Strategic
Except for the Health Sciences Library with its own budget and personnel dedicated to serve the College of Medicine, UCF Libraries is funded centrally to serve all colleges and programs at all locations. The academic programs are increasingly more interdisciplinary between colleges and campuses, and the University has expanded in the number of campus locations. To achieve best cost efficiency within the budget limits and to serve as many users as possible, most library collections, including books, serve multiple UCF programs on one-copy.
To support the missions and visions of UCF Libraries and to ensure fiscal responsibilities, collection decisions for how library resources are acquired and where the resources are housed are made by the UCF Libraries. Efforts should be put into understanding of current and future direction of the academic programs and research. A balance should be strived for meeting the present or short-term needs versus long-term projected needs.
UCF Libraries offers a robust document delivery system and interlibrary loan/resource sharing service (via the Document Delivery & Resource Sharing department) to ensure UCF users at all locations have access to library resources at all locations and beyond. It is important to note that both are subject to copyright restrictions.
Diverse
The collections should be developed according to the value of the University. UCF Libraries follows the Intellectual Freedom Principles for Academic Libraries by American Library Association (ALA).Contents should meet the diverse needs of UCF users. And a broad spectrum of perspectives in cultures, heritages, politics, societies, and technologies shall be represented in all collections.
Accessible
The collections acquired should be available to all UCF users. Electronic resources must be accessible to all users via an authentication protocol sanctioned by the UCF IT. The Libraries makes every effort possible to acquire resources meeting the evolving accessibility standards. Vendors should adhere to the U.S. Access Board’s final rule on accessibility requirements for information and communication technology, covered under Section 508 of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act, and follow guidelines set forth by the World Wide Web Consortium’s Web Accessibility Initiative.
Sustainable
Quality of the collections embodies that of the University. Besides building collections supporting the research, teaching, and learning of the University, the authoritativeness of the author or editor, reputation of the publisher or platform, physical condition of the tangible items, rarity or uniqueness of the contents should all be considered. Perpetual ownership of the contents should be preferred for electronic acquisitions. Resources requiring a recurring financial commitment, either as a subscription or with a continuing access fee, shall be carefully examined periodically on archiving options to ensure the enduring vitality of the contents.