Building the collection

New material is added to the Library's collection on an ongoing basis, to ensure staff and students have access to the latest quality resources. While most material is in English, the Library sources and acquires resources published in print and electronically in more than 12 languages and from more than 20 countries.

The Library has a preference for acquiring books and journals in electronic form where available (e-preferred policy), meeting the requirements of most users. This policy maximises the value of resources, allowing them to be available around the clock and to mutiple users. Great care is taken in selection to ensure that access is maximised for off-campus and international library users and that licence conditions permit full access, downloading and/or printing wherever possible. With nearly all journals and a growing percentage of books available electronically, in excess of two-thirds of the collection budget is now spent on online resources.

The Library also acquires video materials and plans increasingly to stream video as this format becomes more available.

Where does it come from?

Subject-based teams of librarians in consultation with academic staff are mainly responsible for selection of resources but the Library welcomes suggestions of new purchases from postgraduate and undergraduate students as well as from staff.

The Library also runs an expanding patron-driven acquisition program whereby thousands of e-books are made available and are purchased if used by sufficient numbers of library clients.