Gale Collection Development Policy
Gale strives to offer superior breadth and depth in our catalog. However, we understand that it is not practical for libraries to purchase our entire title list. We are providing focused Core Reference Collection Title Lists aimed at "opening day" collections - the titles that our staff librarians, scholarly literature, and popular literature recognize as essential to building a strong, robust collection of materials. These lists are an excellent starting point for planning, building and maintaining a relevant collection that supports the information needs of your library's constituency.
Responsibility for selecting and maintaining the Gale Core Reference Collection Title Lists lies with the staff librarians of the Customer Resource Center. This policy exists to ensure consistency of selection over an extended period of time. Any suggestions for inclusion in the lists by other Gale staff and customers will be reviewed against the current selection criteria. Title deaccession requests will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. We welcome your suggestions and comments at Gale.ContentQA@cengage.com.
Selection criteria:
- Breadth and Depth of content
- Recognition by unbiased publications
- Currency and relevance in the 21st century
- Audience-appropriate
Formats included in the Core Collection Lists are:
- eBooks
- Electronic databases
These lists do not include our microform collections.
Scope of the Core Collection Lists are defined to support the following libraries:
- Academic
- Public
- K-12
- Corporate and special
The first phase of title selection focuses on the needs of public library collections.
Weeding of these lists is undertaken quarterly in order to maintain a useful, up-to-date collection that does not include obsolete materials. Older editions of existing works will be replaced with new editions as they become available.
Gale's collection development policy is guided by the principles of Ranganathan's Five Laws of Library Science, the ALA Library Bill of Rights, and the ALA Freedom to Read Statement.