Every year the College Libraries receive a budgeted amount of funds allocated for Information Resources. The overall amount is set up by the college’s Business Office, based on earlier annual allocations and specific requests from the College Libraries via the institution’s strategic planning process. The College Libraries then divide that budgeted amount into four separate accounts for acquisitions:
- Print periodicals (subscriptions)
- Print books and media (owned and subscriptions)
- Electronic resources (owned)
- Electronic resources (subscriptions)
The Director of College Libraries manages the budget, approving the use of funds based on requests from library faculty and staff. Open purchase orders are typically set up for owned print and electronic resources, so that individual title purchases do not require direct approval. Subscriptions to print and electronic resources are evaluated annually by library faculty.