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Library Collection Development Policy
December 15, 2006
Objectives of the Collection Development Policy
This policy is intended to serve as a planning document and working tool for selectors, to aid communications with library users, to assure consistent and balanced growth of the collections, to assist in determining and documenting budgetary needs, and to facilitate interlibrary cooperation and resource sharing.
Mission of the Library Collections of the Center for Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence
The library collections were established in 2006 to support the work and research interests of the center staff. By creating and maintaining a searchable database of available literature on spiritual development around the world, thelLibrary serves as a key component in the center’s goal of building an interdisciplinary, international field of scholarship.
Principal Constituents
The center's staff and advisors, and the communities of researchers, scholars and practitioners working in this important emerging field of inquiry, are the principal constituents served by the library collections.
Funding for Collection Development
A grant from the John Templeton Foundation supports the library collections.
Description of the Library Collections
The two principal collections are the searchable library database accessed through this website and the physical library collection housed in the center offices at Search Institute.
Goals of Collection Development
- The scope of the library collections will be global, interdisciplinary, and inclusive of all major faith traditions.
- The collections will represent a broad spectrum of perspectives on spirituality, including those aligned with religious traditions and those reflecting spirituality independent of religious traditions.
- Collecting emphasis will be placed on scholarly, research-based publications; in the future more practice-based resources will be added.
- The collections will support the research, writing, and practical applications of center constituents, and will not develop strength in fiction, devotional resources, or popular works.
- The collections will consist almost entirely of English-language materials, and will acquire foreign-language resources typically by special request of library users.
- The collections will concentrate on new publications and selected older works of enduring value, rather than collecting historical materials in strength. The collections will concentrate on resources published after 1990
- Formats collected include books, periodicals, journal articles, book chapters, published reports, [dissertations and theses], unpublished materials such as ephemera, speeches, conference proceedings, and unpublished reports, and online databases. In the future formats may be expanded to include sound recordings, CDs, DVDs, and other electronic formats.
- Web-based resources will be included in the collections if they can be adequately described bibliographically.
- The collections will include reference works in both religion/spirituality and the social sciences. Reference works will usually be purchased in cloth binding.
- Textbooks will usually not be collected; they may be purchased by special request of staff members.
- The collections will provide increasing access to relevant electronic databases through commercial vendors including EbscoHost and the American Psychological Association. Preference will be given to online resources rather than CD-ROM for reasons of currency and reliability of access.
- Gift materials will be accepted and suggested additions to the online library will be included at the discretion of the head librarian.
General Subject Boundaries
Because the center's work is global and multi-disciplinary, collecting will take place across traditional subject boundaries. Collecting decisions will be based less on form (traditional subject classifications) and more on function (does the work relate to some aspect of young people’s spiritual development?). The Online Library Thesaurus describes in detail the subject foci of the collections.
The following types of works will be collected:
- Materials relating to the conceptualization and measurement of spirituality constructs, including instruments and surveys, technical manuals, and journal articles about the development and validity of spirituality measures
- Materials relating to cross-cultural research methodology
- Materials relating to the spiritual development of children and adolescents. Key disciplines include psychology—especially developmental psychology-- , sociology, anthropology, youth development, social work, education, health, biology, theology, religious studies, religious education, and world religions
- Materials that do not relate to children or adolescents directly, but explore the meanings of key concepts such as spirituality, childhood, child development, religion, youth development, narrative, and the nature of spiritual exemplars
- Materials relating to the ecological contexts of spiritual development including families, schools, congregations and communities
- Materials relating to both adaptive and maladaptive spirituality
- Because of the predominance of Christian and Western sources in the fields from which we will draw, we will have a special interest in ensuring good representation of works from non-Christian and non-Western sources
- Sacred texts will be collected if they are relevant for the center's work, but ordinarily works about the theology of sacred texts (Koranic Studies, or Biblical Studies, for example) will not be collected
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