With their own deep discipline and subject area expertise, Columbia University Libraries’ librarians and curators build research collections in a wide array of formats in support of the work of students, faculty, and researchers. Through relationships with the University’s academic departments, librarians and curators understand fields of study and teaching, research specialties, and current curricular needs of the academic departments in their subject areas, as well as broader evolving research trends at Columbia and in their respective disciplines. With curricular needs in mind, librarians and curators collect newly-published materials, historical collections, and primary source materials to fill collection gaps and/or address emerging scholarly needs. Librarians also promote awareness of these resources, in courses and to individual researchers, by providing instruction and support for their use. 

In addition to building collections locally, librarians and curators foster strategic partnerships with other academic institutions to build shared collections and expand access to materials. These shared collections also inform decisions on what to acquire and maintain locally. 

A key component of a librarian or curator’s role is strategic fund management of the Libraries’ collection budget, including collaborating with other librarians to identify ways to acquire resources across disciplines. Librarians, curators, and the Libraries’ administration are expected to continually assess and ensure that fund allocations reflect the evolving needs of users and the collections themselves. This work requires consideration for the balance between funding the initial purchase investment and factors contributing to the total cost of acquisition and the Libraries’ responsibility to preserve, conserve, digitize, and make accessible these materials throughout their lifecycle. These factors include, but are not limited to:

• ongoing maintenance fees;

• projected price increases for ongoing subscriptions;

• costs related to making resources discoverable and accessible as close to the point of acquisition as possible, whether this is achieved through purchasing metadata records, outsourcing metadata creation, or performing in-house metadata provision and/or archival processing;

• preservation and conservation costs;

• storage requirements for both physical and digital resources.