The Library builds collections and consortial relationships in support of the curricular and research needs of the University's current academic departments, centers, and programs. The Library's research-level collecting is aligned with University goals for achieving national prominence in graduate education. It endeavors to provide ongoing support for established and recognized programs and to build, to the extent possible, retrospective collections for newly charted University-sponsored directions. In addition, the Library attempts to identify those collecting areas which closely reflect the undergraduate curriculum, class enrollments, intensity of use, new course offerings, and which must be supported by strong local holdings. A description of the Library's collecting policies in over 50 specific subject areas below.

• Comprehensive. A collection in which a library endeavors, so far as is reasonably possible, to include all significant works of recorded knowledge (publications, manuscripts, and other formats), in all applicable languages, for a necessarily defined and limited field.  This level of collecting intensity is that which maintains a "special collection", the aim, if not the achievement, is exhaustiveness.

• Research. A collection which includes the major source materials required for dissertations and independent research, including materials containing research reporting, new findings, scientific experimental results, and other information useful to researchers.  It also includes all important reference works and a wide selection of specialized monographs, as well as a very extensive collection of journals and major indexing and abstracting services in this field.

• Study. A collection which is adequate to support undergraduate or graduate course work, or sustained independent study; that is, which is adequate to maintain knowledge of a subject required for limited or generalized purposes, of less than research intensity. It includes a wide range of basic monographs, complete collections of the works of more important writers, selections from the works of secondary writers, a selection of representative journals, and important reference tools and fundamental bibliographic apparatus pertaining to the subject.

• Basic. A highly selective collection which serves to introduce and define the subject and to indicate the varieties of information available elsewhere. It includes major dictionaries and encyclopedias, selected editions of important works, historical surveys, important bibliographies, and a few major periodicals in the field.

• Minimal. A subject area which is out of the scope of the library's collections, and in which few selections are made beyond the very basic reference tools.