Regulations and policies

This document can only be considered valid when viewed via the University website. If this document is printed into hard copy or saved to another location, you must check that the version number on your copy matches that of the one on the University website. Approved documents are valid for use after their approval date and remain in force beyond any expiry of their review date until a new version is available.

1. Introduction

1.1 The University of Bradford is committed to delivering open research and innovation that is conducted and delivered with honesty and integrity. To enable this, it is vital that the University’s research publications are shared as immediately, freely and widely as possible for the maximum benefit to future societies. Enabling open access to research outputs is a key means to achieve this.

1.2 Open access publishing is a standard requirement for most research funders, including UKRI, Wellcome, NIHR and the Commission. It was a requirement for REF 2021 and will be a requirement for REF 2029. By following this policy, authors will be compliant with funder policies and the eligibility rules for REF 2029. 

1.3 The primary aim of this policy is to ensure all Bradford research outputs are recorded and made available via our institutional repository, Bradford Scholars. It complements the University’s Research Data Management policy which requires that research data be “findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable.”

1.4 The policy introduces Author Rights Retention. This enables authors to retain the copyright to their manuscripts rather than typically signing rights away to publishers. This will allow more of Bradford’s research outputs to be immediately available and gives authors automatic re-use rights over their work for teaching and sharing. It also addresses the unsustainable costs associated with immediate open access publishing. Rights Retention presents authors with a no cost option for immediate open access via the self-archiving of their manuscript. 

1.5 The policy confirms that staff own the copyright to their scholarly works, and they are free to choose where to publish.

2. Scope

2.1 The policy applies to all research outputs (see glossary below). The Rights Retention elements apply to journal articles and conference papers with an ISSN.

2.2 The policy applies to all Bradford authors – staff, researchers, post-graduate research students (PGRs) and any taught students publishing with a Bradford supervisor.

3. Glossary

3.1 Article Processing Charge (APC)- a charge levied by publishers to provide immediate open access for all to articles via their website. The main Gold Open Access route. APCs may be offset in part or in full by a research grant or by a publisher agreement paid by the Library.

3.2 Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) - sometime known as a post-print, is the version that has undergone peer review and has been accepted by the publisher. It differs from the published ‘version of record’ which will have undergone typesetting and usually has the publisher’s logo on it.

3.3 Bradford Scholars – the University’s publication repository. This is a database containing Bradford publications, many in full text, freely open to anyone online and compliant with the requirements for an open access repository.

3.4 Creative Commons Licenses - a standardised way for authors to grant the public permission to use their creative work under copyright law. There are six types of CC licenses with varying levels of permission.

3.5 CC-BY Licence - a license that allows re-users to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The licence allows for commercial use.

3.6 International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is an 8-digit code used to identify newspapers, journals, magazines and periodicals of all kinds and on all print and electronic media.

3.7 Open Access (OA) - the free-to-access availability of research outputs online. This can be achieved by two main routes: by deposit of full text of the output in an institutional or subject repository with publishers usually mandating an embargo period (Green open access), or immediate access via the publisher’s website, usually in exchange for a fee payable by the author (via funding) or institution (via Library deals with publishers) (Gold open access). 

3.8 ORCID, Open Researcher and Contributor ID - a free, unique, persistent researcher identifier supporting the creation of a permanent and unambiguous record of research and scholarly communication by enabling reliable attribution of authors and contributors.

3.9 Quality Related (QR) funding – block grant delivered by Research England to English Universities for research and innovation activities. The amount of QR funding allocated is directly tied to REF performance.

3.10 Research Information System (RIS) – an integrated system allowing staff to record outputs, build and publish profiles for the external website, nominate outputs for the REF submission, and submit and manage grant applications.

3.11 Research outputs - the tangible products of research including journal articles, conference papers, books and book chapters, datasets, theses, reports as well as any other outputs supporting the analysis, interpretation and, where applicable, reproducibility of the research findings.

3.12 Rights Retention – a legal means to enable researchers to retain the rights to their manuscripts, allowing them to share immediately.

4. Responsibilities

Research and Innovation Committee (RIC)

The RIC, chaired by the Pro Vice Chancellor, Research and Innovation is the owner of this policy.

Faculty Research and Innovation Committees (FRICs) and Associate Deans, Research and Innovation (AD Research + Innovation)

The FRICs and the AD R+Is are responsible for raising awareness of and monitoring compliance with the policy within their Faculty.

Library and Research and Innovation Services support staff

Staff in these areas are responsible for implementing the policy University wide and providing practical support and guidance to authors. They are also responsible for keeping this policy up-to-date and compliant with funder and REF requirements. They will deal with publisher queries.

Supervisors

Supervisors are responsible for ensuring that the research outputs of postgraduate research students comply with this policy.

Line managers

Line managers are responsible for discussing compliance or failure to comply with this policy during annual PDRs and at any other appropriate times throughout the year.

Employees

Employees are responsible for ensuring that their research outputs comply with this policy.

5. General principles / Policy statements

These requirements apply to all types of research output as defined in the glossary.

5.1 Authors must ensure bibliographic details of all research outputs are recorded in the University’s institutional repository (Bradford Scholars), as soon as possible after the date of acceptance for publication and no later than one month from that date.

5.2 This includes outputs other than journal articles. These are defined in the Bradford Scholars repository policy and includes journalism and conference presentations. These often contribute to the impact of the researchers’ work and provide valuable permanent accounts of research activities. A bibliographic record of datasets with a link to where the data are externally hosted should also be included in the repository. The sharing of data is covered in the Research Data Management Policy. 

5.3 Where copyright permits, the University strongly encourages the open access deposit of monographs in Bradford Scholars. Authors should also check any funder requirements around this. As a minimum, authors are required to record bibliographic details of their monograph so there is a comprehensive, secure record of Bradford’s research outputs.

5.4 Authors must use the standardised institutional affiliation “University of Bradford” in all research outputs for consistency and to aid discoverability. Other affiliations (e.g. Digital Health Enterprise Zone, Wolfson Centre for Applied Health Research) may be used, but in addition to the University of Bradford affiliation.

5.5 Authors are required to register an ORCID ID (https://orcid.org) and use this when publishing. Most publishers now require an ORCID ID to submit a paper.

5.6 Authors must acknowledge the source of grant funding associated with a research output, including details of the funding received. Authors must use the wording specified by their funder in the relevant section of their manuscripts.

5.7 A data access statement must be included in research outputs, even where there are no data associated with the article or the data are inaccessible. This is a requirement of most major funders.

5.8 The University of Bradford encourages the use of the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) statements in research outputs, which allows for accurate and detailed description of contributions to the published work.

5.9 Rights Retention 

The following requirements apply to journal articles and conference papers with an ISSN. Any articles submitted, or accepted, for publication before the adoption of this policy are exempt.

The policy confirms that staff own the copyright to their scholarly works, and they are free to choose where to publish.

5.10 Authors must retain the necessary rights to make the accepted manuscripts of research articles, including reviews and conference papers with an ISSN, publicly available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence. This is achieved by including a Rights Retention statement.

5.11 Upon submission for publication, irrespective of the journal, each University of Bradford author agrees to grant the University a non‐exclusive, irrevocable, worldwide licence to make the author accepted manuscript of their scholarly article publicly available in Bradford Scholars under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence.  This is achieved by default through this policy.

5.12 Authors should add this approved statement in the ‘funding acknowledgements' section of the manuscript as well as the publisher cover letter to inform publishers that the University has adopted a Rights Retention strategy:

‘For the purposes of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Accepted Author Manuscript version arising from this submission.’

It is recommended that authors include this statement in all manuscript submissions to a journal even if it is a fully open access (Gold) journal and there is funding available.

5.13 Upon acceptance for publication, authors should deposit their Author Accepted Manuscript into Bradford Scholars, via RIS as soon as possible and within 1 month of acceptance.  The full text will be made available from the first date of publication.

5.14 This policy applies to all scholarly articles, including conference proceedings, authored or co-authored while the person is a staff member of The University of Bradford, and includes any third-party content where rights in that content have been secured. 

5.15 Any articles submitted, or accepted, for publication before the adoption of this policy are exempt.

5.16 Authors opt-in to this policy by default. The University recognises there may be exceptional occasions where the policy cannot be followed entirely – either for immediate open access and/or the CC-BY licence. Authors can request an opt out for the following circumstances during the deposit process:

a) substantial amount of third-party copyrighted material that cannot be licensed with a CC-BY license

b) journal refuses to allow publication with the Rights Retention Statement intact

c) co-authors do not agree to share the manuscript immediately on publication with a CC-BY licence.

Funded authors should make sure any opt out does not conflict with funder open access requirements and that consideration is given to any REF open access requirements to ensure eligibility of submission. Opt outs will be monitored centrally.

Authors cannot opt out of depositing their manuscript in Bradford Scholars. The library team will manage any implications of an opt out of Rights Retention (for example setting an embargo period or applying a different Creative Commons licence).

Implementation

5.17 The policy will be approved via RIC and Senate. Post approval, a communications and engagement plan will be rolled out to each Faculty and Research Centre. Open Access guidance on Library and RaIS SharePoint sites will be updated and extended.

Consequences of Non-compliance

5.18 Consequences of Non-compliance

Most major funders require the outputs from research, including published articles and supporting data, are made openly available. This is a condition of accepting the grant funding. Failing to meet the funder’s requirements for Open Access and Open Data constitutes a breach of contract and can result in sanctions against the Principal Investigator. This can include withholding of grant funds, a reduction of grant funding or prevention of future applications to that funder from the Principal Investigator.

It is the responsibility of authors of outputs resulting from funded research to understand and comply with the requirements of their funder. Compliance with funder requirements is specified in the University Code of Practice for Research and Research Data Management Policy.

Non-compliance with the Open Access elements of the policy may result in authors paying unnecessary publication fees, as well as compromising the eligibility of the output for any future REF exercise.

6. Monitoring and review

6.1 Open Access compliance is monitored by the Research Impact and Performance Team using data from Dimensions and RIS. These data are reported twice a year via standard reports to Associate Deans for Research and Innovation in each Faculty.

6.2 Open Access compliance data are also reported to REF Steering Group as part of the preparations for REF 2029.

6.3 A review and evaluation of the Rights Retention element of the policy will be undertaken one year from the start date of the policy.

The policy will be reviewed every other year from the start date of the policy or in response to major policy changes enacted by the funders. 

7. Related policies and standards / documentation

7.1 University of Bradford Research Strategy

7.2 Research Data Management Policy

7.3 Bradford Scholars Policy

7.4 Code of Practice for Research

External policies

7.5 UKRI Open Access Policy

7.6 Wellcome Open Access Policy

7.7 NIHR Open Access Publication Policy

7.8 REF 2029: Overview of Open Access Policy and Guidance 

7.9 European Commission Horizon 2020 Online Manual: Open Access and Data Management

7.10 COAlition S and Plan S 

8. Document and version control information

This document can only be considered valid when viewed via the University website. If this document is printed into hard copy or saved to another location you must check that the version number on your copy matches that of the one on the University website.  Approved documents are valid for use after their approval date and remain in force beyond any expiry of their review date until a new version is available.

1. Introduction

1.1 Admission to the Library is conditional on observance of this Policy.

1.2 All users are expected to know this Policy, which may be viewed via the Library's webpages and the University's Policies and Procedures webpage.

2. Scope

2.1 This Policy relates to the use of the J.B. Priestley Library only.

2.2 The Special Collections Service may sometimes require a different approach to access and collections care. These differences will be published in Special Collections policy documents.

2.3 In this Policy the word "book" is deemed to cover all kinds of Library material, unless the context specifically limits the meaning to a particular type of material.

3. Responsibilities

3.1 All members of the staff of the Library and Security are empowered to enforce the regulations.

3.2 The Head of Library Services has the authority for the following:

• Temporarily varying the Library Opening times in exceptional circumstances;
• Granting admission to other persons not listed in this Policy;
• Determining the number of books that can be borrowed for any individual category of member;
• Granting additional borrowing facilities;
• Determining charges for the replacement of an external library card; and
• Setting the level of fines and charges for the replacement of books.

3.3 The Head of Customer Services may also grant admission to other persons not listed in this Policy.

4. Policy statements

Hours of opening

4.1 The standard opening hours shall be as approved by the Senate and shall be displayed at the Library and on the Web.

4.2 These may be temporarily varied in exceptional circumstances.

Admission

4.3 Persons in the following categories are entitled to use the Library for reference and study purposes:

• Members and retired members of the University staff;
• Full and part-time students registered for courses of study within the University;
• Members of the Court and Council during their term of office.

4.4 Other persons not mentioned above may be granted permission to use the Library for reference and study purposes at the discretion of the Head of Library Service or Head of Customer Services.

4.5 Exceptions to these admission rules will be published on the Library’s web page for visitors.

4.6 Staff and student University ID cards also act as the Library card.

4.7 All external members are issued with a photo Library card. Charges will apply for replacement cards.

4.8 All users must carry their Library card at all times when using the Library. Entry to the Library may be refused without the Library card. Library and Security staff have the right to inspect the Library card to verify the identity of the bearer.

4.9 Library cards are not transferable.

4.10 External members are only entitled to access electronic information services on campus and where the resource licence permits.

Borrowing 

4.11 Students and staff of the University, and some categories of external library member, can borrow books.

4.12 The loan period of the book is stated on the library catalogue.

4.13 Additional borrowing facilities may be granted for a limited period in cases of extraordinary need.

4.14 The loan of books may normally be renewed, unless the book has been requested by another user.

4.15 Users may be held responsible for all books on loan to them for as long as the issue record remains un-cancelled.

Inter-Library Loans

4.16 Students and staff of the University are entitled to use this service for academic purposes.

4.17 Provision of materials through document delivery services is subject to the copyright legislation currently in force.

4.18 Books borrowed from other libraries are made available subject to the conditions imposed by the lending library.

Conduct and behaviour

4.19 Use of the Library is for academic purposes only. Any other activity not related to academic studies is strictly forbidden. This includes but not limited to, social activities and games.

4.20 Persons using the Library must conduct themselves in a manner that will not give offence to other Library users or to members of the Library staff. The Library’s customer charter and disciplinary process will be published on the Library website.

4.21 No user may reserve any place in the Library except in accordance with any authorised booking system that may be in operation.

4.22 Persons using the Library must not cause any unnecessary noise or disturbance.

4.23 The consumption of food and drink must be in accordance with the food and drink policy. Entering the Library with hot food is not permitted.

4.24 Smoking, vaping, the consumption of alcohol and illegal substances are forbidden in all parts of the Library.

4.25 All books taken out of the Library may be checked by a member of the Library or Security staff at the exit. The contents of bags or cases must be made available for inspection at the exit control on request.

4.26 Library notices will be sent by e-mail. Failure to receive notices will not invalidate any subsequent proceedings or action.

4.27 The loss of a library card must be reported immediately to the Library; users will be responsible for any books borrowed on a lost card before such notification is made. The Library may charge for the replacement of an external library card.

4.28 The University Library may not be used for the distribution or display of posters, flyers, leaflets or any other similar type of material without special permission. Any such material distributed or displayed without permission will be removed.

4.29 When making copies, e.g. photocopying, scanning, printing or taking digital photographs, users must abide by current UK copyright law.

4.30 Animals, other than assistance animals, may not be brought into the Library.

4.31 Scooters, bicycles and electric vehicles of all kinds may not be brought into the Library.

Penalties

4.32 Borrowers who fail to return books by the due date may be charged fines. The level of fines will be displayed on the Library’s website. Borrowers who owe fines may not be allowed further borrowing until the fine is paid.

4.33 Any user may be required to pay for the replacement of any book which is lost or damaged beyond repair while on loan or being used by the user.

4.34 Fines or charges may be waived or varied if the circumstances warrant such action.

4.35 Any infringement of this Policy by a user may lead to the temporary suspension of Library facilities.

4.36 Repeated infringements will result in disciplinary action being taken in accordance with the University Disciplinary Procedure for Staff or the Student Disciplinary Procedure.

5. Monitoring and review

5.1 The approval of the Policy will be communicated to users.

5.2 The impact of this Policy shall be reviewed by Library Staff.

5.3 This Policy will be reviewed not less than every three years.

This document can only be considered valid when viewed via the University website. If this document is printed into hard copy or saved to another location, you must check that the version number on your copy matches that of the one on the University website. Approved documents are valid for use after their approval date and remain in force beyond any expiry of their review date until a new version is available.

1. Introduction

1.1. The Library Collection Development and Management Policy reflects our role of supporting the research, teaching and learning functions of the University. This is a general statement of collection development and management policy.

2. Scope

2.1. This policy applies to all physical collections within the J.B. Priestley Library and all the electronic collections. It does not apply to Special Collections or to the Commonweal Collection, both of which have separate collection development policies.

3. Responsibilities

Senior managers

3.1. This policy has been developed by the Associate Director: Chief Librarian in consultation with the Library Information Resources Advisory Group. The Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Learning and Teaching and Student Experience is the overall senior manager.

4. Acquisition guidelines

4.1. Any item legally published (or legally publishable in the UK) shall be considered for selection, subject to material being relevant, affordable and value for money. The library aims to provide the resources relevant to study and research at the university, regardless of origin. Librarians work with students and staff to make sure that the selection of resources for teaching, learning and research stems from consideration of the quality of authors’ ideas, and that these choices challenge conventions that may embed bias and prejudice about individuals and communities. A library statement on sensitive or harmful material is available.

4.2. Suggestions for purchase are welcomed from all members of the University and can be made via the library’s request form. Suggestions can also be made verbally to any member of the library team, by email, or via the Suggestions Box available in the J.B. Priestley Library. The final decision on selection rests with the Subject Librarians. All materials purchased are for the shared use of all members of the University, and resources will not be purchases that restrict use to particular departments, offices, or individuals. The library also maintains a small fund ‘Broaden Bradford’s Books’ which is dedicated to further diversifying our collections to support decolonising of the university. More information and an online suggestions for purchase form can be found here.

4.3. The library will endeavour to purchase all appropriate and essential course-related materials, dependent on available budgets.

4.4. An appropriate number of texts will be purchased. Reading list texts will be purchased according to the library guidelines.

4.5. Multiple reservations per copy can trigger a decision to purchase extra copies.

4.6. Copies of journal articles or book chapters not in stock may be obtained via copyright clearance and made available through our reading list tool, Talis. Original physical versions of material copied under CLA licences for a reading list must be retained whilst the copied material is still available for use. A new digitisation service for items on reading lists will be introduced during 2025 / 26.

4.7. Academic staff are responsible for timely creation or review of reading lists. Reading lists should be hosted through the online reading list system and sent to the library for review ideally 8 weeks in advance of demand so that materials can be obtained and made ready for use. Adding items to reading lists and publishing the list triggers a review and potential purchase by the library team. Failure to do this risks items not being purchased. Items which are not in stock in the library should be added to reading lists and will be purchased by the library, subject to availability, and with the possible exception of out-of-print titles.

4.8. Guidelines for purchasing reading list books were agreed at the University Learning and Teaching Committee, September 25th, 2019, and reviewed April 2022. Full details are available in the Reading list user guides. Further review will take place during academic year 2024/25.

4.9. It is the library policy to maintain a balance of spending between recurrent and non-recurrent expenditure. The budget allocated to recurrent spending is based on Faculty income, student numbers per department, the perceived subject content of resources, and value for money.
For academic year 2024/25 and 25/26, due to university financial pressures, no additional new recurrent subscriptions will be made unless agreed to be business critical. To align with a request from the University’s Transformational Change Group, there will be a major review of spend during this period on both recurrent and non-recurrent resources which will seek to significantly reduce overall budget spend whilst maintaining support for university learning, teaching and research.

4.10. Much of the library’s recurrent spending is on resources subject to rates of inflation many times higher than the standard measures. The library will monitor rates of inflation and currency fluctuation to advise on annual average increase in cost of recurrent resources.

4.11. Current journal subscriptions form the largest part of recurrent spending. Most of these are part of package deals with publishers, negotiated in consortia with JISC and other university libraries to deliver the best price. These deals may have restrictions on cancellations. These packages also contain large numbers of titles which are not paid for separately.

4.12. Recurrent spending is subject to a review of each subscription at point of renewal taking a decision to renew, cancel or subscribe to a similar resource. Criteria include cost-per-use, duplication by other available resources, and technical functionality of resources. Recurrent spend is focussed on online resources with purchase of new print subscription resources exceptional.

4.13. New journals or databases are normally funded by the cancellation of existing subscriptions. Subject Librarians will consult the relevant Schools about potential cancellations and requests for new subscriptions will require the support of a business case form. This is reviewed at the monthly Library Information Resources Advisory Group.
For academic year 2024/25 and 25/26, due to university financial pressures, no additional new recurrent subscriptions will be made unless agreed to be business critical.

5. Formats

5.1. Material will be acquired based on information content rather than format type, and decisions on whether to acquire print or electronic versions will be made as appropriate. Paperbacks are preferred to hardback books as cost is lower.

5.2. Resources accessible to disabled users will always be preferred where available.

5.3. Students’ mode of study (part-time, distance learning, those who have placements) will be considered when selecting the format of resources.

5.4. Where a variety of formats are available, the preferred format will be that which offers widest access at a reasonable price, with acceptable terms and conditions. The library does commit to ensuring that core books on reading lists are made available in both print and electronic versions (where both formats are available) on grounds of inclusivity, making sure that core books can be accessed by all students regardless of their preference of format. The library team also commit to supporting students with Learner Support Profiles who need specific formats of resources.

5.5. Material will be purchased in additional formats where this adds extra value; for example, to make provision for larger numbers of students.

5.6. The library acquires access to e-books in different ways. Terms and conditions of use vary. It may not be possible for the library to acquire some books in an e-book format.

5.7. The library regularly acquires e-books using models where large numbers of titles are provided by a supplier for a short-agreed period, and then purchase is triggered by use - Patron-Driven Acquisition (PDA), or by subject librarians selecting titles based upon use in that period, and also on relevance - Evidence-Based Acquisition (EBA).

5.8. The acquisition models of PDA and EBA, and some e-book packages which regularly change content, mean that some e-books available to students and staff are not owned by the library, and may be withdrawn from the collection at short notice by the library’s suppliers.

5.9. The library will choose those models which provide the maximum amount of content relevant to teaching, learning and research in the most cost-effective way. The Library's Information Resources Advisory Group keep the models of e-book use and acquisition under review. The importance of books (as set by academic staff on reading lists), multiple turnaways and high usage of e-book titles can also trigger a decision to purchase extra licences to maintain access.

5.10. Subscriptions to individual e-books will be subject to the same retention criteria as other subscriptions.

5.11. The library uses automatic purchasing models to upgrade ebook licenses, to serve more users simultaneously. There may be delays in granting access to e-books, when significant additional charges for such licenses are required.

5.12. The library will always prefer electronic journals over the print versions unless any of the following is true of the electronic version:

• it is significantly more expensive than the print version,
• it does not reproduce images, charts or diagrams sufficiently well to make them intelligible.

5.13. Print subscriptions will be retained to academically significant titles if long-term access to the electronic version is believed to be insecure.

5.14. We will attempt to convert our print journal holdings to electronic wherever possible by the purchase of backfiles.

6. Book donations

6.1. Donations to the library are added to stock if pertinent to current teaching, learning and research. Items over three years old are usually not accepted unless directly related to subjects in which historical materials are important e.g., Peace Studies and Archaeology. Pre-current editions of textbooks are not accepted. The cost of buying a book new may be less than that of processing a donation. The Library is unable to accept large collections of material, such as complete personal libraries or journal runs, all potential large collections should be discussed with the relevant Subject Librarian before accepting.

6.2. The library accepts donated material only if ownership is transferred to the University.

6.3. Items not deemed appropriate are disposed of at the library’s discretion.

7. Free web resources

7.1. Freely available resources are added to the Library Catalogue, Summon and the library webpages at the request of a Subject Librarian or academic who has judged these to be as useful as resources for which the library has paid. The library does not attempt to curate comprehensive collections of free, open access materials in any subject area.

8. University of Bradford dissertations and theses

8.1. Dissertations and theses which contain sensitive material may be temporarily embargoed or permanently restricted at the request of the author’s department.

8.2. Undergraduate and Masters dissertations are not received or retained by the library.

8.3. A digital copy of each PhD thesis, awarded at Bradford is deposited in the University’s repository Bradford Scholars, for public access. The inclusion of theses in the library collection is dependent on the submission of the thesis by the author. Printed and digital PhD theses are kept in the library collection in perpetuity.

9. Physical management

9.1. Most of the Library’s physical stock is within the book and journal collections in the J.B Priestley Library. All library materials are on open access shelves, apart from Special Collections, print Bradford PhD theses (finite collection), and some DVDs. There is no closed stack. The Library generally will not establish new collections separate from the main collection. The exception to this is the Read and Relax collection housed in the Calm Space, and a small collection of Academic Skills books located on floor 0 to aid librarians in their student support activities. Stock relegation is an essential component of the library collection development and management policy. Materials which no longer contribute to the effectiveness of the library’s collections will be removed from stock in an ongoing programme by the relevant subject librarians.

9.2. The following general criteria for print book retention and relegation will be followed:

• Books with multiple editions: routinely only the current and precurrent editions will be retained.
• Loanable books (non-multiple editions) meeting all three criteria below will be reviewed by Subject Librarians for relegation from stock.
  • a) Not borrowed for >=10 years
  • b) Acquisition date >=10 years
  • c) Not on a current reading list
• Additional criteria may be considered for specific subject areas when deciding whether an item is retained in the collection or not. These may include but are not restricted to the following:
  • Physical condition of the item
  • E-book availability
  • Does it relate to known future subject / research planning at the university
  • Is it published by a University of Bradford author
  • In subject areas such as Peace Studies and Archaeology where older print material continues to have value, a fuller range of material will be retained.

9.3. E-books will usually be made unavailable when:

• their age and the nature of their subject means that content is likely to be misleading.
• the book has been superseded by subsequent editions held by the library (in either print or e-book formats) and that edition is no longer required for taught courses.

9.4. Runs of print journals are only retained:

• to augment electronic collections relevant to current teaching, learning and research interests, when purchase of permanent replacement electronic backfiles is not possible or would provide poor value. The articles in these journals should be discoverable.
• or, because they cover subjects in which there is ongoing historical interest (mainly archaeology, peace studies, sociology).

9.5. The library will use three methods of dealing with items which are relegated from stock as deemed appropriate for the type and condition of item, in order to maximise any resale value for university income. Income made is added to the library resources budget.

• Anybook – resell books and share of profits come back to the library
• Better World Books – resell books, small profit share with the library and work with non-profit organizations and global literacy programs.
• Disposal – where condition is poor prohibiting resale.

10. Access versus holdings

10.1. The library has a just-in-time approach to supplying little-used material, rather than just-in-case storage.

10.2. All academic staff and students at the University are entitled to request inter-library loans at no charge. The inter-library loan service aims to obtain items not held in the Library which are required for research, teaching or study. In print books and obtainable out-of-print books which have been requested will usually be purchased for stock rather than borrowed. Inter-library loans will not be available for titles that the Subject Librarian has declined to purchase on academic grounds.

10.3. The library actively promotes membership of co-operative access schemes such as SCONUL Access.

10.4. The library will enter into co-operative arrangements for acquisition of materials as appropriate.

11. Future developments

11.1. Library collections will continue to be affected by changes in technology, licensing and Open Access provision. The Library’s Information Resources Advisory Group will ensure that the development of the collections is informed by such changes.

12. Related policies

12.1. Special Collections

12.2. Commonweal Collection. The Commonweal Collection is an independent library housed within the J.B. Priestley Library. The collection development policies of the Commonweal Collection are the responsibility of the Commonweal Trustees.

13. Implementation

13.1. Implementation of the policy is by all library teams.

14. Monitoring and review

14.1. The Collection Development and Management Policy will be reviewed every three years. The next review will be in 2027.

15. Document and version control