Exploring

Collection Management

Mission and Collecting Policy

While it is easy to jokingly dismiss the institutional mission statement as a gathering of buzzwords with little real meaning, in fact, the importance to preservation activities of a carefully thought-out mission statement and collecting policy cannot be overstated.

In an ideal world, you would devise a basic statement of your repository's mission and collecting goals before actually identifying and acquiring collections. In reality, however, at least some collections may have been gathered haphazardly over time. Devising a mission statement and collecting policy will help you to look critically at all the materials you hold and decide whether they really belong in your collection.

Mission Statement

A mission statement should spell out your repository's overall goals. It may be short or extensive, depending on the size of your repository and the circumstances. In repositories such as public libraries, museums, or historical societies, where paper-based historical collections (e.g., a local history collection or a museum archives) are part of a larger institution, it may be helpful to prepare a separate mission statement and collecting policy for the historical paper-based materials, because they need to be managed differently from general circulating books or museum objects. You must, however, ensure that these policies support the overall repository goals.

Your mission statement should articulate in general terms the purpose of the repository or collection's existence (usually to collect and make available some type of resources). What types of people, activities, and/or subjects do you wish to document? Will you focus on a specific time period or geographical area? Will you collect materials relating only to your institution, or will you collect materials from other sources as well? What users will you serve? If your repository is part of a larger institution, such as a university, how does your mission statement relate to that of the larger entity?

It is also very important to include a reference to the preservation of collections within your mission statement, along with references to collecting materials and making them available. For example, a historical society might be "dedicated to collecting, preserving, interpreting, and promoting interest in the history and culture of the local area." The presence of such a reference gives preservation equal status with other institutional activities, and demonstrates a commitment by the institution to long-term maintenance of collections.

Collecting Policy

A collecting policy expands upon the mission statement, providing specifics about the current scope of the collection, the areas in which additional materials may be collected in future, and the audience to be served. A good collecting policy will take into consideration the holdings and collecting activities of other local (and national, if appropriate) repositories. It is also crucial for a repository to have a clear sense of what it will not collect, since collections must be limited to those items that serve the real needs and mission of the repository.

Subjects to be discussed in a collecting policy include:

• the type of programs and activities that will be supported by the collection (e.g., research, exhibits, publications, outreach to the community);
• potential user groups to be served (e.g., scholars, genealogists, undergraduate students, local schoolchildren, the general public);
• specific materials to be collected (e.g., subjects, geographic areas, time periods, formats, languages) and levels of collecting (e.g., existing strengths and weaknesses, desired levels of collecting in different areas, materials that will not be collected); and
• information about acquisition policy (will you acquire materials by donation only, or also by purchase?), cooperative collecting efforts with other institutions, deaccessioning/weeding policy, and procedures for periodic review of the overall collecting policy.

For more information on preparing a mission statement and collecting policy, see Collections Policies and Preservation.

Activity: Explore a tutorial on writing a library collection development policy, as well as the following links to sample library, archives, and museum mission statements and collecting policies.

• Memorial Hall Library, Andover, MA (see also links to the mission statement and to the Andover Room collection policy on the left side of the page).
• Richland Public Library, Richland, WA
• Iowa State University Special Collections Department, Ames, IA.
• Wellesley College Library, Wellesley, MA (see links to Library Mission, Library Vision, and Collection Development Policies)
• Chicago Historical Society, Chicago, IL (see links to Mission Statement and Donate an Artifact, which includes information about collecting scope).