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About the Collection: Collection Levels

Terms and Symbols Used to Describe Collection Levels:

Throughout the policies, librarians have expressed evaluations based on a standard set of numbers and letters. The headings that order these evaluations are ECS or Existing Collection Strength, a measure of the historical collection, and CCI, Current Collecting Intensity, which measures the level of selection at the time the policy was written. Another heading, DCI, Desired Collecting Intensity, suggests a goal that the librarian hopes to achieve in the future.

Collection levels as defined by a committee of the American Library Association are:

5. Comprehensive level. A collection in which a library endeavors, so far as is reasonably possible, to include all significant works of recorded knowledge for a necessarily defined field.

4. Research level. A collection which includes the major published source materials required for dissertations and independent research, including materials containing research reporting, new findings, scientific experimental results, and other information useful to researchers.

3. Study level. A collection which supports undergradute or graduate course work, or sustained independent study; that is, which is adequate to maintain knowledge of a subject required for limited or generalized purposes, of less than research intensity.

2. Basic level. A highly selective collection which serves to introduce and define the subject and to indicate the varieties of information available elsewhere.

1. Minimal level. A subject area in which few selections are made beyond very basic works.

Language codes

E. English language materials predominate; little or no foreign language material is in the collection.

F. Selected foreign language material included, primarily Western European in addition to English language material.

W. Wide variety of foreign language material in addition to English language material. No programmatic decision is made to restrict materials according to language.

Y. Material is primarily in one non-English language. The overall focus is on collecting material in the vernacular of the area.