Collection Policy

Subject: Dentistry
Primary Collecting Unit: Dentistry Library

Purpose

The Dentistry Library owns one of the nation's finest dental collections. Its primary clientele are the faculty, students, research, clinical and administrative staff of the School of Dentistry and the Dental Public Health Program of the School of Public Health. It is also a campus and community-wide resource with some services open to all. Electronic access to the catalog has enhanced the collection's reputation as a national resource.

This collection policy describes the subjects and types of material that are of primary importance. The purpose of the policy is not to determine which individual items to acquire or provide access to, but to provide a general framework within which choices can be made.

The library's primary focus is on the research, education and clinical literature. The journal literature, both print and electronic is the most current record of advances in knowledge and is therefore emphasized more over other published forms in this library.

The Dentistry Library is both a working and a historical collection. Its contents reflect the current state of knowledge and practice in each successive period, thus preserving a record of both cultural and scientific development in dentistry. Both the development of the general collection policy and the selection of individual titles are made within the context of these guiding principles.

Future developments will reflect an increasing emphasis on access to local and remote resources through traditional and electronic means, rather than just ownership. Some materials will be acquired in electronic rather than print format; funding for these acquisitions will be through the Library's collection budget as well as by shared arrangements with other institutions. The identification of remote electronic resources and the establishment and maintenance of linkages with these resources will become an integral part of the Library's collection development activities.

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Language, Geographic and Chronological Coverage

Language, geography and country of origin
The Library acquires basic research and clinical publications in the English language from publishers all over the world.

Significant foreign language dental journals from many countries are acquired. Titles selected are indexed in the Index to Dental Literature.

Monographs are acquired in foreign languages, mainly Western European, if requested by faculty or research staff and meet selection criteria. Unique, non-English titles offered as gifts are selectively added to the collection.

Date of publication
The intent is to maintain an up-to-date research collection and almost all regular allocations are spent on newly published material. Books that are more than one or two years old are ordered only if especially requested, if content is unlikely to be out of date, or of lasting historical or reference value.

Current publication of proceedings from meetings held more than three years previously are acquired only if there is an obvious need.

Retrospective purchases are rarely made using current funds, unless a major deficiency is identified and a current need for the material exists. An occasional purchase of rare and historical materials is made with funds from the Marcus Ward Fund in the School of Dentistry.

Retrospective unique titles received as gifts are added to maintain the comprehensive historical dental collection.

Multiple copies
Multiple copies of books needed for course reserve are acquired, if needed. Number of copies purchased is based on class enrollment, amount of required reading and number of classes using same title. Gift copies of dental related materials are added to the collection, based on use and condition of existing copies. Total number not to exceed two copies.

Replacements
Books in core subject areas, published in the last three years, and still in print are generally replaced unless the library owns another copy or a more recent edition.

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Formats/Types

All formats and types are collected except:

• Models, reprints and translations of current journals.

Some formats are selectively collected.

• Annual reports - research foundations selected dental organizations.
• Archival materials and publications of the School.
• Audiovisuals.
• Juvenile literature (dental related only)
• Fiction (dental related only)
• Clipping file - School of Dentistry related.
• Examination review books; study guides
• Government documents - selected numbered series.
• Legislation
• Health education and patient education.
• Manuals - School of Dentistry produced.
• Microforms - government publications
• Pamphlets - dental organizations and government publications
• Popular works - high quality, consumer education materials
• Syllabi, manuals, programmed texts - for courses currently taught.
• Technical reports - individual reports as needed.
• Textbooks - if of reference value, or in support of current teaching programs.
• Theses and dissertations produced in the U of M School of Dentistry.
• Translations of current monographs into English.

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Selection Criteria

Factors considered are:

• Subject scope and centrality
• Need
• Readership, substantial authoritative monographs or journals reporting basic research and new findings in clinical dentistry are a high priority. Duplication of research journals in biomedical science is minimized, but may occur when demand is high. Periodicals that mainly report case studies, procedures, or are generally descriptive are subscribed to more selectively.
• Bibliographic access, availability through indexing in secondary sources is extremely important.
• Quality, as judged by the reputation of authors or editors, their institutional affiliation, the title's relationship to a professional society; up to date references; the quality of illustrations; holdings and use of earlier editions.
• Use or potential use.

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Interdisciplinary Relationships

The Dentistry Library is a divisional library within the University Library system. It is one of the health sciences cluster libraries -- which also include the Taubman Medical and Public Health libraries -- and which work closely together to coordinate collection development, especially in areas of overlapping interest.

The Table of Collecting Levels shown below indicates the location of collections related to specific subfields in the Health Sciences.

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Cooperative Resource Sharing Relationships

The National Network of Libraries of Medicine
This program is intended to provide health science practitioners, investigators, educators, and administrators in the United States with timely, convenient access to health care and biomedical information resources. The program is coordinated by the National Library of Medicine and is carried out through a nationwide network of more than 1,000 health science libraries and information centers. The network includes eight regional medical libraries. The Health sciences Cluster is a component of the Greater Midwest Region (Region 3) the NN/LM. Through this network the Cluster has access to the holdings of medical libraries throughout the country. OCLC provides information for borrowing books not available in the Cluster. Both regional and national union lists of serials give locations for periodicals in the health sciences. A well-established communications network, DOCLINE, makes borrowing among health science libraries efficient.

HealthWeb
Is a cooperative project of the health sciences libraries of the member schools of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) which will provide organized access to evaluated non-commercial, health-related, Internet accessible resources. The resources include those currently available as well as new resources developed in collaboration with other organizations. The health sciences have been divided into discrete areas, and each CIC library has chosen areas in which it excels or plans to excel.

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Collecting Levels

The Dentistry Library Collection encompasses literature on all aspects of dentistry, the art and science of preventing, diagnosing and treating diseases, injuries, and malformations of the teeth, jaws, and mouth and the restoration of defective and missing tissue; the practice of the dental profession collectively. This includes materials with an emphasis on craniofacial issues, excluding the brain and spine.

Many aspects of the biomedical and biological sciences touch upon dentistry. The library selects those materials needed to support ongoing research, teaching, or clinical practice in the School of Dentistry.

Some disciplines that are generally out of scope or very peripherally related may have aspects or applications that pertain to core subjects such as, law, material science, social sciences, health behavior and education, nutrition, epidemiology and biostatistics. Only those individual items that are directly related to core areas are acquired.

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Collecting Levels and Access Notes By Specific Subfield: Dentistry

Definitions of Collecting Levels

Coverage pertains to the depth of the collection, that is, the degree to which materials in various subject areas are acquired. This collection policy uses the codes and definitions for collecting levels that were developed by the Research Libraries Group (RLG) and subsequently adopted by the Association for Research Libraries.

There are five collecting levels:

C= Comprehensive level.
A collection in which the library endeavors, insofar as possible, to include all significant works of recorded knowledge in all applicable languages for a defined and limited field. The level of collecting intensity are sufficiently broad to indicate a national resource for the subject. The aim, if not the achievement, being exhaustive coverage of the field to serve as a national and international resource for scholars.

R= Research level.
A collection which contains the major published source materials required for dissertations and independent research, including specialized reference tools, conference proceedings, professional society publications, technical reports, government documents, multiple editions of most textbooks and monographs, including a significant number of titles pertinent to the subject in a recognized "standard" bibliography, an extensive collection of periodicals, including at least 65 percent of the titles pertinent to the subject which are included in List of Serials Indexed for Online Users. English language materials predominate, but the collection also contains important materials in other languages. Older or superseded materials are usually retained for historical research.

I= Instructional support level.
A selective collection which is adequate to support undergraduate and most graduate instruction, sustained independent study within a curriculum, and health care in a hospital or clinical setting; that is, a collection which is adequate to support campus instruction but with less depth than might be required to support in-depth research. It includes the subject's major reference tools, significant indexing and abstracting services including access to information resources via electronic networks, a broad selection of major textbooks and monographs, and a wide range of basic periodicals, including at least 25 percent of the titles pertinent to the subject which are included in List of Serials Indexed for Online Users.

B= Basic level.
A highly selective collection which serves to introduce and define a subject and to indicate the varieties of information available elsewhere. It includes major dictionaries and encyclopedias, historical surveys, bibliographies, and handbooks. It contains selected editions of textbooks and monographs and the periodicals cited in the Brandon-Hill list.

M= Minimal level.
A collection in which very few selections are made beyond very basic reference tools. (i.e. a representative textbook, a single dictionary, and a single periodical subscription.)

* Health Web area of strength

Abbreviations:

• AAEL - Art, Architecture and Engineering Library
• GL - Graduate Library
• LL - Law Library
• PHL - Public Health Library
• SL - Science Library
• SW - Social Work Library
• TML - Taubman Medical Library
• UGL - Undergraduate Library

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