Collection Development Policy & Portfolio

Project Overview & Core Objective:

This project outlines a theoretical collection development policy for literature, art, and media that depict femicide and the rationale for their inclusion in the collection. The document specifies the items to be included in the collection, accompanied by a planned budget of $3000. This project also encompasses a hypothetical promotional event for the collection.

Part 1: Development Policy

What is the collection?

The Femicide Awareness Collection surrounds and encompasses how femicide, the murder of women simply because they are women, is presented in various literary and artistic mediums. Femicide representation can range from awareness of the rising issue and the impact that it presents to society to using femicide as a literary plot device to move the story along. The vitality of this collection lies in demonstrating how this prevalent issue surrounds us more than we often think and the various shapes and forms it can take.

Collection Maintenance & Evaluation

It will be crucial to review the collection and the work within the collection consistently every month to two months to ensure that it is consistently up to date to the maximum of its capability. Some methods to incorporate include but are not limited to:

  • Weeding out anything that may seem outdated or works that users do not use as often as others.

  • keep a record of everything in the collection and what has been added and taken out

  • including a sort of bank with potential works that could later be added

  • surveying the patrons, specifically those using and interacting with the collection consistently

Purpose & Scope

The purpose of having this policy is to regulate and manage the creation of the collection at hand. It is so that we can follow orderly directions when putting this vital collection together; it covers the various procedures the library must follow when presented with potential scenarios that could arise due to the nature of this collection and the material it will withhold. Overall, this policy applies to the library staff, board members, and stakeholders who are usually more closely related to the collection, especially the library staff. It serves as a guide on how to work with the material we want to be included in this collection and how this can impact our community and patrons.

Intellectual Freedom & Censorship

Patrons should know where these issues are and how they affect us. This is why we never censor anyone and aim to represent our patrons' viewpoints and experiences in the library and collection. While respecting current selection standards, some could argue not include some works in this collection censorship. However, we must follow these policy rules to preserve everyone's privacy since we want this collection to be collaborative and establish confidence between staff and patrons, especially if we want our community involved. The give-and-take relationship between staff and patrons promotes mutual respect, which encompasses confidentiality, plagiarism, fair use, and copyright.

Selection Criteria & Process

Implementing notions like intent and how it drives information, moving beyond this collection, and considering its long-term impact. Other selection process methods include:

  • Consulting reviews, bibliographies, and other forms of research to avoid bias within the collection.

  • Considering the author's or artist's reputation and cost
    consistently accounting for our budget, quality, and relevance to our collection's subject area.

  • Looking at trends by our patrons (What they do and don’t use within the collection. How they interact with it.) Often surveying them and using that feedback to see what we might have to modify.

Policy Review & Revision

Our policy review and revision should focus on establishing and maintaining a refined and evolving collection. This policy, like the collection, evolves. The policy should be reviewed and updated every six months to a year, with any major updates made as needed. This allows enough time to see what works and to adapt to the ever-changing life of a collection. As the collection grows and evolves after this policy is implemented, we must ensure that the methods and strategies that have been incorporated are being used properly and evaluate what procedures are working to restructure or replace them.

Part 2: Portfolio

What does the collection consist of?

These are just some examples of the pieces that were included.

Literature

The literary works currently incorporated in this collection range from classic pieces where femicide is used as a plot device to pieces that highlight the impact that femicide has had on society.

Art

The works of art in this collection range from murals to sculptural structures that indicate the impact femicide has had on society, as well as showcase how common this atrocious act is.

How was everything organized?

Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

Shows the impact the main character’s husband's ex-wife has on her, haunting her to find out how she died, ultimately uncovering that it was her husband who killed her; intimate partner femicide is one of the most common forms of femicide

Media

The forms of media incorporated in this collection range from movies to TV shows that depict different perspectives on femicide.

Eartheater - Dolores Reyes

A tale told from a feminist perspective that brilliantly explores the stories of those left behind—the women enduring the pain of uncertainty, whose lives have been shaped by violence and loss.

Title: Flores de Feminicidio (2019)

Artist: Natali Bravo-Barbee

Handcrafted 3D paper flowers that are each individual and unique to one another, such as the victims of femicide in the artist's native Argentina, and each flower has a tag with a victim’s name on it.

The Simple Art of Killing Women - Patricia Melo

Vividly conjures the epidemic of femicide in Brazil, the power women can hold in the face of overwhelming male violence, the resilience of community despite state-sponsored degradation, and the potential of the jungle to save us all.

2666 - Roberto Bolaño

A fictional retelling of the Ciudad Juarez femicides where we follow scholars, writers, and detectives drawn to an elusive German author and the unsolved femicides in the fictional Mexican town of Santa Teresa

Title: Los Zapatos Rojos (2020)

Artist: Elina Chauvet

Showcases the impact in numbers, seeing how many shoes have been laid out as an equal to how many women have lost their lives

Senorita Extraviada (2001)

A Mexican documentary that investigates the unsolved murders and disappearances of young women in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, exposing systemic gender violence, corruption, and impunity.

Through the use of various metadata categories, including:

  • Genre

  • Title

  • Author

  • Publication Year

  • Publisher

  • Country of Origin

  • ISBN/ISSN

  • Format

  • Price

  • Selection Criteria Reasons

  • Purchase Reason

My Name is Happy (2022)

A Turkish documentary film that follows the inspiring journey of Mutlu Kaya, a young singer who survives a femicide attempt and fights to reclaim her voice and identity.

Part 3: Promotional Event

The femicide awareness/femicide around us collection is centered around works that demonstrate the various ways femicide can be depicted in academic text, literature, and media, the way this ongoing issue is intertwined with other issues, and the way artists have chosen to portray the lives lost of victims of femicide through various art mediums. For this, I came up with a week-long event that would be held at the library.

The event would consist of three things:

  1. An art installation of Flores de Femicido by Natali Bravo-Barbee will be on display for an entire week.

  2. We will also shed light on a different piece in the collection. This can include having a display and sharing quotes from the work on our social media, and if it’s a film, we could also have a screening.

  3. We will then close out the week by having an excerpt reading of Eartheater by author Dolores Reyes.

Promoting the event will be done mainly through social media, as well as putting up custom-made flyers and posters throughout the library to get people who may not follow us on social media involved and informed, and maybe they will like to join us as well.

Pre-packaged snacks will also be available throughout the weeklong event, and catering will be provided for the excerpt reading at the end of the week.