Tuesday, March 18, 2008

To purchase or not to purchase....

Today one of the faculty members on my campus requested the purchase of a massage PowerPoint teaching disc. Evidently she would use it as a teaching tool in her classroom and only she and other massage instructors would have access to it. My question is... would that be a purchase that the library is responsible for, or would it come out of a classroom "teaching aides" budget (if one exists)? I feel that a purchase made solely for teaching in the classroom - that is not available to others - should not be purchased or housed in the library. The instructor wasn't sure either, so now we're going to talk to our dean and to Emily. I checked our collection development policy and didn't see anything that directly mentioned this. Have any of you had a similar request? And if so, how did you handle it? Should we include this in our collection development policy?

7 comments:

Sara said...

I've had it both ways. I've had the director purchase DVDs for a Digital Design class, but they wanted them in the library for checkout (yet the instructor (adjunct)wanted them just for 'his students') (feel the headache yet?)

I've had students come in and want to watch a video the instructor showed, and we do not own it in the library and did not ILL it from another library for the instructor.

I know at this campus, the instructors do get some money for purchasing classroom materials, because they have done it in the past. It may be similar to them getting textbooks for the different classes. This may be a question for your Dean on how they handle reimbursments and/or funding for extra classroom instructional materials (I would think the materials would stay with the school, (and in the library), instead of with the instructor (esp. if they are an adjunct).

Chandra said...

If it's support materials which are related to a specific textbook, I have nothing to do with purchasing it. However, even if it's purchased from outside of the library budget, I might house it in the library so that various instructors could have access to it. Otherwise, materials like that walk away.

Amy Springer said...

I have not had this situation happen at Eagan, but I don't think the $ should come out of the library budget. Library materials should compliment instruction material.

Emily said...

I talked with Brad Moore about this about two minutes ago. Because it is a PowerPoint used for instruction, it's an instructional purchase.

My second (and more important) question is why are they paying for it? Why isn't it complimentary with the text? This should be freely available from the company. If they are getting flack from the publisher, have them contact Brad Moore, and he'll talk with the publisher.

If the resource is not something to be used by more than the faculty, than it should not come out of library budget. We wouldn't purchase test materials or instructor's guides in a similar vein.

Kate Bessey said...

Emily,

I believe the instructor mentioned that they would get a discount on the powerpoint disc. I think she said around a 50% discount was available because they purchased the textbook through the company as well.

Jan said...

If you had more than one instructor on your campus that taught the program it would be a resource the library could purchase. If we look at it from a multi-campus use it would be collection development. If the instructor plans to keep it in their posession I think it is more of a program resource.

Jan said...

Adding to what I just said, if it is a textbook enhancement that changes things I think.