Establishing Access Policies for Emerging Media in Academic Libraries

Abstract

Withtheincorporationofrapidly evolvingmediaformatsin academic librarycollections, librariansface thenow-familiar challengeof providing access to the information these new formats contain. Rather than developing individual access policies for each type of media, librarians can follow pre-existing policies for an established media format, the videorecording, asa way of addressingdiscrete medialending issuesand establishing appropriate policies. This article describes a variety of academic library video access policies and the reasoning for their implementation in order to illustrateand addressthecommonest issuesinvolved in establishing media access policies and to offer lending guidance for newlyacquiredformats.