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IMLS Intern Grant Curriculum. Spring 2001
Unit on Collection Development and Management
Week of February 12–16, 2001
Eric Carpenter, Collection Development Librarian
Collection Development and Management: The Lecture Notes
A. CD AS A LIBRARY
FUNCTION:
What libraries do with information resources:
- Select
- Acquire
- Organize
- Make Available
- Preserve
Selection and Acquisitions functions are separate in largest libraries.
For example Univ. Libs. have specialized functions in separate departments
with subject specialists (bibliographers) organized by
- Subject (Art, Music, Business, Law, Medicine)
- area of the world/language (e.g. area studies specialists: Africa,
Middle East, East Asia, etc.)
What do you as students think Collection Development involves?
What do we do? How do we do it?
Collection Development is an invisible activity — can seem mysterious
How do all those books get onto library shelves? Who chooses them? Why?
How does a Library decide which databases and electronic resources to
provide to patrons?
Most CD activities take place out of public view in offices, backrooms,
etc.
Collection Development as a function is the first step in this process
by which materials are either Purchased or access to them is provided
for patrons
Collection Development (policy making, selection, gifts work)
linked with Collection management functions (preservation and de-selection
(weeding) to create and maintain appropriate and useable collections
(Wortman)
I. Policy formation: what does a library collect and why?
We collect the materials that support the Library's Mission (Show
Library
Mission Statement)
Academic libraries collect to support the teaching and resarch mission
of a particular college or university.
I. A. Liaison with patrons — From a mission statement to a
collecting program
A CD Librarian must find out what patrons need in the collection. Systematic
contact with users is essential.
Academic librarians must maintain liaison with each academic dept.
Liaison system — librarians are assigned to serve as liaisons with
each teaching dept.
Liaisons find out collecting needs of departments
Write Collection Development Policies based on these needs
Liaisons serve as communication channels to transmit orders for materials
from depts. to library and information about the library to Depts.
II. Written Collection Development Policies - The Master Plan
CD policy provides a comprehensive plan for developing the collection
Can be a brief statement (few paragraphs) or compilation of separate
subject collecting statements
- CD policies are arranged by subject (department) area
- It describes what is to be collected by standard parameters: (language,
types of materials collected, format)
- It includes a comprehensive list of subjects collected and collecting
levels assigned to each.
Show students: ALA Guide to Writing Policies, Guide for Written
Collection Policy Statements (ALA, 1996)
Sample CD Policy for a Subject: — sample Oberlin policies
Also need written policies for other important activities:
Policy statements explain rationale for the activity to the public
Gifts — provisions for accepting gifts of materials
New subscriptions — subscriptions are long term budgetary
commitments, costly. When and How to add subs?
Weeding — De-accessioning = removing titles from collection,
can be controversial, when is it done? How?
III. Collection Evaluation — What do we Have? What do we Need?
A policy must be put into action, selection decisions made, money spent,
etc. This requires that the library's existing collection be evaluated
against defined needs of patrons.
III. A. Types and Levels of Needs
1. Course Related needs
For academic libraries the curriculum largely determines the primary
reading needs of students and faculty as they prepare to teach these
courses
What books do students need for assigned readings in courses?
What are the collateral readings students should read to expand their
knowledge in each subject beyond assigned texts in each course?
2. Term Papers
What are the best books in each subject area in the curriculum?
What texts should a library have for students to consult in order to
write term papers, honors theses?
3. Faculty reseach generates another level of library needs
What texts do faculty members need to do research in their areas of
subject specialization?
This depends of course on the subject involved. Scientists use journals
and research reports, while humanists use monographs.
Collection evaluation involves considering all these factors and deciding
what published works the library collection should either hold locally
or provide access to (as in our case with OhioLINK)
It often means checking a particular list of titles in a subject area
against the library's collection with the intent to purchase the titles
a library does not hold
Evaluations: Large and Small
Large projects — new area is developed within the curriculum
Neuroscience, as new dept. in 1980's or
History and Religions of India also in 1980's Film Studies as new major
ARCHITECTURE in the Art Dept. is current need
Discuss library needs of each program with faculty (e.g. Barb Prior
and Prof. Andrew Shanken)
Identify important lists of books, journals, films, etc. to check against
holdings and purchase titles we lack. (Explain project to acquire back
files of important architecture periodicals)
Small projects — selectors need to keep up with changing composition
of the faculty and curriculum
Liaisons checking web pages for faculty in their departments and
syllabi for particular courses, against the catalog and ordering titles
This needs to be ongoing process, explain dynamic nature of patron's
needs, new courses, new faculty, etc.
IV. Selection — Making Choices
Selecting of materials is a very important, continuous activity, book
publication is continuous, so selection must keep up
Selectors need subject background in areas in which they select (need
to know authors, publishers and patterns of publishing, needs of users,
patterns of collection use). The more of this known, the better the
selector.
Two types of selection:
a. current publications
b. retrospective publications
Current selection — identifying and buying important books
as they are published throughout the year
Need program to systematically monitor what is published in each subject
area collected
Method to select and order the titles published as they appear
Approval plans as one method to do this
Title-by-title selection — using book reviews, selection forms,
publisher ads, catalogs
SHOW CURRENT SELECTION TOOLS: book reviewing tools, esp. important (CHOICE,
LIBRARY JOURNAL)
Retrospective selection — identifying what important books
published in the past in each subject collected and deciding what to
buy, using subject bibliographies to do this.
Getting patrons to identify these lists
List checking, desiderata list compilation, o.p. purchasing, etc.
SHOW RETROSPECTIVE SELECTION/EVALUATION TOOLS (BOOKS FOR COLLEGE LIBRARIES)
V. Acquisitions — Gathering the materials selected
Once titles are chosen they must be brought into the collection
Two methods of purchase:
A. Firm Orders
Titles must be checked against holdings to determine whether they are
in collection (Pre-order searching)
Order Placement (online, or paper orders) must be sent to a source who
provides title (publisher, vendor)
Receipts — books are sent to Library in shipments, books checked
against invoice to approve payment
Books approved for payment sent on to Catalog Dept. for addition to
holdings
B. Approval Plans
Books selected usually by subject according to detailed approval plan
profile
Profile arranged by subject, and publisher, and non-subject parameters
(price, pub. Date, language, format, etc)
Books sent upon publication to library
Books reviewed by library selection staff and approved for payment
Books sent to cataloging
Budget and Vendors
Library has a budget for information resources (books, microfilms, musical
scores and recordings, video formats, and electronic information resources:
reference and full-text databases, e-journals, etc.
Budget must be developed to support CD program: projection of needs,
securing budget from budgetary authority in the institution
Budget must be allocated by format or subject then managed through
fiscal year
Accounting must be done for each title ordered, charges made to each
subject/format allocation
Budget is tracked through the FY, reports generated for all parties
involved
Gifts are another method of acquiring materials, besides purchase (Linda
addresses this)
Once materials are added to collection, they must be maintained:
VI. Collection Management Issues — Existing collection must
be managed
Stacks Management and Space Issues — Oberlin adds approx. 20,000
vols. to shelves each year.
Stack space is finite and must be managed
VI. A. De-selection: Relegation to Storage
Many libraries have remote storage facilities to store titles not
needed on primary shelves but which we want to keep in collection. Oberlin
has shelves in Carnegie Library for remote storage
What titles should be sent to storage? Major issue for collection
management
CD staff work with circulation to select (de-select, remove from active
collection) titles to store
OhioLINK has remote storage facilities in 4 quadrants of state
CONSORT Libraries renting cooperative storage in Newark, OH , former
Public Library bldg.
VI. B. Preservation and Weeding
The collection ages, paper turns brittle, patrons and staff damage
books, books are stolen
Decisions must be made:
What books should be preserved? How? (mending, phase boxing,
microfilming, digitization)
What books should be replaced? — Finding books missing
frustrates patrons
What books should be WEEDED (removed from the collection permanently?
When? How? By Whom?
Policies and Procedures needed for each activity
Funding and staffing needed for each
VII. Cooperative Collection Development
Cooperation has been an "article of faith" among librarians for a century.
Cooperation in every area of library activity: collection development,
acquisitions, cataloging (MARC, OCLC), preservation
Cooperative Collection Development — effort by libraries
to leverage combined purchasing power, save money, and share resources
to make available a wider, richer body of resources to patrons.
Development of Consortia to support this
Cooperation by type of library (ARLIS, Music Libns, Oberlin Group
and Ohio5 Liberal Arts Colleges Libraries)
Cooperation by State — OhioLINK embraces all academic libraries
in OH, large, small, public or private funding
OhioLINK — formed in late 1980's to provide consortium
of academic libraries across Ohio to share resources
Built upon networked technological infra-structure
Each library with same online integrated library system
Central catalog
OhioLINK spending over $3–4 million/yr on information resources
Negotiating licenses with dozens of publishers to provide reference
and full-text databases and electronic journals and books to 70+ member
libraries
Includes consortial approval plan contract
OhioLINK CIRM Committee (Cooperative Information Resources Management)
Reps. From state and private colleges
Makes recommendations on what resources OhioLINK will provide to member
libraries
Initiates other cooperative projects:
- Study holdings of member libraries, as basis for
- Cooperative projects designed to: reduce duplication of collection
and make more titles available; Stretch information resource budgets
of all member libraries
- Manage cooperative remote storage facilities
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