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Collection Development Policy
Subject Scope
Anything and everything dairy. This includes:
- Dairy animals
- Their health and well-being
- Their nutritional needs
- Managing dairy herds
- Genetics, breeding, fertility and reproduction concerns
- Milk production
- Dairy products
- Recipes
- Food safety concerns
- Other topics involving: milk, cheese, butter, ice cream, etc.
- Farm business (dairy-related)
- Technology, equipment and machinery
- Environmental issues
- Budgeting; management
- Personnel issues
- Marketing and economics (dairy-related)
- Including prices, market analysis, etc.
Types of Materials
Anything that is freely available on the Internet and meets the selection and evaluation criteria below, can be included. This includes, but is not limited to:
- Single research articles
- Reports on research in progress
- Databases
- Conference proceedings
- Bibliographies
- Journal web sites
- Statistics
- Graphics/images
- Newsletters/news sources
- General web sites/metasites
- Dairy science departments' homepages
Intended Audience
The AgNIC Dairy Information Center is meant to be used by researchers and farmers. It has a mix of very practical information that those raising dairy animals will be interested in, as well as research information for scientists involved in studying dairy. A section for younger researchers, where K-12 students can go to find information for reports and papers is under development.
Selection and Evaluation Criteria
Content
The content should fit within the subject scope (see above) of the AgNIC Dairy Information Center.
The information should be intended for students, researchers, or farmers interested in dairy science and related issues.
The content must be accurate.
If the site is a dot com, the information must be of general usefulness (i.e., not there just to sell a product.) If the page has a significant number of ads, to the point of being hard to navigate or read, it will not be included. Pure advertising is excluded.
Is there evidence
that the information has been biased by the publisher?
The site should contribute something uniquely important about dairy science.
Is the resource
comprehensive within its stated area?
Does it cover the
subject adequately?
The site should be well written.
Personal home pages are usually not included unless they have substantial, high quality information useful to our audience. If they just describe personal experience or opinion, they are not included. Information should be research based.
Authority
The information should be peer reviewed, recommended by an expert in the field, or published by a reputable organization or institution.
What is the provenance
of the resource?
The author/publisher should list contact information.
Who is the author?
Who has published
(made available) the resource?
Currency
Consider whether currency is important in each instance.
If the information
is a web site (rather than a single article), is the information kept
up to date?
How frequently is
the information updated?
Presentation
The site should be well organized.
Is it easy to find
the information you need?
Is information presented
professionally?
Are there help screens,
site maps, indexes, searching capabilities, etc.?
The site should load relatively quickly.
Is the site too
graphic-intensive (i.e., does it take forever to load?)
Availability
The information should be provided freely.
Are there any geographical
access restrictions?
Is registration required?
Is it a straightforward process?
The information should be reliable.
Do the links at
a site work?
Is the information
on a reliable server?
Does the site require
plug-ins that limit access?
