1. Purpose
   The Collection Development Policy states the principles and guidelines that the Florida Atlantic University Libraries follow in the selection and acquisition of library materials. The purpose of the policy is to provide consistency among the persons responsible for collection development and to communicate library policy to faculty, staff, students, and the community. 

2. Library Mission
   The Libraries select materials based upon their responsibility to the University as stated in the Library Mission Statement: "FAU Libraries promote the academic goals of the University by serving a uniquely diverse community through academic and personal development, discovery, lifelong learning, excellence, and innovation. The Libraries fulfill their mission by providing access to collections and services, building a rich resource of research materials, promoting a dynamic and multifaceted information literacy program, maintaining a dialogue with the scholarly community, developing creative programming, encouraging public engagement, and forming cultural alliances."

3. Library Clientele
   Florida Atlantic University, a Carnegie-classified "Research University - High Research Activity" institution, serves a diverse community of users in Southeast Florida. Primary clientele of the Florida Atlantic University Libraries are the university’s students, faculty, and staff. Although geographically dispersed, the university campuses are academically, organizationally, and technologically integrated. Degree programs, including certificate, baccalaureate, master’s, specialist, and doctoral programs, are offered at sites in Boca Raton, Dania Beach, Davie, Fort Lauderdale, Harbor Branch, Jupiter, and the Treasure Coast.

   Additional clientele include the students, faculty, and staff of Palm Beach Community College South Campus, which contracts with Florida Atlantic University to provide library services; local and visiting university and college faculty, staff and students, and other researchers not affiliated with Florida Atlantic University; students of the FAU High School and other local high schools; clinical and research affiliates associated with the University of Miami Medical School at FAU, the Scripps Research Institute, the FAU Research & Development Park, and other partnerships that Florida Atlantic University may embark on in the future; and members of the general public.

4. Intellectual Freedom
   The Libraries of Florida Atlantic University support the American Library Association’s Bill Of Rights, Freedom To Read Statement, and the American Film and Video Association’s Freedom to View Statement. The Libraries follow the “Intellectual Freedom Principles for Academic Libraries.”  For this policy, the Libraries have adopted sections of the Library Bill of Rights applicable to collection development as approved by the ACRL Board of Directors. The general principles set forth in the Library Bill of Rights form an indispensable framework for building collections, services, and policies that serve the entire academic community.

   A strong intellectual freedom perspective is critical to the development of academic library collections and services that dispassionately meet the education and research needs of a college or university community. The purpose of this statement is to outline how and where intellectual freedom principles fit into an academic library setting, thereby raising consciousness of the intellectual freedom context within which academic librarians work. The following principles should be reflected in all relevant library policy documents.

   The development of library collections in support of an institution’s instruction and research programs should transcend the personal values of the selector. In the interests of research and learning, it is essential that collections contain materials representing a variety of perspectives on subjects that may be considered controversial. Preservation and replacement efforts should ensure that balance in library materials is maintained and that controversial materials are not removed from the collections through theft, loss, mutilation, or normal wear and tear. There should be alertness to efforts by special interest groups to bias a collection through systematic theft or mutilation.

   Any individual or group questioning the appropriateness of materials within the collection will be referred to the Dean of University Libraries. A service philosophy should be promoted that affords equal access to information for all in the academic community with no discrimination on the basis of race, values, gender, sexual orientation, cultural or ethnic background, physical or learning disability, economic status, religious beliefs, or ideologies. The Libraries acquire materials that represent differing opinions and without censorship in regard to controversial issues.

   The Libraries do not support filtering of computers because it is a needless form of censorship and an abridgement of information without a researcher’s knowledge. It is inappropriate in a research library environment.

The materials budget supports the purchase of all formats designated in the collection development policy. The budget supports expenditures for the following:

• Approval plans, firm orders, and continuing resources to the extent that funding is available, with first consideration given to continuing obligations;
• Cooperative programs with other libraries;
• Access to and preservation of purchased and donated library materials;
• Membership in consortia, bibliographic access charges; and
• Binding of serials, monographs, and other formats as necessary.