timely manner.
|
|
| |
Cost |
|
| |
Although budget is necessarily a factor in the selection process,
the price of an item is always measured against its quality
to establish its relative value to the Library's holdings. While
some materials cannot be acquired due to fiscal constraints,
the Library purchases a significant number of items relevant
to the college's programs regardless of the cost.
|
|
| |
Preservation,
maintenance and deaccessioning |
|
| |
Every care
is taken to preserve the Library collection through rebinding and
repair with archival-quality supplies. An item is deaccessioned
only if its physical condition renders it unusable, if it is no
longer relevant to the curricular needs of Cooper Union, if it
has no extracurricular value or if it presents inaccurate or outdated
information.
|
|
| |
Last
updated September 5, 2002
|
|
| |
photograph
© T. Micchelli, 2002 |
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
