Library Information & Policies

Statement of Purpose 

Irvine Sullivan Ingram Library (the Library) supports the mission of the institution and the changing needs of the University of West Georgia through its collections and services. The Library selects and manages information resources and tailors services to support the broad educational mission of the University, including experiential learning and professional readiness, and to provide its community of students, faculty and staff with access to relevant information. Collection management directly supports the University’s instruction, research, and public service responsibilities which include curriculum-related instruction, extracurricular learning, research, experiential learning and career readiness, and other campus educational objectives. 

General Policy 

The collection management guidelines of the Library provide the framework for acquiring and providing access to necessary materials to accommodate the addition and expansion of academic programs, and the needs of students, staff, and faculty for the purposes of teaching, learning, and research. The Library collects materials in a variety of formats to offer relevant research materials for the programs offered by the University.  Active curation of the collections ensures that information resources are discoverable, useful to the campus community, and that topically, they are responsive to the needs of the university.  

Selection Criteria 

Collection management recommendations are made by members of the Library’s Collection Management Committee based on usage data, potential to meet academic program needs, and consideration for the enhancement of research resources in consultation with academic departments. Discipline-specific differences in instruction and research methodologies are considered in determining the content and format of materials acquired or licensed. Objective data to be considered include financial resources available, programs and courses offered, publishing output, enrollment, circulation of materials, interlibrary loans, and comparison with standard bibliographies. 

Final decisions about collection purchases and subscriptions are made by the Dean of the Library with the advisement of the Chair of the Collections Management Committee, taking available funding, academic needs, and university priorities into consideration.  

The Library supports the statements on collection management contained within the "Standards for Libraries" and the “Guidelines for University Library Services to Undergraduate Students” adopted by the American Library Association's Association of College and Research Libraries which encourage “library services to provide a gateway to all future library inquiry, not only preparing students for graduate work and research, but also teaching them to use information sources as citizens, as consumers, as professionals, and for recreational purposes.” Since accrediting agencies, such as the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC), the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, and the American Association of Collegiate Schools of Business, generally use these standards to evaluate library collections, it is important that the Library does so as a matter of consistency. 

The Library supports the principles of intellectual freedom set forth in the American Library Associations’ “Library Bill of Rights” and “Freedom to Read Statement.” To foster intellectual inquiry, the goal is to provide materials that represent a wide spectrum of society and give patrons the opportunity to survey the entire range of religious, political, ethnic, scientific, cultural, and social expression. The Library does not add or withdraw, at the request of an individual or group, material which has been excluded or selected from the collection according to the criteria in the Library’s stated collection policies. 

The American Library Association's Code of Ethics states that "[Librarians] protect each user's right to privacy with respect to information sought or received, and materials consulted, borrowed, acquired, or transmitted.” In addition, the Library adheres to the American Library Association's "Policy on Confidentiality of Library Records." Confidentiality is also protected under Georgia law.  Official Code of Georgia, Annotated, Paragraph 24-9-46. 

The Library complies fully with all the provisions of the U.S. Copyright Law (17 U.S.C.) and its amendments. The Library strongly supports the Fair Use section of the Copyright Law (17 U.S.C. 107) which permits and protects citizens' rights to reproduce and make other uses of copyrighted works for the purposes of teaching, scholarship and research. 

The Library periodically reviews its collections and evaluates their relevance to the current needs of the user community. Materials are evaluated based on standard library criteria as well as usage; in the case of electronic materials, the Library also assesses the cost-per-use of individual items. Deselected materials are processed in accordance with campus and system-wide policies and procedures. 

Electronic Resources 

The Library offers electronic resources for student and faculty research. These resources are licensed in accordance with the purchasing regulations of the University System of Georgia Board of Regents and in conjunction with the University of West Georgia’s Office of Business and Financial Services and University Counsel. University students, faculty, and staff can access electronic resources both on-campus and off-campus through individual user authentication. 

Theses and Dissertations 

Ingram Library no longer collects print, bound copies of student dissertations. Existing copies in the collection are available in the stacks and listed in the library catalog. 

Budgeting and Allocations 

The library uses professional expertise and the previously described selection criteria to make evidence-informed decisions regarding the prioritization of expenditures. 

Requesting materials for purchase 

Students, faculty, and staff have multiple avenues for requesting that the Library purchase or license library materials, including, but not limited to, an online form. 

Ingram Library serves as the academic heart of the University of West Georgia. Your support enables us to provide quality resources and offer engaging events to campus and the community.  

Materials Donation Policy 

The Ingram Library welcomes physical gifts and donations to the library that fulfill a need in the collection, especially donation of books written by current UWG faculty members.     

The Ingram Library does not allow the unscheduled drop-off of prospective gifts and donations. Unexpected donations left at the front desk will be discarded.  Before bringing items to the library, please prepare an itemized list in a word processing or spreadsheet format that includes the materials’ author, title, ISBN, and edition number (if relevant) to our acquisitions department at acqdept@westga.edu. Include the donor’s contact information, including full name, email address and phone number. The library will review any potential donations and contact prospective donors about whether the titles can be added to the collection. Donated items must be in good condition and able to withstand the daily wear-and-tear of an academic library. 

If the donations are accepted, Ingram Library will provide an official letter acknowledging the donations along with a Gift-In-Kind form. Donors needing documentation for tax purposes must complete the Gift-In-Kind form. Once the library verifies the form, the UWG Foundation can then send the donor an official document for tax purposes.  

Ingram Library does not accept gifts with conditions as to their location or disposition. 

Ingram Library reserves the right to accept an item as a donation and then discard it if the item is in poor condition or is not aligned with collection needs and priorities.