eZone Collection Development Policy

Scope

The Ocean State Libraries (OSL) Digital Collection includes the statewide shared collections of ebooks and audiobooks with financial and administrative support from OSL. The collections comprise materials accessed through multiple vendors. These collections are collectively referred to as the “OSL eZone”. The goal of these collections is to provide statewide access to digital content that will serve the widest range of interests for Rhode Island residents and OSL card holders from participating libraries. To meet the needs of its users, OSL provides a large collection of materials covering broad fields of knowledge, with regard for differences in its users' beliefs, educational levels, interests, reading abilities, and tastes.

The OSL Steering Committee has designated the “OSL eZone Working Group” with the responsibility of collection development and collection maintenance for the OSL eZone. The OSL eZone Working Group is made up of representatives from OSL member libraries and select OSL staff.

This policy is intended to ensure that the Ocean State Libraries Consortium builds and maintains a dynamic digital collection that meets the needs of users in a manner that is consistent, transparent, and fiscally responsible. OSL does not have authority over digital resources offered by individual local libraries or other statewide digital resources funded by the Rhode Island Office of Library and Information Services.

Selection

Materials in the OSL eZone collection shall be selected by the OSL eZone Working Group and based on the interests and needs of all the people served by OSL and its member libraries. OSL seeks to acquire a broad range of materials for its community within responsible budgetary constraints. OSL strives to develop a diverse collection that is as inclusive as possible in order to provide differing viewpoints reflecting the broad cultural, religious and ethnic diversity of its community. This includes the selection of individual titles as well as packages of ebooks.

Principles

Ocean State Libraries subscribes to the long-established principles of the Freedom to Read Statement, and the Library Bill of Rights as adopted by the American Library Association (ALA).

Gifts

OSL may receive funds for the purchase of materials as gift donations. The consortium accepts these gift funds on the condition that their use is at the complete discretion of the members of OSL. All donations become the property of OSL.

Local Authors, Self-Published Authors, Unsolicited Materials

Materials submitted by local authors, self-published authors, and unsolicited materials from publishers will be considered for inclusion in the OSL digital collection using the same collection development and maintenance criteria as purchased material. Appropriate permissions for inclusion are outlined here: eZone Author Donation Agreement – Ocean State Libraries.

Collection Maintenance

Although a digital collection does not have the same space constraints of a physical collection, collection maintenance is necessary to upgrade the collection in terms of usefulness, patron ease of searching and circulation statistics. Maintenance may take the form of re-evaluating subscription-based titles, not renewing limited-circulation items or removing items from the catalog.

Request for Reevaluation

Rhode Island residents and OSL Library cardholders may request the reevaluation of any item in the OSL eZone collections through their local library. A Request for Reevaluation of Digital Materials Form must be completed in its entirety and submitted to the local library. A standard acknowledgement letter from the local Library Director that received the form will be provided within 14 business days. The local library director will forward the form to the OSL eZone Working Group.

The OSL eZone Working Group will review the material to determine whether it meets the criteria set forth in the OSL Digital Collection Development Policy and render a decision. During this process the material in question will remain available for circulation. A response to the request for reevaluation will be sent within 60 days. This timeline allows for the working group to evaluate an item in its entirety rather than focusing on portions of the content.

A final appeal may be made to the OSL Steering Committee.

  • Decisions regarding materials that are part of a series may be applied to the entire series.
  • OSL does not accept lists of items for reevaluation. Each item must be accompanied with an individually completed Request for Reevaluation of Digital Materials Form.
  • A title will only be considered for reevaluation once in a twelve month period.

A copy of the request form without identifying information will be sent to the ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom and the Rhode Island Library Association (RILA) Intellectual Freedom Committee. The request form in its entirety may be publicly available per RIGL 38-2.


Update approved by the OSL Steering Committee, January 2024