Collections

Collections are developed by acquiring, organizing, preserving, publishing, digitizing information that will support the teaching, research, and creation of new knowledge by the faculty and students of Boston College.  Subject Librarians are responsible for each collection, and work with faculty, staff and students to build the best collections for this community.

In accordance with our Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion: Values Statement and Mission to support diverse academic communities, the Boston College Libraries commits to fostering intellectual freedom in an inclusive and collaborative community by building collections that advance the research, teaching, and work of individuals from diverse backgrounds. Towards that end, we work to ensure our services, spaces, and resources are representative of diverse cultures and perspectives, intentionally inclusive, and widely accessible to our community.

We anticipate that there may be challenges and practical limitations hindering the full implementation of these goals, but we strive continually to enrich the quality of our collections. With the acknowledgement that the needs of academic disciplines differ, our subject-specific policies detail those needs unique to each discipline.

According to this white paper from the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL), "Scholarly communication is the system through which research and other scholarly writings are created, evaluated for quality, disseminated to the scholarly community, and preserved for future use."  Research library collections have traditionally been identified with the print record of such communication, but a number of developments during the past 10-15 years in the information landscape have begun to radically alter the way research is being published and collected by libraries.  

For more information see the Open Access and Scholarly Publishing Guide.