Overview
York University Libraries is committed to building robust collections to support teaching, learning and research at York University. Collection-related activities are coordinated by the Content Development & Analysis (CDA) team. CDA acquires, manages and licenses collections in all formats and subject areas and ensures that they are discoverable through Omni. Special collections including rare books, private papers and other primary source material are acquired and managed by the Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections.
Our guidelines reflect the significant changes that have occurred in scholarly publishing in the last few decades. While we continue to build local collections for the York community, we work in close partnership with other libraries within the province, country and internationally in order to facilitate broad access to needed collections.
Core Values
Our collections strategies and associated workflows are guided by our core values, which also underpin our Licensing Principles Guidelines.
Relevance
We build collections that directly support the current and anticipated teaching and learning needs of the York University community as well as areas of research strength and growth. Relevance is determined through regular monitoring of new program and course offerings, outreach and engagement with faculty and students, purchase suggestions, use patterns and evaluation of peer institution holdings.
Equity of Access
We build collections that benefit and are accessible to all students, faculty and staff at York University, along with on-campus guests who are visiting any of our library locations.
Financial Sustainability and Transparency
We prioritize collections that have sustainable and transparent costs and terms of use. As per YUL’s statement on non-disclosure agdreements, we do not normally enter agreements that require nondisclosure of pricing or other terms. We privilege acquisition models whereby content is owned in perpetuity rather than leased or subject to ongoing costs.
Openness
We enhance the discovery of authoritative, high quality academic open access (OA) resources and open educational resources (OER) to support teaching, learning, and research at the university. OA and OER publishing removes access barriers to scholarly works and provides free and open access to academic knowledge. We support OA and OER through intentional investments in OA publishing models, OA infrastructure, and memberships in organizations that support OA and OER nationally and internationally.
Equity, Diversity & Inclusion
We strive to build collections that reflect and serve our diverse community of users and align with the Libraries’ commitment to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging. We are also committed to examining how our collection and metadata practices contribute to inequality, marginalization and injustice, and to finding workable solutions. See also: Statement on Problematic or Harmful Language.
Intellectual Freedom and Challenges to Materials
We are committed to academic and intellectual freedom, adhering to the relevant policies expressed in the York University Faculty Association’s Collective Agreement as well as to the Canadian Association of Research Libraries’ (CARL) Statement of Freedom of Expression and Inclusive Libraries and the Canadian Federation of Library Association’s Statement on Intellectual Freedom in Libraries. See also: Challenged Materials Policy.
Purchasing Practices
Formats
The Libraries has an e-preferred acquisition model which means that it normally acquires new titles as ebooks. Print materials are added to the collection as needed in response to patron demand and use patterns or when a title is better suited to a print format (e.g better quality of images, works of significant length intended to be read cover to cover, etc.)
Textbooks
Other than those specifically requested for course reserves by instructors, we do not normally acquire textbooks. Costs and licensing terms for commercial textbooks are often prohibitive for libraries as publishers prefer to sell directly to individuals.
Language
Materials are acquired primarily in English and French. Materials in other languages are collected to support language and literature programs.
Print collection management
We actively engage in collection management strategies to enhance discoverability. As part of this effort, we regularly review print holdings for continued relevance and withdraw items that are no longer of use, such as redundant copies, or transfer low-use titles to retrievable storage. Subject librarians are consulted in this work as needed.
Questions or comments? Contact the CDA team: yul_cda@yorku.ca
Adopted January 2026
These guidelines will be reviewed as required, at minimum every three years.