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CHAPTER ONE
Introduction to Collection Development and Management
What do librarians mean when they say collection development and management? The concise answer is all the activities involved in building and managing library collections in all formats and genres, both locally held and remotely accessed. This book distinguishes between collection developmentāthe thoughtful process of developing or building a library collection in response to institutional priorities and community or user needs and interests, and collection managementāthe equally thoughtful process of deciding what to do after the collection is developed.
This chapter will introduce concepts; offer a historical overview of libraries and their collections, with emphasis on the United States; and examine the evolution of collection development and management as an area of focus in librarianship. Understanding the history of collection work and external forces influencing collections is valuable because contemporary practice builds on that of the past. Todayās librarians work with library collections that have been created over many years in accordance with earlier practices and conventions. In addition, many challenges contemporary librarians face have remained constant over time. Topics introduced in this chapter are explored in more depth in subsequent chapters.
COMPONENTS OF COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT AND MANAGEMENT
The terms collection development and collection management are often used synonymously or in tandem. The professional organization within the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services that focuses on this topic is called the Collection Management Section. The Reference and User Services Associationās comparable section is called the Collection Development and Evaluation Section. The Medical Library Association has a Collection Development Section, the American Association of Law Libraries Special Interest Section has a Collection Development Committee, and the Association for Library Service to Children has a Childrenās Collection Management Discussion Group.
Regardless of the term used, librarians generally have a common understanding of the practice and purpose of collection development and management, namely:
The goal of any collection development organization must be to provide the library with a collection that meets the appropriate needs of its client population within the limits of its fiscal and personnel resources. To reach this goal, each segment of the collection must be developed with an application of resources consistent with its relative importance to the mission of the library and the needs of its patrons.1
Although written more than thirty years ago, before libraries experienced the profound changes in technology, society, and the economy that now characterize their environment, this description remains valid. Many have noted that libraries have shifted to a user focus and away from a collection-centered focus; however, the needs of the client population have been a concern of collection development and management from the earliest times. The materials that librarians opt to purchase and lease for their user communities, and the ways in which they make choices, remain critically important.
Collection development and management practitioners may be called selectors, bibliographers, collections librarians, subject specialists, liaisons or subject liaisons, collection development librarians, collection managers, collection strategists, collection analysts, or collection developers. Additional titles for those who build and manage collections also are used. In corporate libraries, those with collections responsibilities have various titles, including librarian, systems librarian, knowledge center manager, and information specialist. In smaller libraries, the individual who develops and manages collections may simply have the title of librarian or, in schools, school librarian or media specialist. Some titles, such as scholarly communications librarian and electronic resources librarian, describe responsibilities that have grown out of more traditional collections positions.
Collections responsibilities often are part of a suite of responsibilities that includes:
- ā¢ selecting materials in all formats for acquisition and access
- ā¢ reviewing and negotiating contracts to acquire or access e-resources
- ā¢ managing the collection through informed weeding, cancellation, storage, and preservation
- ā¢ writing and revising collection development policies
- ā¢ promoting, marketing, and interpreting collections and resources
- ā¢ evaluating and assessing collections and related services, collection use, and usersā experiences
- ā¢ responding to challenges to materials
- ā¢ carrying out community liaison and outreach activities
- ā¢ preparing budgets, managing allocations, and demonstrating responsible stewardship of funds
- ā¢ working with other libraries in support of resource sharing and cooperative and collaborative collection development and management
- ā¢ soliciting supplemental funds for collection development and management through grants and monetary gifts
The assignment and importance of these responsibilities vary from library to library and librarian to librarian, but they are generally found in all types of libraries. Thus this book is not organized into separate chapters for various types of libraries.
Each of these responsibilities requires knowledge of the libraryās fiscal and personnel resources, mission, values, and priorities, along with those of the libraryās parent organization, and of the community that the library serves. Collection development and management cannot be successful unless integrated within all library operations; thus, a collections librarian must have a thorough understanding of his or her libraryās operations and services and a close relationship with the units that provide them. Essential considerations for the collections librarian include who has access to the collection on-site and remotely, circulation and use policies, consortial arrangements, and ease of resource discovery. Collections librarians who work with contracts and licenses need to comprehend the legal requirements and policies of the library and its parent organization. A constant theme throughout this book is the importance of the internal and external environments within which collections librarians practice their craft.
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
The existence of several ancient libraries, for example, those in Hattusha and Pergamon (modern Turkey), Nineveh (modern Iraq), and Alexandria (modern Egypt), has been documented, but no records of their selection criteria have been found. Many of the oldest libraries, for example, that at Hattusha (ca. fifteenth century BCE to ca. twelfth century BCE), which housed between 1,500 and 2,000 cuneiform tablets, functioned as archives that preserved legal codes, official correspondence, treaties, and contracts.2 The earliest libraries served primarily as storehouses of official documents and sacred texts or as treasuries to display wealth and power rather than as instruments for the wide dissemination of knowledge or sources for recreational reading.
Over time, libraries began to aggressively add items, develop into centers of learning and translation, and were opened to scholars. The library at Alexandria, which flourished as a center of scholarship between the third century BCE and the first or second century CE, held more than 400,000 mixed scrolls that included multiple works and another 90,000 individual scrolls, which were reportedly acquired through theft as well as purchase.3 Evidence suggests that some scholars enjoyed patronage and visitors were not limited by doctrine or philosophy.4 The Al-Qarawiyyin library, the oldest operating library in the world, was founded by Fatima al-Fihri in 859 to support education and research at the university of the same name in Fez.5 One can assume that the scarcity of written materials and their value as unique records made comprehensiveness, completeness, and preservation guiding principles. These continued to be library goals through the growth of commerce, the Renaissance, the invention of movable type, the expansion of lay literacy, the Enlightenment, the public library movement, and the proliferation of electronic resources.
Systematic philosophies of selection were rare until the end of the nineteenth century, although a few early librarians wrote about their guiding principles. Gabriel NaudĆ©, hired by Cardinal Mazarin to manage his personal library in the early 1600s, addressed selection in the first modern treatise on the management of libraries. He wrote, āIt may be laid down as a maxim that there is no book whatsoever, be it never so bad or disparaged, but may in time be sought for by someone.ā6 Completeness as a goal has been balanced by a desire to select the best and most appropriate materials. John Dury, in his 1650 tract The Reformed Librarie-Keeper wrote:
I do not think that all Books and Treaties which in this age are printed in all kindes, should bee inserted into the Catalogue, and added to the stock of the Librarie, discretion must bee used and confusion avoided, and a course taken to distinguish that which is profitable, from that which is useless.7
In 1780, Jean-Baptiste Cotton des Houssays, librarian at the Sorbonne, stated that libraries should consist only of books āof genuine merit and of well-approved utility,ā with new additions guided by āenlightened economy.ā8 What constitutes appropriate criteria for selectivity and determining what has merit and what is āuselessā has been a subject of continuing debate among librarians and library users for centuries.
Public Libraries
Contemporary public libraries had various precursors in the United States. Thomas Bray, an English Anglican cleric, arrived in the Colony of Maryland in 1699 with a commission to organize Church of England parishes and to supply them with books, for which he was granted funds.9 By the time he returned to England two years later, he had established seventeen parish libraries, which primarily supported clergy but also were open to the public. The largest was in Annapolis and held 1,095 volumes, then the largest public collection of books in the Colonies and āprobably the first free circulating library in the United States.ā10
Social libraries, sometimes called subscription libraries or membership libraries, were limited to a specific clientele and supported by their members. One of the better-known and perhaps the first was the Philadelphia Library Company, founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1731 and supported by fifty subscribers who shared the cost of importing books and journals from England.11 Many subscription...
