Collections Development Policy

The goal of the Noolaham Foundation’s Collection development policy is to give clear directions for developing and creating collections via its Program and Projects. Collecting, preserving and providing access to materials is a resource constrained activity, thus prioritizing materials based on objective criteria becomes necessary.

Noolaham Foundation collects and develops materials created by, about and related to Sri Lankan Tamil speaking communities. This is a basic policy principle that applies to all our collections with the exception of Tamil reference resources. All public domain or permissions obtained Tamil reference resources, specifically encyclopedias, dictionaries and bibliographies are preserved and made accessible. Noolaham Foundation recognizes the gaps and silences in its own and mainstream archives and libraries of many marganizlied communities’ resources, including those of Women, Upcountry Tamils, Muslim, LGBTQ, Vedar, Minotiries of North East and oppressed caste communities. Collections via Program and Projects is one of the main avenues within the organization to repair those gaps and give voice to the marginalized. Thus, developing a diverse collection representing the diverse communities Noolaham Foundation represents and serves is at the core of Collections Development Policy. Balancing the need for educational, economical, and development focused resources with historical and cultural resources is also a major consideration. Noolaham Foundation recognizes that those with funding resources, influence/power and organizational capacity are better represented via published resources and have the capacity to support documentation projects. Thus, an intentional and institutional framework is needed to allocate attention and resources towards the marginalized voices.

Examples of allocating attention and resources towards the marginalized voices:

• Prioritize processing and access of marginalized communities’ resources.
• Dedicated Staff Person - If resources about/by a particular community or archive is under represented, then having a dedicated staff person for that archive will help.
• Developing Archival/Oral/Visual/Artifact Resources - If there is a lack of published resources by/about a particular community, then focusing on oral, visual, archival and artifact documentation can help.
• Equitable Collection Development Resource Allocation - If the main office is located in one place, then there is a likelihood that resources from that region would receive the most attention and resources. Having more equitable collection development staff and volunteer resources to represent diverse communities can help balance that.
• Representation - Collection Development Committee needs to have diverse voices represented and actively providing input.
• Develop accessible formats such as audio books for print books and transcripts for audio/video resources.

The following criteria is used as a general guideline to evaluate a material at the item level.

• Is a Special Collection item - 20
• Information Value
  • Rare Resource (ola manuscript, inscription, unique folklore, rare artifact) - 25
  • Educational & Scientific - 15
  • Public Health, Public Policy, Human Rights - 15
  • Historic and Cultural Value - 15
  • Artistic and Aesthetic Value - 10
  • Social or Spiritual Value - 10
• Use Value
  • Has use value to a wider audience (i.e text books, public health info) - 15
  • Has use value to specific or limited audience (i.e memoirs, anniversary publications) - 10
• At-Risk item
  • High Risk (only one copy of the work exists, endangered due to external factors) - 25
  • Low Risk (i.e published work with known holdings) - 5
• Permission Obtained - 5