The Folke Bernadotte Memorial Library furthers the mission of Gustavus Adolphus College by collecting materials that support its liberal arts curriculum and the disciplines taught at the College. Our goal is to develop a well-rounded collection that reflects the diversity of liberal arts scholarship and maintains a global perspective to serve undergraduate needs. Although our primary focus is on undergraduate research, the library will also support, through both collection development and services, joint student/faculty research and faculty access to research materials beyond our collections.
The library will collect reading materials outside of the curriculum for the college community, serving as a cultural resource for the area. We will also continue to build in those parts of our collections, such as Scandinavian Studies and Nobel Prize materials, which are a part of our institutional identity and in which we have existing collection strengths.
Collection development is more than just acquiring items, it also embraces an understanding of what access means and how students use the materials they find. These are important components of collection analysis equal to the understanding of the overall quality of a resource. Therefore, librarians will work with faculty in other departments to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the collection across a broad range of criteria. We will integrate collection development planning into general curriculum planning and into other programs and services of the library.
The library will make special provisions for the support of new academic programs and new faculty members' areas of teaching specialization within the curriculum.
Librarians will be primarily responsible for building the collection in areas of the liberal arts where no formal Gustavus department or program exists.
We will acquire material in the original language of publication if that language is taught at the College and the material is used in language or cultural instruction. When possible, we will also purchase translations.
October 2023
We will purchase both printed books and e-books, determining format by considering subject matter, licensing opportunities and overall cost. Neither format is necessarily favored over the other.
We will acquire special collections and rare books as primary sources to enhance instructional resources, better the student research experience, and expand the cultural role of the library.
The library will pursue acquisition of out-of-print materials that are not automatically located or are canceled through the normal vendor processes. Searching for out-of-print materials is labor and time intensive, thus it will be conducted as time permits. The pursuit of such items will be coordinated by the Acquisitions Manager and the librarian serving as Collection Development Coordinator. The librarians will judge acceptable price ranges for individual titles, and reprint editions will be substituted when available, unless the requester demonstrates that only the original edition is acceptable.
To support the research needs of students and faculty, the library will select finding tools for the disciplines taught at Gustavus. Access to the scholarly publications of the disciplines taught at the College is fundamental to the library’s teaching program. Every attempt, within the confines of budgetary restrictions will be made to subscribe to the major journals of a given field as well as the sub fields of interest within those disciplines.
We will subscribe to appropriate databases, with full-text content when feasible. We will also employ technology to link citations in our databases to full-text content in other subscriptions, thus minimizing duplication.
Electronic access to journal content will always be chosen over paper subscription unless licensing costs are prohibitive.
Since Gustavus is a residential college, we see the importance of providing a basic collection of popular periodicals in addition to scholarly material.
We will purchase films, documentaries and music recordings that support classroom instruction and the officially sponsored College programs (e.g., Nobel Conference), or that demonstrate lasting contributions to the art of filmmaking.
A permanent streaming license is the preferred access and will be selected first. For music, this will usually be in the form of streaming packages or collections.
When cost or availability make streaming unfeasible, we will purchase physical copies of individual titles
We will purchase both fiction and nonfiction juvenile literature at all levels (from pre-kindergarten through high school) to support related course offerings in Education and English. Though we primarily collect English language books for juvenile audiences, we also collect materials in languages that represent public school populations in Minnesota (for example, Spanish, Hmong, or Somali) or languages taught at Gustavus (e.g., French, or Swedish).
Books for children or young adults that have won or been nominated for awards, as well as juvenile literature by Minnesota authors, are given special consideration. Works published within the last ten years are emphasized. Historical materials of significance are also added.
Note: Textbooks, lesson plans, activity guides, curricula, and kits are generally excluded. These types of materials are available in a curriculum library housed in Anderson Hall and maintained by the Department of Education.
