Collection Development Policy

COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT POLICY
University of North Dakota School of Law
Thormodsgard Law Library
Updated March 15, 2024

Part I: Goals and Mission

The principal mission of the Thormodsgard Law Library in collecting and maintaining library resources is to support the instructional and research needs of our primary patrons: the students, faculty, staff, and alumni of the University of North Dakota School of Law.

The mission of the Law Library also extends to the wider University of North Dakota community. UND encourages interdisciplinary approaches to scholarship and learning, with many formal and informal bridges between departments and schools. Because almost any field of study can have a legal component, the law library serves not only the law faculty and students but the entire University community.

Additionally, the Law Library’s mission extends to members of the public at large. As a public institution and the largest public law library in the state, the Law Library provides access to legal research materials as well as reference services to local and state residents.

The goals of this policy are:

1. To document the current collection philosophies, policies, and practices for the Law Library.
2. To provide guidance to all those involved in developing the collection.
3. To inform UND School of Law staff, law school administrators, faculty, and students of the collection emphases and criteria for evaluating new materials and formats.
4. To provide guidance for deselection decisions.

Part II: Selection Criteria and Process

Collection Principles

This document is intended to provide general guidelines, and exceptions to rules may be granted under special circumstances. The Law Library abides by the fundamental principles that allow it to best meet the needs of its users. These principles are founded in large part upon ABA Standard 606 (Collections).

Principle 1. The Law Library collects materials necessary to support teaching, scholarship, and research needs of the faculty and student body. Additionally, the law library collects materials to support legal research and access to justice for the public at large.
Principle 2. The Law Library’s collection is concentrated in United States law, with a particular emphasis on North Dakota and Minnesota law.
Principle 3. The Law Library collects materials in multiple formats including print, electronic, audiovisual, and microform.
Principle 4. The Law Library increasingly prefers ownership of or licensing access to materials in electronic formats, including online subscription-based resources, historic and current digital collections, e-journals, and e-books.
Principle 5. The Law Library generally collects one copy of individual titles in a single format. Content may be retained across multiple formats in order to provide the greatest flexibility in use and ensure reliable access to core resources.
Principle 6. The Law Library is committed to responding to emerging legal fields, evolving areas of legal expertise, and increasing focus on skills-based instructional opportunities.
Principle 7. The Law Library is committed to meeting the immediate needs of School of Law members in a nimble and cost-effective manner by acquiring titles as quickly as possible in the case of an urgent need.

Selection Criteria

The law librarians should take the following into account when considering resources to add to the collection:

• Subject area, including the following:
  • Importance to the law school curriculum, program emphases, and faculty scholarship and service;
  • Importance to the state of North Dakota;
  • Likelihood of use;
  • Current and permanent value
• Initial cost
• Maintenance of resource, including monetary cost and staff time
• Currency of resource and frequency of updates
• Authoritativeness of title and publisher
• Authoritativeness and reputation of author
• Format, including user interface if the format is electronic
• Scarcity of material
• Duplication of material in our collection and/or elsewhere on campus
• Long-term access to material and preservation issues
• Space within the library

Scope of Coverage

The Law Library provides access to primary materials for the United States federal government and all fifty states, with a particular collection emphasis on primary materials for the United States federal government (including treaties), North Dakota, and our border states. These include Minnesota, South Dakota, and Montana. While we focus primarily on domestic law, we may collect some international and comparative materials when necessary to fully meet the collection needs of intensively collected subjects or a particular area of faculty interest.

Subject Area Collection Intensity

In making determinations of depth of coverage for particular subject areas, the library uses the following additional factors as criteria:

1. The curricular needs of the UND School of Law. If the law school’s programs and courses indicate a curricular need, those needs will play the primary role in determining collection development decisions. UND School of Law curricular priorities will include the following special considerations: certificate programs, law school clinics or practica, and law school courses with a writing component.
2. The research interests of law school faculty. The library will strive to maintain a robust collection for areas of faculty interest.
3. The needs of the North Dakota legal community, including self-represented litigants. To assist in our mission to serve the public, we also collect North Dakota-related legal materials, some self-help legal materials, and some immigration materials due to our proximity to Canada.
4. The research needs of the wider University of North Dakota community.

The levels of collection development by subject are defined as following:

1. Intensive: All essential material required for faculty and student instruction and independent research. Includes major published source materials and a wide selection of monographs, journals, and relevant databases. To the extent practicable, this level includes representative practitioners' titles, and materials for most jurisdictions. Pertinent foreign language materials are included. Older material is retained at a higher level for historical research. The Law Library will maintain an intensive level of collection for the following subjects:
   1. Aviation Law
   2. Indian and Tribal Law
   3. Oil and Gas Law
   4. Civil Litigation
2. Research and Instructional Support: The emphasis is on building current and representative collections adequate to maintain knowledge of a subject and for scholarly research. This level includes most primary sources, a significant number of monographs, selected treatises that are regularly updated, retrospective and historical works, a selection of specialized journals, access to appropriate nonbibliographic databases, and the reference tools and fundamental bibliographical apparatus pertaining to the subject. This level may include some practitioners' materials and authoritative multijurisdictional titles. The Law Library will maintain a research and instructional support level of collection for the following subjects:
   1. Academic success and bar passage
   2. Agricultural law
   3. Bankruptcy and consumer protection
   4. Criminal law
   5. Employment law
   6. Environmental law
   7. Ethics & professional responsibility
   8. Evidence
   9. Family law
   10. Housing
   11. Legal career development
   12. Legal history
   13. Legal research & writing
   14. Legislation
   15. Taxation
   16. Trusts & Estates
3. Basic: Up-to-date general materials which will aid readers' immediate understanding of a subject and will serve to introduce readers to the subject and to other sources of available information. The Law Library will evaluate acquisition of all subjects not previously listed with the intent to maintain a basic collection.

Selection Process

The Law Library Director as well as all reference and technical services librarians serve on the Law Library’s Collection Development Committee. The Head of Technical Services facilitates the review of book slips from EBSCO’s GOBI service, new publication alerts from publishers, and book reviews from various sources.

The Head of Technical Services works with legal publishers to maintain our collection of continually updated materials and, in conjunction with the Collection Development Committee, reviews our current subscriptions for renewal or cancellation each year. These reviews, faculty and student requests, and new information about faculty scholarship, research, teaching, and service responsibilities help guide the development of the collection.

Choice of Format

Legal information is published in a variety of electronic formats, as well as print and microform. Increasingly, the Law Library prefers electronic resources in order to provide broader access to information and enhanced searching and retrieval capabilities. When reviewing resources, the law librarians should consider what format is most appropriate for the resource. Factors to consider include ease of use in print and electronic formats, user preference, cost, ease of access, and whether the resource can be used for distance education.

For online resources, IP based authentication is preferred over password access. Where possible, the Law Library will attempt to provide the broadest access to electronic resources; however, it may not always be possible to extend access beyond our primary user community, School of Law faculty, staff and students. Whenever possible, links to electronic resources will be placed in our online discovery system.

Cooperative Collection Development

The Law Library participates in several cooperative resource sharing programs. The Law Library is affiliated with the Mid-America Law Library Consortium and the Online Dakota Information Network and collaborates with these groups on resource sharing programs, including interlibrary loan and group purchases. The Law Library also participates in interlibrary loan activities nationally using the OCLC interlibrary loan system.

The Law Library is one of three libraries on the University of North Dakota campus. The Thormodsgard Law Library, the Chester Fritz Library, and the School of Medicine and Health Sciences Library share a common library management system and participate in other cooperative activities such as allowing access to other library’s  subscription databases on and off campus. Unless demand requires otherwise, the Law Library avoids purchasing titles or other resources that are available at either of the other libraries.

Replacements

The Law Library attempts to replace materials that are missing or damaged. Replacement decisions are based on the importance of the title; cost; other titles in the collection on the same topic; and duplication of the title in other formats and locations.

Microform

The Law Library collects materials in microform very selectively for infrequently used materials, mainly as a duplicate format and to provide permanent access for materials such as records and briefs, legal newspapers, and selected U.S. and North Dakota government documents. The Law Library will select a microform version of a title when it is not available electronically at a reasonable price; the size, expense, infrequency of use, or
unavailability precludes its addition in print; or permanent copies would be bulky or subject to deterioration in print.

Audio and Visual

Materials in audio or video format are occasionally acquired, often at the special request of faculty members or students. The Law Library may purchase the item if available in CD or DVD format and reasonably priced. The Law Library may also acquire streaming video when available, appropriate, and cost-effective.

Periodicals and Treatises

The Law Library provides access to continuing resources, including treatises and periodicals, in print and electronically. We will collect the resource in print based on facility of use, user preference, unavailability of an electronic version, and ease of access. We provide access to a large percentage of our periodicals and treatises online through services such as HeinOnline, Bloomberg, Westlaw, Lexis+, and other databases.

Duplication

Duplication may occur with print and electronic materials. Duplication may also occur between our collection and the collections of other University libraries. The library avoids duplication of material when possible unless duplication is warranted due to the popularity or importance of a title, use of a title by a class, or faculty requests.

Deselection

The Law Library is committed to building a current and retrospective scholarly legal research collection in print and electronic formats. The collection development process involves decisions not only about what to acquire, but also what to retain, withdraw, or move. In making these decisions about what to remove and discard from the collection, the library undertakes periodic weeding projects. Factors for weeding may include changes in institutional goals or programs, availability in electronic formats, usage, space limitations, increasing cost, duplication, obsolescence, and the condition of materials.

Superseded Material

Maintenance of the collection is of equal importance to the building of the collection. Law print collections are characterized by material supplemented by annual pocket parts, pamphlets, recompiled volumes, new editions, and loose-leaf filings. The Law Library has a responsibility to preserve a collection suitable for research, which may include the need for superseded material. Decisions are made on an item-by-item basis and depend on the judgment of whether the item is still of value, and upon space requirements for retaining the material.

Gifts

The Law Library accepts gifts that fit within the collection guidelines. Duplicate copies or replacement copies are evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Factors considered in determining whether to accept gifts include the value to the collection, the condition of the materials, the time and labor required to process the material, and whether the gift will require updating or other expenditure of funds, etc.

The Law Library accepts donations with the understanding that no conditions be attached to the donated materials. The Law Library will determine the classification, housing and circulation of all gift items and retains the flexibility to dispose of gifts at any time and in a manner deemed appropriate. Gift items can be bookplated if requested by the donor.

Monetary donations are also welcomed and can be used to develop the collection in specific areas. All inquiries about gift donations, policies and procedures should be referred to the Director of the Law Library or the Dean of the School of Law.

Part III: Collections

Reserve and Reference

The Law Library maintains a collection of ready reference materials intended for quick consultation to aid further research for both legal and non-legal topics. It includes such standard reference sources as dictionaries (legal and general, for both U.S. and foreign audiences); encyclopedias; citation guides and major style manuals for law and other disciplines; biographical directories for legal and non-legal subjects; and statistical data compilations for the federal government, the legal system, and specific courts.

The Law Library also maintains a course reserves collection, temporarily housed in the back office to support the direct needs of course instruction. Materials are requested by faculty through direct communication with library staff. Quantities are determined by instructor request and class size.

North Dakota Collection

Primary and secondary materials for the state of North Dakota are housed in two distinct locations for ease of use. The more frequently used volumes are located on the Third Level, near our print collection of federal and state primary law and reports. The other portion, located in the Lower Level, consists of a bound set of appellate briefs to the North Dakota Supreme Court and other less frequently used historic state materials.

Academic Success Collection

The Law Library maintains a collection of print study guides on the first floor of the library. Where cost-effective and appropriate, the Law Library seeks to replace or supplement these guides with electronic versions for ease of access.

Professional Success Collection

The Law Library maintains a collection of career-related materials on the second floor of the law library near the office of the externship program.

Indian Law and Culture Collection

The Law Library maintains a collection of print materials related to Federal Indian Law, Tribal Law, and Native American Culture located in the basement.

Bar Pass Collection

The Law Library maintains a collection of bar pass related materials in the reference section on the first floor of the Law Library. Additionally, sample bar questions are housed electronically and are available for faculty use upon request.

Legal Self-Help Collection

The Law Library maintains a limited collection of legal self-help books covering the most popular areas of interest for pro se patrons. This collection was initiated with the support of a grant and is now added to when Law Library funds are available. It is available for circulation to patrons throughout the state of North Dakota.

The Lowell A. & M. Virginia O’Grady Memorial Collection

The O’Grady Collection is a grant-funded print collection geared primarily toward civil litigation resources. Occasionally, audiovisual materials may be purchased for this collection. It is housed on the first floor of the Law Library.

Faculty Library

The Law Library maintains a collection of books on legal education and other matters of direct interest to faculty in the Tisdale Lounge on the second floor. When requested, the Law Library may purchase a limited number of books for faculty participating in reading groups; such books will most often be ultimately housed in this collection.

Legal Skills Collection

The Law Library maintains a collection of books, including textbooks, geared toward legal writing. This collection began from a donated set and is added to when appropriate or upon request. It is housed on the second floor near the faculty offices of the Lawyering Skills faculty.

United States Government Publications

UND’s Chester Fritz Library (CFL) is a Federal Depository Library. The Law Library maintains an agreement with CFL for selective housing of U.S. Depository Documents that are particularly pertinent to the program of legal education. The agreement is addended at the end of this policy.

Scholarship Repository

The scholarship repository is an open access archive of the texts of most article length publications by current and former faculty members, as well as the texts of all articles published in the North Dakota Law Review. Content from journal symposia such as videos, posters, and schedules is also included.

Rare Books

Rare books are defined as books having value as an object, aside from or in addition to the intellectual value of the text. The Law Library does not actively collect rare books but occasionally accepts donations. The Law Library considers non-American law books prior to 1800 and American law books prior to 1900 to be rare books. Additionally, the Law Library considers books 75 years and older and relevant to North Dakota legal history to be
rare books. The Library houses primarily early English, American, North Dakota, and Minnesota legal treatises, dating back to the 16th century.

Part IV: Updating the Policy

This policy will be updated tri-annually by the Director of the Law Library, coinciding with the updating of the Law Library Strategic Plan and the Thormodsgard Law Library Assessment Plan, or more frequently when necessary. The Director of the Law Library will consult with law library reference and technical services staff and, where appropriate, the Dean and/or faculty of the School of Law. Through regular reviews of law school programs, the law school curriculum, student needs, and faculty scholarship and service, the staff of the Law Library shall ensure that its collections are meeting the needs of the School of Law.

The law librarians anticipate that this policy will shift over time to reflect changing needs and attitudes towards material format and subject matter. It is vital that the Law Library and this policy remain flexible and change with the needs of our patrons.

Sources

University of Arizona Cracchiolo Law Library Collection Development policy, available at https://lawlibrary.arizona.edu/sites/default/files/collection_development_policy_2018_re
vision.pdf.

University of Boston Law Libraries Collection Development Policy, available at
http://www.bu.edu/lawlibrary/about/collection-development-policy/.

Creighton University Klutznick Law Library/McGrath North Mullen & Kratz Legal Research Center Collection Development Policy, available at
https://www.creighton.edu/sites/default/files/2021-12/collection_dev_policy_2020.pdf.

Duke University Goodson Law Library Collection Development Policy, available at https://law.duke.edu/sites/default/files/lib/collectiondevelopment.pdf.

University of Maine Garbrecht Law Library Collection Development Policy, available at https://mainelaw.maine.edu/library/collections/collection-development-policy/.

University of North Carolina Kathrine R. Everett Law Library Collection Development Policy, available at https://www.aallnet.org/allsis/wpcontent/uploads/sites/4/2018/01/UNCCDPolicy2013.pdf.