The role of a collection development department is to foster the growth of the collections in the service of users. In pursuit of this aim, it is concerned with assessing user needs, devising policies, defining funding requirements, supervising expenditures, selecting materials, evaluating the collections, managing the collections, weeding and transferring materials, resource sharing, and representing and interpreting the collections to users. At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Collection Development's programs and activities are conducted in consonance with the University’s and the Library’s mission statements as given below.

The mission of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-Chapel Hill) is "to serve all the people of the State, and indeed the nation, as a center for scholarship and creative endeavor. The University exists to expand the body of knowledge; to teach students at all levels in an environment of research, free inquiry, and personal responsibility; to improve the condition of human life through service and publication; and to enrich our culture." To implement its mission, the University is organized into two major divisions, Health Affairs and Academic Affairs.

Three separately administered libraries on campus collectively serve these two divisions. The Health Sciences Library supports clinical studies, teaching, and research in the Medical School, the Dental School, the School of Nursing, the School of Public Health, and the School of Pharmacy, all of which make up the Health Affairs Division. The Academic Affairs Division includes all other Schools, Departments, and Programs at the University. Two separately administered libraries support it. The Law Library serves the library needs of members of the Law School. The University Library supports the teaching and research of individuals in all other academic organizations on campus and users in Health Sciences and Law who need materials in its subject areas.

The University Library’s mission is for "Its collections and services [to] provide access to cumulated human knowledge for the University’s students, faculty, staff, associated researchers, and the citizens of North Carolina in support of their study, research, teaching, scholarship, publishing, community service, and cultural enrichment." The Library Administrative Board, composed of elected faculty and librarians, oversees the activities of and sets policy for the University Library.

In order to realize its mission of building collections and serving faculty, students and other users, the University Library is organized into four major Divisions: Special Collections, Public Services, Access Services and Systems, and Technical Services. The Special Collections Division encompasses the administrative units in Wilson Library (the Manuscripts Department, the North Carolina Collection, and the Rare Books Collection) and the Conservator. The Public Services Division includes the Reference Department in Davis Library, the House Undergraduate Library, the Maps Collection, five science libraries (Biology, which includes separate Botany and Zoology libraries; Chemistry; Geology; and Math/Physics, which also supports Astronomy, Computer Science, Statistics, and Operations Research), and six fine arts and social sciences libraries (Art, Music, City and Regional Planning, School of Government, the School of Information and Library Science, and the Stone Library). The Systems and Access Services Division is responsible for the Systems Office, the Circulation Department in Davis Library, and Inter-Library Services. The Technical Services Division comprises four departments (Acquisitions, Cataloging, Collection Development, and Preservation.)

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The materials budget supports the collection development activities of selectors in all divisions of the University Library. Funds for library acquisitions in the special collections are not part of the materials budget. They are funded from non-state sources, particularly endowments and trusts.

In order to make decisions about allocating the materials budget equitably and in line with University priorities, the selectors keep abreast of the current and future directions of academic disciplines and the resources needed to support them on this campus. They analyze the publishing and materials pricing trends for each discipline in order to determine the Library’s ability to acquire appropriate materials. In addition, they keep informed about the academic culture of the University, including issues of tenure, promotion, and salary reviews, and the impact those decisions have on scholarly publishing in general and the library needs of specific academic disciplines in particular. With these complex issues related to scholarly communication and the academy in mind, the selectors determine where the materials budget is adequate to meet current needs and where more support is required. They make projections with respect to the materials budget based on these analyses, and make budget requests to cover perceived needs over time.

Collection Development’s primary mission is to identify, select, and acquire materials that support teaching and research in the humanities and social sciences, the disciplines predominantly represented in Davis Library. There are three separate departments that work to build library collections. Humanities, Social Sciences and Western European Collection Development is responsible for selecting English-language materials on humanities and social sciences subjects, and materials published in Western Europe. Global Resources and Area Studies Collection Development selects materials from Russia and Eastern Europe, Latin America and Iberia, East Asia, and South Asia. Digitization develops the Library's collections of digitized texts. The heads of these departments oversee the work of Collection Development staff, including seven bibliographers, one area cataloger, and five support staff, a Digitization Librarian, a Digital Technologies Librarian, and an Editorial Assistant.

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Each of the bibliographers is responsible for selecting materials from a particular geographic imprint area. In Humanities, Social Sciences and West European Resources Collection Development, English language materials are further divided between two selectors, one specializing in the humanities and another in the social sciences. These bibliographers cover print, microform, and electronic materials published in North America, the English-speaking Caribbean, the British Isles, sub-Saharan Africa, South and Southeast Asia, Australasia, and Oceania. The West European Bibliographer is responsible for humanities and social sciences titles published in other Western European countries (except the Iberian Peninsula), North Africa, and the Middle East. These three bibliographers are located in the Central Office of the Department and select materials that are processed by the Central Office Manager, the Central Office Data Management Specialist and students in the Central Office before being sent to the Acquisitions Department for ordering and receiving.

The bibliographers in Global Resources and Area Studies Collection Development are responsible for the humanities, social sciences and, to some extent, the sciences for their areas of the world. The Latin American and Iberian Bibliographer covers Latin America, the Spanish and French-speaking Caribbean, Spain and Portugal; the Slavic Bibliographer, materials published in Russia, the countries of the former Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe; the East Asian Bibliographer, publications from China, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan, as well as East Asian language publications published in North America; and the South Asian Bibliographer, titles published in India, Pakistan, and neighboring countries. The East Asian Bibliographer also oversees a cataloger who catalogs vernacular materials. The area studies bibliographers identify and select materials, and, in the case of Slavic and East Asian Resources, their library technical assistants order and receive materials.

All the bibliographers select current monographic titles in print, microform, and electronic formats to support the University's study, teaching, and research needs, build to the traditional strengths of the collections, and enhance cooperation with neighboring universities. They do selection in a systematic way that maximizes coverage while minimizing gaps and avoiding duplicate orders. To this end the bibliographers use a variety of strategies and information sources, including approval plans, vendor forms, prepublication information (often also supplied by the vendors), publisher catalogs, national and trade bibliographies, and user requests for title-by-title selection. Approval plans cover university presses and major trade and scholarly publishers in North America, and other countries. Bibliographers may select belles lettres titles by developing and maintaining lists of major authors drawn from a variety of sources, including faculty recommendations. These lists exist for North America, the British Isles, France, Germany, Italy, and Russia.

In addition to collection development programs, bibliographers are also responsible for collection management activities. They regularly review and evaluate the collections to identify areas of strength and weakness, both in terms of existing programs and of new areas of teaching and research. They add to the collection appropriate new and retrospective titles received as gifts from the Library’s donors. They identify materials for transfer to Wilson Annex and other locations and discard materials no longer needed in the collections. They work with the Preservation Librarian to identify fragile materials in the collection and decide on appropriate preservation options. The bibliographers also work with the Digitization Librarian to transform materials from traditional into electronic formats so as to make them more broadly available to users on the World Wide Web.

In accordance with Library Administrative Board policy, responsibility for the selection of retrospective and specialized materials, serial subscriptions and serials cancellations rests with the faculty, particularly the book chairs. To facilitate these tasks, the bibliographers gather and send out-of-print catalogs and a variety of other bibliographic sources to them for their perusal. In the case of serials, they regularly identify new titles and request sample copies to facilitate selection. Bibliographers also develop strategies and provide logistical support to aid faculty in the task of reviewing serials for cancellation.

As library liaisons with the faculty, bibliographers maintain close contact with book chairs and individual members of the teaching and research faculty, as well as with graduate students and other researchers, to keep abreast of evolving academic programs and their needs. They conduct collection evaluations in support of internal and external departmental reviews, devise and write library grants, aid academic departments in the writing and submission of grants, and collaborate with faculty on a great variety of projects related to teaching, learning, and scholarship. Bibliographers also communicate with donors to the Library to identify areas of possible interest and report on the use of their gifts.

In addition to their work with faculty and the broader public, bibliographers also cooperate with colleagues in various departments of the Library to create and improve services to the Library's users. They maintain close working relationships within Technical Services (the Acquisitions and Catalog Departments), and with Public Services (especially the Reference Department in Davis Library).

Inter-library relationships are also an important part of the bibliographers' work. They establish and maintain cooperative programs with neighboring universities: Duke, North Carolina State, and North Carolina Central. These historic programs, which are among the first of their kind in the United States, began six decades ago and have been carefully nurtured since then. Their contribution is fundamental to the depth and breadth of the area's library collections. The Triangle Research Libraries Network currently provides many opportunities for cooperative initiatives in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. In addition bibliographers participate in regional and national cooperative endeavors, when appropriate.

Digitization Services includes the Digitization Librarian, the Digital Technologies Librarian, and an Editorial Assistant. They work with faculty, curators, and selectors to provide access to materials in the library’s collections that would benefit teaching, learning, and research on campus and around the world. They supervise text preparation, OCR scanning and editing, proofreading, encoding, preparation for publishing on the World Wide Web, and cataloging.