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Future Paradox: Paradigm Shifts and Business as Usual![]()
Can This Orthodoxy Be Saved? Enhancing the Usefulness of Collection Plans in the Digital Environment
Carolynne Myall
Sue Anderson
Carolynne Myall is Head of Collection Services (E-mail:
[email protected]); and Sue Anderson is Acquisitions/ER Librarian (E-mail:
[email protected], both at Eastern Washington University).
The authors thank the respondents to their survey. They also thank Marty Kurth (Cornell University) for reviewing their survey questions, and Jonathan Potter (EWU) and Sydney Chambers (Gonzaga University) for reviewing their draft.
SUMMARY. This chapter discusses collection plans in the context of the current information environment with its mix of formats and its accelerated migration towards digital resources; and identifies problems with regard to the development of useful plans. The authors present the re
sults of an informal mailing list survey of collection development and electronic resources (ER) librarians; questions pertain to collection plans and, also, to professional preparation and continuing education, patterns of collaboration, and additional topics related to the work of the plan and management of collections that include digital resources. The authors provide suggestions for the improvement of the long-term value and immediate usefulness of collection plans in the digital environment and speculate about the qualities of the individuals who might bring about these changes. doi:10.1300/J105v32n03_01
[Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: < [email protected] > Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com> ©
2007 by The Haworth Press. All rights reserved.] KEYWORDS. Collection plans, collection development, electronic resources, collection development librarians
Introduction
Collection management is an umbrella term that covers activities in the development and maintenance of a library’s array of information resources: not only selection of resources for purchase or license, but, also, determination of budgets and allocations; inclusion or exclusion of free or donated resources; assessment of collections and their use; preservation; and de-selection, among other related activities.1 Policy documents that define the goals and objectives of these activities and provide guidance for their systematic implementation and management are known, variously, as collection management policies, collection development plans or policies, or, more broadly, as collection plans.
Librarians, generally, accept the value of the creation and regular review of collection development policies and plans. Though not all libraries have collection plans, there is a professional expectation that libraries should have them. A committee of the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) even identifies as its purpose: “to encourage libraries to establish and regularly review collection priorities, develop systematic approaches to collection development and management, and document those priorities in written policies . . . .”2
Indeed, states one of the leading writers in this area, “libraries without collection development policies are like businesses without business plans.”3
Still, some question the value of collection management plans–at least beyond service as general policy statements, and in comparison to the amount of effort required to create and maintain them. In a era of financial constraints on libraries, new purchase patterns, and a transition to electronic formats, do collection plans serve as sturdy, but flexible frameworks for decision-making, or are they smoke and mirrors that are, primarily, useful to distract funding authorities and provide cover for the real work? What are the perceptions of librarians who have responsibility for management of electronic resources (ER) as they concern the need for, value of, or daily usefulness of collection plans? Do collection policy documents aid librarians, hinder them, or have little bearing on their work? Do collection plans help ER librarians organize their work and set priorities, or is it just a burden to create and maintain them?
This chapter begins with a brief discussion of collection plans in the context of the current, information environment with its mix of formats and its accelerating migration towards digital resources. Some difficulties with regard to the usefulness of collection plans in the current environment are identified.
Next, in the spirit of this volume’s theme–the people who work with ER–the results of an informal, mailing list survey of collection development and ER librarians are presented. Many of the survey questions pertained, directly, to collection plans, systems of fund allocations, and other collection-related policies while others addressed professional preparation and continuing education; patterns of collaboration; and additional topics related to the work to plan and manage collections that include digital resources. Although the responses to this second set of questions are not related to collection plans per se, they help create a picture of the professional context in which collection plans are created, revised, used, ignored, and/or abandoned.
Finally, having picked the brains of their colleagues through a literature review and mailing list survey the authors venture to forward some suggestions to improve the long-term value and immediate usefulness of collection plans in the digital age and speculate about the qualities of the individuals who will be responsible to lead the implementation of these changes.
Collection Policies: Plans, Maps, Problems
Collection development plans and policies are written to guide the selection, acquisition, de-selection, and preservation processes of a library–in theory with regard to all formats. Collection plans synchronize the library’s collection activity with the mission of the library and its parent institution and relate this activity to the needs of identified clientele such as undergraduate students and faculty researchers.
Frequently cited discussions of the purposes and value of collection plans appear in the American Library Association’s Guide for Written Collection Policy Statements,4 Peggy Johnson’s Fundamentals of Collection Development and Management,5 and Mary J. Bostic’s, “A Written Collection Development Policy: To Have and Have Not.”6
Collection plans guide the identification of priorities for selection, explain reasons for exclusion, establish directions to plan and direct development and change, and assist in the establishment of priorities of staffand budget for collection support activities. Collection plans are both internal documents and public relations tools; they are a means to communicate with partners in collection development outside the library and may be used to negotiate for funds within the parent institution. When accreditation agencies visit, collection plans help provide answers about support for programs. Detailed plans can assist libraries to make the best use of funds through cooperation in selection with other institutions.
In addition to general directions, a collection plan provides a framework to provide answers to questions about selection decisions: why did librarians select one resource and not another, or why did they add certain gifts-in-kind to the collection and send others to a sale? In fact, a collection plan can serve as a line of defense against challenges of all sorts; from the inclusion or exclusion of controversial, sectarian, or mission-inappropriate materials to decisions about the allocations of funds. As one author summarizes, “We use collection development policies to defend our frontiers.”7
Yet, there are skeptics who doubt that formal collection plans and policies are worth the investment of time necessary for their creation and suggest that, although collection plans may have been defined by some as professional requirements, they have not been, convincingly, demonstrated to be useful. Two authors of cogent, thoughtful papers on this subject employ the word “orthodoxy”8 to describe the library profession’s belief in the value of collection plans.
Orthodoxy? A doctrine declared to be true by authority and tradition? A conviction justified by faith, rather than evidence? Or, a position rigidly held? In an era–and, perhaps, a profession–that valorizes change, innovation, flexibility, agility, shifting the paradigm, breaking out of the mold, thinking outside the box, etc., etc., does the collection plan have value?
Concerns about collection plans in general fall into a few categories:
Collection plans are, typically, static descriptions or containers of a dynamic enterprise.
Curricula change quickly; available funds change quickly; these days, publication and distribution systems change quickly as well. Yet, collection plans are rarely revised on a regular or frequent basis. As statements of principles, collection plans may retain value over several years; as guides for the annual work of selectors, collection plans may be seldom consulted. Dan C. Hazen calls collection plans “enshrinements of obsolescence.”9
The principles that govern collection plans are, typically, not linked to the economic realities of the institution.
During the last decade, library purchases have been limited by a combination of inflation in journal prices and static/reduced budgets. Libraries that once collected comprehensively in certain areas now have to be selective; libraries that once collected selectively in an area may now acquire little at all in that area. Yet, collection policies often do not highlight, or even mention, the link between collection activity and available funds. This is akin to an architectural blueprint for a structure that does not take into account future, ongoing costs, e.g., heat, maintenance, etc.
Collection plans purport to define objective standards and promote interchangeability of data. Actually, though the terminology of collection-levels may be standardized, in their application these terms and standards are, largely, subjective.
The Conspectus of the Research Libraries Group established a vocabulary of collection-levels, but, as one author comments, “What one bibliographer considers a ‘5’ in the Conspectus system, another considers only a ‘3.’”10
Terminology cannot, necessarily, be assumed to be consistent from one situation to the next, or across time. And, while levels may be related to proportion of available materials collected and, thus, to quantity of materials, they “do not imply value. Reporting a level of 4 or 5 does not mean a library is better . . .”11–only that its staffhas attempted to collect more comprehensively. In addition, the staff in question may have interpreted the levels differently.
There are further difficulties associated with the identification of a core collection of monographic or serial titles for undergraduate education; yet, the support of basic undergraduate education is a primary mission of academic libraries.
Assessment remains a difficult though critical enterprise; particularly for libraries that must be selective, rather than comprehensive in selection. Collection plans, often, provide minimal, realistic guidance.
It is tough to determine if a collection meets its objectives, i.e., to support undergraduate students in a particular discipline; particularly when there is no recent core, bibliography available for the discipline, or the discipline is in a state of change.
To remain current, the maintenance of collection plans requires regula...
