Library Policy

Acquisition of Resources

The acquisition of resources for the library is guided by The Library Collection Development Policy. This policy affirms that the acquisition of electronic resources is to be a priority with physical resources only to be acquired where an e-book or electronic subscription is not available, is expensive or has a lengthy embargo.

Accessibility of Resources

This policy affirms that 24/7 accessibility of electronic resources is to be provided. All enrolled students shall have access to the electronic databases, e-books and the library catalogue through appropriate web links on the College’s web-site. The library shall provide on-line help tutorials to assist students/staff in the use of these on-line resources.

In order to facilitate discovery all physical resources shall be catalogued in accordance with the Dewey classification scheme. In addition, individual items within the collection shall be assigned American Library of Congress Subject Headings (The Library Acquisitions and Cataloguing Standard Operating Procedures give further detail on the outworking of this policy).

Physical resources in great demand for a particular unit (such as prescribed texts) are held within the Library Office on the 3-hour reserve shelf. Other resources may be placed on short-term loan at the request of academic staff.

Borrowing, Re-borrowing and Reservations

The library runs a mixed model in the provision of e-books where some titles are automatically available and others require the student to request the e-book. Where a student requests an e-book loan it shall be automatically granted if the cost is low (up to $25.00) and if the cost is high it shall be referred to the Resource Centre Manager who shall decide whether to approve the loan after making a balanced judgement while considering the quality of the resource and budgetary considerations.

For physical resources the library has a graded borrowing policy where the higher the level of study the greater the borrowing privileges in terms of number of items and loan length. To ensure that this policy is not abused a fine shall be levied on all overdue items. To minimise the risk of students being fined all checked items shall be processed with a Due Date receipt at the time of borrowing and students shall also receive an e-mail alert prior to the return date of the item(s). These policy elements are reassessed regularly to provide maximum accessibility for the majority of borrowers.

As part of maintaining this accessibility the extension of any loan is not permitted. Where there are multiple copies of an item, the borrower may take out another copy as the computer recognizes it as a separate item. Similarly, it is not possible to reserve items that are out on loan. This policy element has been implemented as previous experience has shown that most items reserved by students were not picked up within one week of the item becoming available.
 

Support for Students

There is a trend for students to have increased expectations and/or desire for assistance in the library. However, the finite human resources (Librarian’s time) necessitates a policy to balance these two competing demands. This policy is the Library Assistance Policy.

In addition to the on-line help tutorials, the library shall offer training programs to equip students/trainees and lecturers to competently and efficiently access the various collections.

For students who live outside the Melbourne metropolitan area, or who are only studying on-line, the library will provide free postage of requested items to the student’s nominated address. The student will be responsible for returning the books in person or paying for the return postage. An extension to standard borrowing times will be made to allow for postal delays.
 

Support for Academics

The College shall support academic staff by granting them library borrowing privileges. The library shall also offer to academic staff discounts for text-books and other library services. Further detail is listed in the Academics and Visiting Academics Library Privileges Policy.