Collection Development Policy
Mission
The primary mission of the Martin P. Catherwood Library (ILR) is to serve the needs of the faculty, both resident and extension, and students of the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations. One of our primary areas of support is to graduate students working toward advanced degrees (MS, MILR, MPS and PhD) from one of the six departments within the school: Collective Bargaining, Labor Law and Labor History; International and Comparative Labor Relations; Labor Economics; Organizational Behavior; Human Resource Studies and Social Statistics. In addition the Catherwood Library serves as a resource for a diverse clientele including labor union leaders, human resource managers, legislators, faculty members from other universities and practitioners.
Existing Collection: ESC 5 Language F
Industrial Relations (IR) developed as a distinct academic subject nearly three quarters of a century ago. Although controversy still exists concerning its "intellectual boundaries," for our purpose it will be defined as "subfields related to the employment relationship." This includes human resource management, collective bargaining, labor law and organizational behavior.
The existing collection emphasizes all aspects of industrial relations as briefly described above. Particular strengths include collective bargaining, labor law (primarily U.S.), labor union history and human resource management. Also very strong, from an international perspective, are industrial relations material from Canada, Britain and Australia. This is especially true for British labor history.
Current Collecting: CCI 4+ Language W
Every effort is made to collect, as comprehensively as possible, in each of those areas where present strengths exist. Due to the multi-disciplinary focus of industrial relations it is also necessary to build very basic collections (CCI level 2/3) of monographs and serials from the disciplines of economics, law, political science, psychology and sociology. Very recently greater effort has been placed on obtaining material from the Pacific Rim, Eastern Europe and Latin America. Grey literature, including that from labor unions/employer associations, relevant women's organizations and various pressure groups, is collected very extensively. Doctoral dissertations are added on a selective basis.
Subjects Covered
The strength of the ILR collection lies in LC class HD. It is here that titles on collective bargaining, industrial relations, labor disputes, labor economics (employment/unemployment, wage structure, discrimination, poverty, education and training, fringe benefits), labor/labor union history, contemporary trade union issues, as well as those dealing with international and comparative industrial relations are to be found. Two other "micro" areas of strength are HF5549 (human resource studies) and those components of HM where material on organizational behavior (organizations, leadership, power, social groups) is found. In addition, the collection includes LC classes HA1-20 (selective); HB-HC (very selective); HQ1060-1064, HV, HX (very selective); KD, KE, KF (primarily labor laws and legislation), KJ-KZ (very selective - again primarily labor laws and legislation); T55-60 (selective - primarily work measurement, industrial efficiency).
Geographical Information
The entire world is represented, but the greatest emphasis at present is on North America and Western Europe. This will change as the ILR School embarks on a newly established "International Initiative." About two-thirds of faculty members hired since 1988 have international interests and now nearly half of the resident faculty are teaching or doing research on international topics.
Documents
We attempt to collect, except in certain situations as noted below, a representative selection of international, national, state and even local documents. At the international level we are particularly strong in our holdings of ILO material. To a lesser degree we incorporate into our collection relevant titles from OECD and the EC. At the national level an emphasis is placed on acquiring statistical data relative, for example, to employment/unemployment, wages, labor union membership and strikes/work stoppages. The same holds true for U.S. State documents published by Departments of Labor, Employment Security and Workers' Compensation. We do not collect foreign titles at the state/provincial level.
Electronic Resources
Selection Criteria
In general, the same selection criteria used for paper product purchases apply to electronic products.
Duplication of a paper product is warranted if its electronic utility is broader than its paper utility. Considerations may include, but are not limited to: (1) preservation (i.e., a CD-ROM of a loose-leaf service may not be as timely as the paper, but it allows for preserving the loose-leaf in a time capsule. Each edition of the CD can be preserved; whereas the paper is otherwise thrown away); (2) manipulation (cutting and pasting of software searching enhancements) of the material has an educational, publication, or research value not found in the paper product itself.
Products which have potential for curriculum use, career placement training and research but for which there is not current demand should be considered if there is a commitment from the public service staff to train and educate faculty and students.
The added value of being able to search or index electronically is a major reason to replace paper products with their electronic equivalents.
Hardware/Software Considerations
Hardware and/or software which is currently available in the library dictates the first level of selection possibilities. Electronic resources which do not require new equipment purchases are automatically considered.
New equipment costs have to be weighed against the utility and costs of electronic resources being considered; i.e., is the resource valuable enough to be worth not only its price but the additional hardware and/or software purchase? And, will the additional hardware and/or software have potential use for future electronic source selections? If the answer is yes to both questions, this constitutes a second level of selection possibility.
Exclusions
No formats are excluded but very few textbooks or titles more relevant to the layperson are acquired.
