Library materials are organized and housed for use by members of the TNU community to meet the needs and aims of the university and its curriculum. Waggoner Library partners with faculty to help build and maintain a useful, relevant collection. Faculty members are considered to be the primary selectors of new materials for the library. We rely on your expertise in your field to recommend purchases that would benefit library users.
How to Request New Materials
Periodical Subscriptions. Departments and divisions may make requests for new periodical subscriptions by contacting their liaison librarian, who will submit the request to the Serials Librarian.
Subscription-based Electronic Resources. Potential new subscriptions may be suggested by library faculty or teaching faculty and should be evaluated through a database trial prior to subscribing. Cost should be able to be maintained by the library budget for the foreseeable future.
One-Time Purchases. Suggested titles may come from bibliographies, journals, publisher’s brochures or other sources such as Amazon. You may also build a list of desired items from a Discovery Search on the library website. We strongly encourage that requests first be submitted to your department chair/school dean in order to facilitate communication and avoid duplicate requests.
Requests can be emailed to the library liaison for your department. The library liaison will forward your request to Waggoner Library Acquisitions for ordering from the budget allocated to your department for one-time library purchases.
General Policies
- Audio. Audio recordings as requested by faculty to support the curriculum may be purchased. These may include music CDs as well as spoken word recordings or books on CD.
- Children & young adult. Children and young adult resources housed in the Instructional Resources Center and the Education Learning Commons are acquired and purchased for use by university students and faculty in an educational setting. Some materials may not be appropriate for young readers.
- Ebooks. To accommodate the growing number of distance and online students, ebook purchases are encouraged. This includes purchases of texts required or used for a class if unlimited (or multiple) user licenses are available. The library will primarily limit ebook purchases to those available on one of the library’s two main ebook platforms: Proquest and Ebsco.
- Number of copies. Generally, only one copy of an item is purchased. Multiple copies may be purchased when the need for such copies can be demonstrated by use or extenuating circumstances or unless also relevant for archival/special collections.
- Print book format. Softbound editions of books are bought before hardback when available. The exceptions are books purchased for the Juvenile and Young Adult collections where hardback is preferred.
- Popular materials. Resources for the Popular Materials Collection (books on “adulting,” graphic novels, and audio books) that support the curriculum may be purchased at faculty request. Since this collection is designated as leisure or recreational, limited funds are available for this collection.
- Streaming video. Streaming video licenses may be purchased by faculty request based on availability of funds. Each request will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis with a focus on relevance to the curriculum, cost, and expected usage.
- Textbooks. The purchase of print textbooks is avoided. They become out of date quickly and the library is not able to provide sufficient copies to meet student demand. Exceptions are made for ebook purchases – see Ebooks section.
- Video. Video recordings (DVD or Blu-Ray) as requested by faculty in support of the curriculum may be purchased. Educational versions of videos or those with public performance rights may be purchased if available and within budget parameters. Public performance rights for feature films will generally not be purchased.
For additional information regarding Waggoner Library acquisitions policies, please see the Waggoner Library Collection Development Policy below.
