Collection Development and Management for 21st Century Library Collections

An Introduction

Vicki L. Gregory

• Publisher: ALA Neal-Schuman
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9780838917121
• eBook ISBN:
  9780838917602
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Library & Information Science
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Packed with discussion questions, activities, suggested additional references, selected readings, and many other features that speak directly to students and library professionals, Gregory's Collection Development and Management for 21st Century Library Collections is a comprehensive handbook that also shares myriad insightful ideas and approaches valuable to experienced practitioners. This new second edition brings an already stellar text fully up to date, presenting top-to-bottom coverage of

• the impact of new technologies and developments on the discipline, including discussion of e-books, open access, globalization, self-publishing, and other trends;
• needs assessment, policies, and selection sources and processes;
• budgeting and fiscal management;
• collection assessment and evaluation;
• weeding, with special attention paid to electronic materials;
• collaborative collection development and resource sharing;
• marketing and outreach;
• self-censorship as a component of intellectual freedom, professional ethics, and other legal issues;
• diversity and ADA issues;
• preservation; and
• the future of the field.

Additional features include updated vendor lists, samples of a needs assessment report, a collection development policy, an approval plan, and an electronic materials license.

CHAPTER 1

The Impact of New Technologies on Collection Development and Management

Welcome to one of the most interesting subjects in library and information science: collection development and management. Selecting and managing library resources is at the heart of the library and information science (LIS) profession, alongside cataloging and classification. We will leave cataloging and classification to another day, since this book will concentrate on the collection itself—selecting, acquiring, assessing, weeding, and preserving the library’s collections are the main focus here.

This chapter looks at some of the new technologies and issues that are currently influencing and effecting changes in library services as well as collection development and maintenance, such as open access, self-publishing, and e-books. This chapter is intended just as an introduction to these issues, since they will be explored in greater depth in later chapters dealing with specific aspects of collection development and maintenance. Instead of bringing up these issues in this chapter as a nod to the future (they are too important for that), they are being discussed at the beginning of this text and then sprinkled throughout other chapters as appropriate.

OVERVIEW

The process of selecting the materials for and adequately maintaining the currency and relevance of virtually any library’s collection of materials, in whatever format, has always required a high level of tolerance for continuous change with regard to newly available materials, as well as a clear-headed recognition of the need for constant evaluation and reevaluation of those items already in hand. As libraries became more widespread and thus more available to the general public in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, fairly standardized processes for collecting print materials came to be developed, and these processes were refined and disseminated by library schools and handed down by librarians to their successors.

But these standard processes for selecting and evaluating materials necessarily had to evolve as conditions, user needs, and resources changed. Thus, today, the problem has altered significantly. Libraries must now also include significant electronic resources in their collections or otherwise make them available, and most importantly, they must purchase and maintain the necessary hardware and software to enable the effective use of these resources. With libraries today also being called upon to provide the means for users to access library collections remotely from their home or office, and to make available and participate in various online social networks in order to go where their users are, the focus of collection development, and indeed the concept of what constitutes a collection, is changing. Even the library’s organization and management of the selection of materials has evolved.

Although automated and electronic records were initially the exclusive domain of library technical services divisions, with cataloging and then circulation and then acquisitions using the services of electronic vendors and electronic services such as OCLC, the use of electronic records has become one of the standard services, and in many cases a central focus, of the reference department. And user demand for all types of electronic resources and records has brought collection development into the electronic age.

Open access (OA) is becoming an increasingly important topic in journal literature as increasing numbers of books and monographs in library collections are being held in OA form. OA refers to online materials that are free of all restrictions on access (e.g., access or subscription fees) and are also free of many restrictions on use (e.g., certain copyright and license restrictions). OA can be applied to all forms of published output, including academic journal articles, conference papers, theses and dissertations, book chapters, and monographs. Although open access journals save the library subscription fees, they still require selection and examination for quality, since easy access to them on the Web has opened up yet another avenue for fraudulent practices where these types of materials are concerned. The open access movement was strengthened as government grants began requiring that the findings resulting from federally funded research be published in OA publications. (More information about open access can be found later in this chapter. See also chapter 4 for information on predatory journals and open access.)

The fast-growing user preference for electronic resources has severely affected the collection development budgets of most libraries. Contrary to the promise of reductions in the cost of the availability of information implicit in the electronic format, the new electronic resources do not usually supplant and rarely completely replace existing materials. Viewed from this angle, electronic materials therefore represent still another format that must be collected if the library is to keep up with the times and meet the demands of its patrons. Unfortunately, more than subject-matter expertise is needed to select these materials; the selector must also possess sufficient technical expertise (or have access to those with technical expertise) in order to both evaluate what equipment may be needed to access any new product and analyze how well the product performs. In the case of social networking, there are also considerations of security for the library’s network and computer stations.

E-BOOKS AND LIBRARIES

Although e-books are now purchased in all types of library environments, many academic libraries in particular are rapidly reducing their print collections and changing their emphasis to e-books and electronic services for users. Librarians are reclaiming shelf space by weeding print books and replacing them with e-books in order to put in “makerspaces” and labs where students can collaborate on projects (McAlister and Scherlen 2017).

Conventional library wisdom today asks the following question: since reading an e-journal, given the ease of document printing, is generally considered by students to be a superior alternative to going to the library to read the original print copy, why won’t e-books become more popular than print books? But e-book sales lately tell quite a different story. In November 2016, the American Association of Publishers released a report showing that in the first half of 2016, e-book sales were down 20 percent: “Ebook sales continued to decline in 2016. That’s good news (for those who advocate free reading)” (No Shelf Required 2016). Along with this, a recent Pew study showed that e-book usage is down significantly in public libraries where print book circulation far exceeds that of e-books (Horrigan 2016). Even in academic libraries, the most recent statistics indicate that the usage of e-books is at best flat (Ennis 2016). Based on survey research, a 2016 report on e-books in academic libraries found that “print-books are still firmly ensconced in academic libraries, and are preferred by library users—students and faculty—for most kinds of content, although ebooks are favored for reference titles” (Library Journal 2016, 3).

Many recent articles about e-books in libraries conclude that while at the outset, patrons were fascinated with the new e-reading technologies, after their initial checkout of e-books, many returned to reading hard-copy print materials, and e-book checkouts dropped correspondingly and significantly. Research by multiple authors has pinpointed many variables for this, but all have identified one specific rationale: transient fascination with the new. Readers were intrigued by the idea of e-books, and so they bought e-readers and checked out e-books right away. But as the fascination with the new wore off, readers went back to checking out paper books, and so e-book circulation dropped significantly (Rosenwald 2015). This is further evidence that the need to keep up with your users’ preferences dynamically as those preferences change is a key aspect of collection development, not only with regard to titles but also in respect of the selection of formats.

The fast-developing phenomena of open access, the information commons, self-publishing, Web 2.0 and social networking, the “long tail” (as described by Chris Anderson), and globalization are all impacting the way librarians and information specialists must view the collection development process and collection issues for their libraries. While libraries have for many years been purchasing access to databases that are not housed at or in their local facilities, it is only of late that they have begun purchasing access to streaming video, etc. for the benefit of their users. The focus is turning, and probably will accelerate, on obtaining access rather than ownership. Let’s look at several of these phenomena.

SELF-PUBLISHING AND LIBRARIES

Self-publishing, particularly in e-book formats but also in print on demand, has certainly taken off recently. For those libraries that have tended to automatically dismiss self-published books as ephemeral or vanity material and therefore have not added them to their collections, think again! A number of factors are leading to more self-publishing: the Web, open access, and changes in the commercial publishing industry, as well as authors’ desire to be read even if this means that they don’t make money on the publishing of their books. According to recent issues of the Bowker Annual, self-published titles are on the way to becoming the majority of the titles published in the United States (Bowker 2014). Once your awareness of the self-published book is raised, they seem to be all around you. Since all library budgets are constrained these days, wouldn’t it be advantageous if you could get to that content before it was necessary to spend larger sums to acquire it from a publisher? What if you could help a local author make his or her name and work known to the reading public? With so many academic libraries focused, if not obsessed, with open access, why not make at least local material available without purchasing it from a publishing house?

As noted above, many librarians have considered self-published or “indie” titles to be nothing more than the latest manifestations of vanity press publications—those titles that authors paid to have printed, only to let them sit in their basements or garages, since bookstores would not carry them and libraries usually turned them down, even as gifts. All of this has changed with e-books and print on demand, as well as the rise of Amazon and other web-based sales outlets. In fact, an entire industry has grown up to support these authors.

Self-published books can serve many purposes in a library. In some cases, they may serve as primary source material, particularly for local history. They can help document popular culture before it makes its way into mainstream publishing. Public libraries are discovering that self-published novels and memoirs are an inexpensive way to supply the materials desired by public library users. With the growing popularity of open access publishing, self-published works may include the work of independent scholars or the faculty of colleges and universities. Self-published textbooks are being encouraged in many colleges and universities, and these provide a much less expensive option for textbooks and other required reading. For universities, self-publishing may support scholars conducting research in such a narrow field that traditional university presses or mainstream publishers may not find it profitable to publish their work (Holley 2015).

The key is having the right software and processes in place to allow review and corrections to be made to self-published items, which helps to make them, if not fully comparable to those titles published by mainstream publishers, at least worthy of their placement in a library’s collection.

Public libraries are themselves becoming involved in providing the platform to assist local authors in the publication of their own materials. One such initiative is SELF-e, which is a partnership between Library Journal and BiblioLabs, a Charleston, South Carolina-based company. BiblioBoard, a BiblioLabs product, is a software platform designed to bring self-published works into the library world. The Cuyahoga County Library in Parma, Ohio, served as the pilot project for the platform after that library indicated it was looking for a software platform to support local authors. The process works something like this:

• • An author goes to the library’s website and uploads an EPUB or PDF file.
• • BiblioBoard staff review the content of the file to ensure that it is not illegal (such as child pornography) or plagiarized.
• • Authors indicate whether they want Library Journal curation, which will make their work available to a national audience, or whether they only want their work to be available locally.
• • The plan is for BiblioBoard to provide MARC records for the book in the future.
• • The author’s agreement with BiblioBoard distribution is not an exclusive one, so if the book becomes popular and a commercial publisher becomes interested, the author can withdraw his or her work from BiblioBoard.

The main advantage to authors of using this approach is to get their work out into the library environment, and for libraries the advantage is bringing a new area of content to their collections (LaRue 2015b, 53).

ONEBOOKAZ is another example of a library project (of the Arizona State Library, Archives, and Public Records) that encourages the writing and sharing of self-published or unpublished e-books, in this case by means of a contest. There are three categories: adult, teens, and kids. For this contest, the books have to be by Arizona authors, but not necessarily about Arizona. Downloads are available in any Arizona location through the BiblioBoard SELF-e platform. The award-winning authors were scheduled to appear in public libraries around Arizona, thus giving them even greater visibility, and reading guides were created for each of the winners (LaRue 2015a, 41).

THE “LONG TAIL”

Chris Anderson, who was then editor in chief of Wired magazine, in his book The Long Tail (2006) assessed the future of consumer buying, suggesting that industries and businesses will be serving consumers needing a greater number of things, but satisfying the needs of readers, music lovers, and so on is going to be a thing of the past. A wide array of choices is becoming increasingly important, as evidenced by cable television with 200–300 channels, and movie multiplexes with 10 or more screens. Anderson concentrates on the increasing importance of the “niche market” (p. 5). If he is correct, then the public library will increasingly feel the pressure to pr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Preface to the Second Edition
• Acknowledgments
• 1. The Impact of New Technologies on Collection Development and Management
• 2. Assessing User Needs and Marketing the Collection to Those Users
• 3. Collection Development Policies
• 4. Selection Sources and Processes
• 5. Acquisitions
• 6. Budgeting and Fiscal Management
• 7. Assessment and Evaluation of the Collection, Including Deselection (Weeding)
• 8. Cooperative Collection Development and Resource-Sharing
• 9. Legal Issues in Collection Development
• 10. Professional Ethics and Intellectual Freedom
• 11. Preservation
• 12. The Future of Collection Development and Management
• Bibliography
• Appendix
• Index