Duke University Law Library: Collection Development Policy:International Legal Materials

DEFINITION OF COLLECTING INTENSITY LEVELS

The descriptions of the levels of collecting intensity are based on the Association of Research Libraries, Office of Management Studies, Manual for the North American Inventory of Research Library Collection (January 1985). They have been refined by the Duke Law Library staff to apply to materials from international governmental organizations.

0 - Out of Scope:
The Library does not collect any materials for this organization.

1 - Minimal:
A rudimentary collection of works about an organization, designed to give an overview of the organization's activities.

Primary Materials: The Library does not collect primary materials.

Secondary Materials: The Library collects English language general works about the organization.

2 - Basic Information:
A collection of materials that serves to describe and define the activities of an organization, and to indicate the varieties of information available elsewhere. It includes general works and works on selected subject areas. It may also include dictionaries, encyclopedias, selected editions of important works, historical surveys, bibliographies, handbooks, annual reports, yearbooks, and a few major periodicals, in the minimum number that will serve the purpose. A basic information collection is not sufficiently intensive to support any advanced undergraduate or graduate courses or independent study. The Library relies on other libraries for more specialized materials.

Primary Materials: The Library collects selected primary materials.

Secondary Materials: The Library collects English language general works on the organization as well as works on major subject areas, such as trade or the environment.

3 - Instructional Support:
A collection that is adequate to support most graduate instruction, or sustained independent study; that is, adequate to maintain knowledge of the activities of an organization required for limited or generalized purposes of less than research intensity. It includes many legal materials, a wide range of basic monographs, complete collections of the works of more important writers, selections from the works of secondary writers, a selection of representative specialized journals, reference tools, and fundamental bibliographic apparatus. Practitioners' guides and looseleaf services, unless essential to a subject area, will not be purchased. Expensive monographs and serials are collected very selectively.

Primary Materials: The Library collects selected primary materials.

Secondary Materials: The Library collects works on the organization in general and on selected specialized subjects.

4 - Research:
A collection that includes the major published source materials about the activities of an organization required for dissertations and independent research. It is intended to include most legal materials, important reference works, a wide selection of specialized monographs, as well as a very extensive collection of journals and major indexing and abstracting services in the field. Only the most important looseleaf services or other materials requiring frequent supplementation will be purchased. Practitioners' guides, unless essential to a subject area, will not be purchased. Expensive monographs and serials are collected selectively.

Primary Materials: The Library collects most primary materials.

Secondary Materials: The Library collects works on the organization in general and on wide variety of specialized subjects.

5 - Comprehensive:
A collection in which a library endeavors, so far as is reasonably possible, to include all significant works of recorded knowledge (including manuscripts, dissertations, etc.) about an organization, in all applicable languages. This level of collection intensity is one that maintains a "special collection;" the aim, if not the achievement, is exhaustiveness. Reserved for organizations for which the Library has or seeks to have historically extensive collections.

Primary Materials: The Library collects all available primary materials.

Secondary Materials: The Library collects all available works in any language on all aspects of the organization's activities.

Updated 7/1/00

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