Charter of Collections

The Charter of Collections is a policy document that defines the guidelines to be followed as part of a conscious and uniform development of print and electronic collections in accordance with the Library's mission.

The document defines the criteria related to: selection, acquisition, management and discard of the bibliographic collections.

The Charter of Collections is valid for two years. Every two years, the Library reviews the Policy to ensure its effectiveness, compliance with the user information needs, and to evaluate the collection development policies.

The Charter of Collections is addressed to:

• Library Staff: a working tool for the management and analysis of the holdings according to specific parameters and for the planning of collections growth and review activities;
• Luiss Community: makes known the purposes and procedures used by the Library to increase, manage and enhance the holdings.

1.1 Mission

The Luiss Library, specialized in the social sciences, constitutes the point of reference for the teaching and research activities of the University and guarantees constant support to the Luiss community through the provision of specific services, detailed in the Service Charter, and a consistent development of the bibliographic collections.

The Library aims to:

• ensure a constantly updated bibliographic holdings through the development of interdisciplinary collections to foster the dissemination of knowledge;
• introduce technologically advanced systems for the improvement of the quality of services and simplified access to physical and electronic collections;
• promote and enhance the dissemination of the University's scientific research through the management of institutional archives.

1.2 Users

The user base, profiled and detailed in the Library Regulations, consists of:

• Library’s institutional users;
• external users;
• further admitted.

The original center of the Luiss Library's holdings resides in heterogeneous donations inherited from a pre-existing Roman institution, the Pro Deo University, from which, between 1974 and 1978, the Luiss Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali was born.

In 1977, with the establishment of Luiss, the growth of the Library's holdings was developed consistently with the scientific and teaching needs of the Faculties of Economics and Political Science and, from 1982, by the Faculty of Law.  As of the 1980s, the identity of the Library's holdings has been increasingly oriented towards the social sciences.

2.1 Profile and consistency

The Library’s holdings updated to 31/12/2022 consist of:

• print collections
  • monographs (n. 110.609)
  • periodicals (n. 1.159)
  • special collections: Bachelet, Pujia, Ungari and Foschini Special Collections (n. 10.883)
• electronic collections
  • e-books (n. 855.972)
  • e-journals (n. 102.649)
  • databases (n. 237)

The collections cover MIUR scientific-disciplinary areas relevant to the teaching and research conducted at Luiss:

• Area 01 - Mathematics and computer science
• Area 09 - Industrial and information engineering
• Area 10 - Antiquity, philological-literary and historical-artistic sciences
• Area 11 - Historical, philosophical, pedagogical and psychological sciences
• Area 12 - Legal sciences
• Area 13 – Economics and statistics
• Area 14 – Political and social sciences

2.2 Location and organization

The holdings are distributed between two locations:

• Luiss Library in Via di S. Costanza, 53;
• Remote storage in Viale Gottardo, 143.

Print bibliographic materials are organized:

• on open shelves
  • based on their disciplinary field according with the Decimal Dewey classification (monographs)
  • in alphabetical order (periodicals)
• on closed shelves
  • by progressive inventory number (monographs)
  • in alphabetical order (periodicals)
  • by subject area according to the Dewey Decimal classification (Special Collections)

The list of subscribed databases is published on the Library's website.

2.3 Access and use of collections

The Library provides access to print and electronic collections through the discovery: an advanced integrated search tool for retrieving bibliographic information and documents.

The bibliographic material placed on open shelves is directly accessible by users.

The bibliographic material placed on closed shelves and in the remote storage can be accessed by users prior request to the librarian.

The electronic resources are accessible according to the procedures prescribed by publishers and on the basis of subscribed licenses (remote access; Single-Sign On (SSO); IDEM-GARR federated login; personal registration).

The Library facilitates access to the holdings by:

• organization of monographs according with the Dewey Decimal Classification System;
• orientation, information and bibliographic services;
• user education sessions;
• lending and digital loan services;
• interlibrary services;
• accessible and inclusive services.

The Library increases its print and electronic holdings in line with the scientific-disciplinary areas of interest of the University and through the following ways:

• acquisitions;
• donations and gifts.

3.1 Acquisitions

The main channel for initiating the acquisition process is the Acquisition Suggestion. Library users can suggest the purchase of bibliographic materials by filling out a dedicated online form. 

Requests concern mainly monographs and journals for which the Library, where possible, prefers the purchase of the electronic format.

The Library acquires publications in the social sciences field based upon the publishers’ new publications and directly purchases continuing books from the providers.

The Library periodically evaluates the acquisition of:

• new databases, through the activation of trials followed by a cost evaluation analysis and feedback received from the Luiss scientific community;
• individual e-books, e-book packages or e-journals belonging to the social sciences field on the basis of titles periodically proposed by suppliers or users through desiderata.

3.2 Donations and gifts

The Library receives gifts and donations of bibliographic or documentary materials belonging to the University's disciplinary areas and research lines, evaluating in advance their state of preservation, scientific obsolescence, as well as the availability of space, and subjecting their acceptance to the following selection criteria:

• a unified location will not be guaranteed for private donations due to space limitations;
• donors should provide a complete bibliographic list of donated books/issues, which will be selected or discarded according to the Library's scientific needs, such as:
  • consistency and continuity with existing collections
  • level of completeness of the collections, in the case of items which are part of periodical publications
  • level of completion of gaps in the Library's holdings, in the case of continuing works and print periodical titles

Based on the above criteria, the Library may accept all or part of the proposed donation unless it is a gift requiring unitary preservation.

In the case of bibliographic gifts delivered without an appropriate notice, the Library reserves the right to manage the gift free of obligation to the donor.

4.1 Preservation, revisione and discard

The processes of revision and discard of the bibliographic material which does not belong to Special Colletions are carried out every two years, in conjunction with the inventory reconnaissance activity.

The criteria followed are:

• usage statistics and circulation indexes;
• state of preservation and obsolescence of contents;
• elimination of double copies;
• availability of physical space;
• prevalence of the electronic format over the print format;
• availability of the material in other public libraries in Rome.

For the purpose of holdings preservation, deteriorated bibliographic material of particular scientific relevance is rebound, and periodical issues are bound in books at the end of the year.

4.3 Cataloguing

The Library catalogs bibliographic material that becomes part of its holdings through ExLibris' Alma software.

Descriptive cataloguing is done in Marc 21 format and according to national (REICAT) and international (ISBD, RDA) standards, with 23rd edition of Dewey Decimal Classification. For semantic cataloguing, the multilingual European Union EuroVoc Thesaurus is used.

4.4 Budget

The Library annually defines the budget to be allocated to print and electronic resources on the basis of the related expenses incurred in the previous year, including a margin of increase, in consideration of physiological annual increases and, in particular, of any acquisitions of resources requested by the Luiss scientific community.

The budget is allocated so as to achieve and maintain content coverage levels of the collections and expand the electronic holdings.

The fund is allocated for the purchase of:

• general reference works;
• continuing books;
• bibliographic materials suggested by faculty members;
• bibliographic materials suggested by students;
• ebook collections.

5.1 Promotion

The Library promotes new acquisitions through several ways:

• dynamic carousel on the Library's website;
• specific news about subscription to electronic resources;
• targeted communications depending on the users (Students and Faculty) on specific databases.

5.2 Monitoring and evaluation

The Library periodically monitors the collection management processes and the collection development through the following tools:

• monthly statistics on inventory, cataloguing and circulation activities;
• periodical statistics on the use of electronic resources;
• annual survey of the level of satisfaction of the holdings through the satisfaction questionnaire on the Library's service submitted to users.