Last Updated: August 2023
The Irvine Sullivan Ingram Library (the Library) supports the mission of the institution and the changing needs of the University through its collections and services. The Library selects and manages its resources and services in order to support the broad educational mission of the University, including experiential learning and professional readiness, and to provide its large and diverse 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, and other campus educational objectives.
As the institution continues to grow, the collection management guidelines of the Library are to acquire and make available the necessary materials to accommodate the growth of programs being added or expanded, taking into consideration both graduate and undergraduate programming and research. The Library collects materials in various formats in order to offer relevant research materials for the programs offered by the University.
Collection management decisions are based on both objective data and the subjective judgments of library faculty 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.
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 use these resources 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.” In order 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 of 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 (e.g. CREW, MUSTIE, and WORST) 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.
The Library offers databases for student and faculty research. The Library’s electronic 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.
The Library strives to acquire one copy of every thesis and dissertation which are kept in the general collection and made available for circulation. The Library welcomes donations of a bound copy of theses and dissertations from students. The Library makes no decisions regarding the number of bound copies needed. It is the responsibility of the student to determine the number of copies published and how they are distributed.
The Library applies an allocation formula that includes information such as: number of undergraduate majors; number of graduate students; number of faculty; number of student credit hours generated; and number of different courses taught by the department as listed in the University catalog. The Library tracks changes in programmatic needs using data supplied by UWG’s Institutional Effectiveness and Assessment. The Library uses professional expertise to make evidence-informed decisions regarding the prioritization of expenditures.
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.
It is a general policy to order one copy of faculty publications for Special Collections. In some cases, the Library will also purchase an additional copy for the circulating collection.
The Ingram Library welcomes gifts and donations to the library as long as they fill a need in the collection. We kindly ask that potential gifts and donations adhere to the following procedure:
The Ingram Library does not allow an unscheduled drop-off of possible gifts and donations. Unexpected donations that are left at the front desk will be discarded.
If you have items that may be a benefit to the Ingram Library collection, we ask that you prepare an itemized list that includes author, title and edition number (if relevant). It helps to have the ISBN but that isn’t necessary. We prefer itemized lists that are formatted in MS Word or Excel (or an equivalent program).
Send an email to acqdept@westga.edu with your contact information, and attach the itemized list of possible donations. Please make sure your full name, email address and phone number is included.
Once we have thoroughly evaluated the list, someone from the Technical Services department will contact you via phone or email about the titles we wish to add to the collection. If we can’t accept any of the titles, we will at least send an email response letting you know that the material doesn’t satisfy any of the library’s needs.
Once items are accepted, the Ingram Library will provide an official letter acknowledging the donations along with a Gift-In-Kind Form. If you plan to include the donation on tax documents, the Gift-In-Kind Form needs to be filled out by the donor so a proper value can be assigned to the items donated.
The Gift-In-Kind Form needs to be returned to the Technical Services department so we can verify the donation and forward the paperwork to the UWG Foundation, Inc. The UWG Foundation can then send the donor an official document for tax purposes.
We encourage the donation of monographs written by current UWG faculty members.
The Ingram Library is not allowed to assign values to any of the items that are donated. If donated items will be reported on tax documents, it is up to the donor to calculate the fair market value of the item(s).
Items that are possible donations must be in good condition and able to stand the daily wear-and-tear of an academic library.
The Ingram Library reserves the right to accept an item as a donation and then discard it if the item is in poor condition.