Our collections provide high quality and economically responsible resources to students, staff, and faculty to support their teaching, learning, scholarship, service, and creative endeavors. Librarians manage the selection, evaluation, and deselection of library resources using professional best practices.
Database and journal costs make up most of our expenses for materials. As you may know, we are in the midst of what is anticipated to be a lean period. Our budget and the rate of inflation of subscription database costs combine to make us careful about database costs.
After a review of best practices, we have identified and prioritized seven criteria to apply in evaluating how well each current database and journal package supports student learning and faculty research at Loras. These criteria include:
- Content necessary for accreditation or important to an academic discipline represented at Loras.
- Supports and facilitates faculty and student research (relevant topics, level of information appropriate for user group, information quality, level of full text, etc.).
- Number of students, faculty, departments impacted and/or the size of majors impacted.
- Cannot be adequately replaced by alternative methods of obtaining content (open access, institutional repositories, interlibrary loan, document delivery, etc.).
- Is accessible (allows remote access, accommodates the needs of people with disabilities, etc.).
- Used by more than one department or is vital to a single department.
- Receives sufficient use (past, present, and/or future potential usage, usage per included title)
- Cost is affordable (per use—search, view, download, or session; per included title; including fees, rate of inflation, etc.)
Revised 7/6/23
