7. 7
“The collection, then, does not belong collection management. In a
very real sense it does not belong to the library; rather, it is a resource
that is used by community members who are external to the library”
Budd, 195
13. “We are trying to enable anyone in the world to be their own educational
DJ, creating educational materials, sharing them with the world,
constantly innovating on them.”
(Richard Baraniuk)
13
14. “Can you imagine there was a
time when the books in the library
didn’t talk to each other?”
14 Marvin Minsky
Notas del editor
So how do we do this? Is this collection development? How do you define collections?
“The Traditional Collection is physical, but it is not merely physical. It embodies the nonmaterial element that enables faculty and students to be informed and to learn” Budd, 181.So what is traditional? Books – “seen as the medium of choice to deliver a fully developed idea or program of research” The book states that the structure of humanities is not going to change – what do you think about this? How does this affect humanities based programs? Is the book still “king” in the humanities?Prices of books vs. serials…which leads toSerials – while scholarly book production is “declining” serials are growing…this is where so many scholars are expected to work – even in some research 1 universities a number of articles can substitute for a book…in addition fields like STEM (among many others) are often journal only type endeavors…how will you pay for serials? Print vs. online – what if you are part of a consortium – do you take what you can get? How do you make these decisions – what best suits your institution? How do you determine what you need? Faculty outreach?Economics of serials…the purchaser is not the consumer…Bensman and Wilder (at Atkins now) performed an analysis of all facets of technical and scientific journal pubs that LSU libraries could use tools already in house (including tech) could cancel subscriptions with no discernible impact on information access…What do you think about this?
SPACE!!!! What do we do with space?Touches on physical space as well as access and services – have you ever tried to retrieve or shelf a book when the stacks are full? What do you think of compact shelving or remote storage facilities?How does shelving affect services? ADA compliance, OSHA complianceHow do you decide priorities? RESEARCH! What do your institutions need? What do your students and faculty need? What is the mission of the library? Of course I also think you will have to deal with virtual space…as an administrator you will have to think about storage for other items – such as journals – open source documents – institutional repositories…we will get into this more in a few…
Who decides? Patron driven, faculty driven, librarian driven?Budd says that in many cases faculty selections are driven by individual need not instructional, is that true of student driven as well? Do faculty equate the “collection” with the library? How do you feel about that statement…should they?Charles Hamaker (another Atkins person) – suggests that we manage the collection by taking a “more careful look at the library’s important goals”…this again goes back to library and institutional mission…who are you serving and why?What about policies – they do need to be fleixible, not reactive, not stuck in a particular time and placeWhat about approval plans? Creating a profile that allows items to be pre-selected (by the vendor)Interlibrary Loan is a way to expand your collection as well as determine needs…Evaluation – should be backed by research at your library…individual to the institution…again Hamaker…using circ counts may not be enough…why is something used…why was it left on the table…what is use?
So where do we get information? Who decides what is in the database? Options are determined by the provider, bundling – will Academic Search Complete have only 4 journals that meet your institution needs…do you buy it…do you have a choice?What about web-sites – do you gather them for your students? Do you put together lists of “approved” or “valid” sites that they can use? Is this part of a liaison duty or embedded librarian position?
How do you feel about this? What does it mean for scholarly journals?Can schools create their own journals?Is it just for the sciences?
Digital scholarship and digital humanities…it is growing…the open access refereed journal…libraries are hosting them as well…what does this mean for libraries? Collection, space?“print on paper has never been the best medium for many kinds of data and information”…what does this mean for libraries? As librarians and administrators what do you think are the implications?
What do you think of this? What about Connexions…where are libraries in this equation?
So how do we make our collection talk? How do we speak for them and our constituents? Collection questions are ongoing and we are very well suited to create the answers…
