Cooperative Collection Development
The library endeavors to develop its collections in cooperation with other libraries to limit duplication of effort and resources.
Van Wylen Library seeks partners for cooperative collection development agreements to expand access for the academic community while being a good steward of the college's resources. Journal titles and monographs which are requested via Interlibrary Loan will be considered for purchase.
- Western Theological Seminary
The library staff pays particular attention to cooperative collection development with Western Theological Seminary. Van Wylen Library maintains its own religion collection to support undergraduate work. However, the college may legitimately rely on the theological collections of the seminary to support advanced research needs.
Van Wylen Library duplicates some materials held by the seminary, but efforts are made to avoid duplicating expensive reference works, specialized works, standing orders, and selected journal subscriptions. Decisions to duplicate materials held by the seminary are made on an individual basis.
- Michigan Library Consortium
The library is a member of the Midwest Collaborative for Library Services (MCLS), the vendor of OCLC services in the state. MCLS negotiates group purchases of materials and services from various vendors. The library works closely with MCLS to take advantage of discount offers, especially of electronic databases.
- MeL
The Michigan eLibrary, MeL, is a project of the Library of Michigan in contract with MCLS. Through MeL, the library has access to a variety of databases and MeLCat, a statewide resource sharing project.
- Oberlin Group
The Oberlin Group is a loose consortium of 75 college libraries which has negotiated a number of significant group purchase agreements. The Oberlin Group has established beneficial cooperative borrowing and lending agreements among its members.
- Vocational Information
The library cooperates with the Boerichter Center in supporting the needs for vocational information. There will be overlap in materials collected (résumé, cover letter, and interview preparation) and possible overlap in particular titles. The library acquires access to databases and indexes that provide information on career opportunities. Resources concerning specific companies should first meet the selection criteria for supporting the curriculum. Test preparation guides for professional certification or entrance examinations for graduate schools (e.g., AICPA, GRE, MCAT, NCLEX-RN) will be selectively collected.
(Last revised October 2020.)