Pragmatic and principled: how we develop our collections

Our Collections Principles

We align our collections with the University’s strategic goals. Our collection development will directly support the University’s research and teaching objectives. We balance core collection needs with sustainability, diversity and ethical considerations.

We prioritise value in our collections. To make best use of University resources and ensure financial resilience, we make data-driven decisions about the resources we acquire and maintain. Usage statistics and cost-per-use are key, but won’t be the exclusive factors in our choices: we recognise that the value of a specific resource depends highly on the context of its use.

We work with faculties to understand how resources will support their activities, including teaching, research and publication. 

We develop collections that reflect our diverse communities. We prioritise resources which diversify our collections, and help establish an inclusive environment for students and staff. We support equality, diversity and inclusion as one of the four University core principles. 

We champion open research. We support varying offers of publishing including ‘pay to publish’ as well as new and emerging models such as ‘Diamond’ open access. We will continue to support open research, including via the White Rose University Press, maximising our research dissemination, and its public availability. 

We help researchers to share their work. We enable academics to disseminate their work as open access, supporting them to retain the rights to reuse and share their research, and helping them to meet funder and REF open access requirements. 

We enhance teaching resources. We provide access to the resources required to deliver teaching and to comply with accredited course requirements. Our Reading List system allows clear identification of  essential reading for students and their provision by the University Library. Our ambition is to support the use of Open Educational Textbooks in the long term.

We will partner with ethical suppliers. We prioritise suppliers with sustainable business models and transparent practices. We expect suppliers to adhere to ethical conduct and avoid harmful practices.

We balance our principles with practical considerations. We are pragmatic about the need to support the University’s objectives. We recognise that critical resources are sometimes exclusively available through suppliers that display challenging behaviour; the goal is to influence improvement or support the longer-term identification of alternatives.

We aim to positively influence the publishing landscape. We will challenge publishers who engage in disingenuous, manipulative, or predatory practices towards York academics. We are producing a guide for academic staff on how to identify and avoid problematic publisher behaviours. 

We will invest in the future. We will allocate resources to support open content, reduce reliance on problematic suppliers, and continually evaluate our collections to meet evolving needs.