1. Running head: INTERVIEW REPORT: TERRI SUMMEY 1
Interview Report: Terri Summey
Erin Colby
Emporia State University

2. INTERVIEW REPORT: TERRI SUMMEY 2
Introduction
For this assignment I interviewed Terri Summey; one of the collection development
librarians at Emporia State University’s William Allen White Library in Emporia, Kansas. Terri
graduated from Dana College, then went on to attend the University of North Texas and received
her master’s in library science. She also received a master degree from Emporia State in history.
Currently Terri is head of access services, and children’s services, and is the collection
development librarian for the Biology, Physical Education, Children’s Services, and Instructional
Design and Technology Departments. Along with that, Terri also teaches a class on print and
electronic resources for the School of Library and Information Management at Emporia State.
Her everyday duties consists of supervising library employees, ordering books, and maintaining
the book collections she in charge of. At WAW Library the types of patron Terri interacts with
most are college students, (both undergraduate and graduate students) and the professors in the
departments mentioned previously.
Interview
Staff
Terri works closely with all of the WAW Library staff. Along with daily communication
with her co-workers, Terri often interact with the collection development team, which consists of
9 other librarians who are in charge of maintaining several different collection, meet on a bi-
weekly basis to discuss any issues that have come up. Terri stressed the importance of these
meetings because all of the collection development librarians are dealing with the same issues, so
being able to hear different methods of dealing with those issues is crucial and it helps her make
decisions on how and where she spends her budget each year.

3. INTERVIEW REPORT: TERRI SUMMEY 3
Budget
Terri has a certain amount of money allocated to her for each school she buys books for,
and once the money is gone it is gone for good. Even with the budget cuts in other areas her
yearly budget for collection development has not been cut but it has not increased either in at
least 5 years. Consequently, Terri has to make tough decisions regarding what books she buys.
There are a number of items that influence what materials she purchases each year; she looks at
the curriculum being taught, faculty requests, and book costs. Lastly, Terri said that she has a
certain amount of “standing orders” which are books that are ordered automatically each year.
These orders increase in cost each year, so she also has to take that into account when looking
for books to purchase. Once she knows how much is being spent on standing orders, she starts
looking at books to purchase. She wants to get the most for money, so her decision to purchase a
book relies heavily on the cost of the book.
Collection Development
Before purchasing any books Terri consults several difference resources. First, Terri
either attends a department meeting or e mails all of the professors in the departments she is in
charge of and asks them if there are any books they would like to see added to the collection. She
also completes a collection assessment of the resources she has. If she notices an area that is
weak, she will specifically look for books in that area to make the collection more robust. Other
parts of her collection assessment include making sure that each area she is in charge of is as up-
to-date as possible, and weeding out books that are not being used. Terri said the she does not
weed that often, but it is still an important part of maintaining the library’s collection. Once she
has the recommendations from the professors and analyzes the current collection, she consults

4. INTERVIEW REPORT: TERRI SUMMEY 4
amazon.com to get an idea of the price and reviews of the books she might be interested in
purchasing. She also looks at publisher magazines and books in print. The resource that Terri
consults the most when researching book titles is Choice Academic Review because she feels that
this resource is the most current, authoritative, concise, and easy to use of all the various
resources available.
Terri also discussed the increased use of technology, specifically e-readers,
among her patrons and how it affects her purchasing decisions. Even though there are a lot of
reasons to purchase e-books the fact that there are not enough students who use e-readers on a
regular basis, in her opinion, does not warrant the purchase of a large amount of e-books at this
time. Furthermore, contrary to my expectation Terri said that e-books are more expensive than a
physical book. When it comes to the purchase of magazine publications however, Terri would
rather have an online subscription Terri would rather have an online subscription even if the cost
is higher, due to strong student preference for this format.
Personal Value Statement
I thought the interview with Terri was very useful to my development as a librarian. She
has been a collection development librarian for almost 20 years so she has a lot of knowledge
about how to develop and maintain a collection. Even though I will not be an academic librarian
I will still use a lot of the same methods she does when purchasing books. The importance of
analyzing your collection and communicating with other faculty member is something that I will
take with me and implement in my library.
I found that I had many misconceptions about how she purchased materials and what
types of materials she purchased. With the prevalence of technology in our everyday lives, and

5. INTERVIEW REPORT: TERRI SUMMEY 5
the current trend of libraries leaning more towards purchasing electronic resources I thought that
Terri would be purchasing more electronic materials for the library then she actually does. My
belief that electronic books and magazine publications were less expensive than actually
receiving a physical copy of the book was also wrong. When I have my library this will also be
something that I will have to look at closely when I have to purchase books. There are so many
different types of librarians, but the things that remain the same is that we are in charge of
making sure our library has the best materials possible for our patrons, no matter what.