Collection Development and Management Commons^™

Rethinking Reference Resources: Redesigning A Roman Catholic Reading Room, Henry M. Handley

Marian Library Faculty Presentations

In this presentation, audiences learned about how collection assessment, strategic collection development, and curation of art and books on display redesigned the reading room of an historically Roman Catholic special collection. Library workers sought to better represent the diverse faith traditions, scholarship, and creative activity the library supports and better serve the variety of researchers who use the space, from first-year undergraduates in library instruction sessions to faculty and independent researchers. The presentation asked audiences to consider the positionality of their own institutional public spaces and visible collections and to identify tools to facilitate radically welcoming, multidisciplinary learning in them.

Report: 2022 Ala-Core National Binding Survey, Beth Doyle, Richenda Lea Brim, Joyce Chapman, Mark Coulbourne, Tanya Cathlene Ellenburg-Kimmet, Jenny Levine

Roesch Library Staff Publications

The American Library Association (ALA) Core Preservation Administration Interest Group (PAIG) held a Symposium on the Future of Library Binding in 2022. Following the symposium, the ALA Core Library Binding Practices Survey Team (hereafter, “Team”) was convened to explore issues that arose during the symposium. The Team members volunteered to create a survey on current library binding practices to gain a better understanding of who is using library binding as a preservation and access method, how they are using such services, and the challenges that face the community.

Full-Text Retrievals And Ebsco Discovery Service: Assessing Usage Of E-Journals Across Multiple Platforms, Simon Robins

Roesch Library Faculty Publications

This study utilizes COUNTER 5 data from the University of Dayton (UD) to measure full-text retrievals of e-journal articles from five major academic journal publishers (Taylor & Francis, SAGE, Oxford, Wiley, and Springer). Usage data from these publishers’ e-journals within EBSCO is compared to the same content when accessed from publisher platforms such as Wiley Online Library or SpringerLINK. Building on previous studies that have largely focused on links (or referrals) from the library discovery layer to publisher platforms, this study analyzes usage of full text-articles stored within EBSCO Discovery Service and EBSCOhost subject databases to consider how these full-text …

Citizen Web Archivists: Applying Web Archiving As A Pedagogical Tool, Kayla Harris, Christina A. Beis, Stephanie Shreffler

Marian Library Faculty Publications

Librarians and archivists preserve information on the Internet through web archiving, but undergraduate students may not have considered that information on the Internet is not always permanent. The asynchronous program, Citizen Web Archiving: Preserving Websites for the Common Good, taught students what web archiving is, why it’s important, the ethics of collecting information on the Internet, and how they could contribute to the historical record by archiving websites they deemed important via the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. The results suggest further opportunities for involving undergraduate students with web archiving initiatives at institutions, and using web archiving as a pedagogical tool.

The Veins That Lighten Dearth: Documenting Hidden Collections In Rural California, Jillian M. Ewalt

Marian Library Faculty Publications

This case study discusses an archival consulting project to document and preserve hidden collections in rural northern California. The paper provides an overview of the collecting institution (the Mother Lode Land Trust), the collections and their historical context, and the consulting process. The author highlights processing strategies to improve preservation and description while developing a post-custodial approach to managing collections in a rural, community-based archives setting.

Communication Across The Electronic Resources Lifecycle: A Survey Of Academic Libraries, Jessica M. Morales, Christina A. Beis

Roesch Library Faculty Publications

The objective of this study was to identify common communication issues that arise during the electronic resource lifecycle and identify communication strategies academic libraries are using effectively to manage electronic resources. A survey of academic librarians and staff received 240 responses and included 5-point Likert scale ratings on communication surrounding acquisitions, access, administration, support, evaluation, and renewal at their institutions. The study found that the acquisitions, evaluation, and renewal stages of the lifecycle experienced the most issues in communication, while support had the most positive responses. This article provides further discussion on the communication mechanisms used by academic institutions across …

Identity, Harm, And Hate In Special Collections, Henry M. Handley

Marian Library Faculty Presentations

LIS studies of diversity, equity, and inclusion frequently separate workplace interpersonal issues from collections issues, divorcing organizational culture from organizational collections, especially in special collections. Weeding harmful or hateful materials from circulating collections can lead to their transfer to special collections, where library and archives workers as well as their users can be impacted. This presentation addresses assumptions of an unmarginalized, neutral, and impervious arbiter in special collections and suggests solutions to give special collections workers and users agency and accommodation in the types of materials they are asked to handle, based in scholarship from BIPOC, LGBTQ, and disabled library …

Mary, Undoer Of Knots: Unraveling Best Practices For Unwanted Donations And Deaccessioned Collection Items In A Catholic Library, Sarah Burke Cahalan, Kayla Harris

Marian Library Faculty Publications

When humorist Tommy Tighe tweeted that he is “so Catholic I bury old parish bulletins instead of throwing them out whenever I clean out the van, just in case,”1 many on #CatholicTwitter felt a twinge of recognition. In addition to the human tendency to accumulate material things, there is also legitimate concern in a Catholic context about discarding materials associated with the practice of faith. The parish bulletin is an extreme example; we can safely relegate that to the recycle bin once we have read about the ladies’ breakfast and the Christmas wreath fundraiser. In the routine practice of the …

Accessing Web Archives: Integrating An Archive-It Collection Into Ebsco Discovery Service, Christina A. Beis, Kayla Harris, Stephanie Shreffler

Roesch Library Faculty Publications

Effective collaboration between archives and technical services can increase the discoverability of special collection materials. Archivists at the University of Dayton Libraries began using Archive-It to capture websites relevant to their collecting policies in 2015. However, the collections were only made available to users from the University of Dayton page on the Archive-It website. Content was isolated in a separate platform and was not promoted to users. Working together, the team of archivists and technical services librarians incorporated the web archive collections into the Libraries’ EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) discovery layer. A local data dictionary was created based on OCLC’s …

Behind The Scenes, Ready For Action: Cultivating And Conveying A Large-Scale Humanities Monograph Weeding Project With Campus Stakeholders, Heidi Gauder, Fred W. Jenkins

Roesch Library Faculty Presentations

Weeding books is a scary prospect for many librarians and faculty, particularly for humanities faculty, since monographs are critical scholarship in those disciplines. At this library, a renovation in one area created the need for a large-scale review of monograph collections in other areas. Library leadership began conversations with campus stakeholders early on, emphasizing renovation needs and outcomes, careful deselection methods, stakeholder opportunities for input, and sustainable collections. In the Fall 2017 semester, all subject librarians began identifying relevant titles for deselection and communicating with departments about the process. The Humanities librarians found themselves making additional collection considerations and working …

Climate Change: Implications For Professional Best Practices In Special Collections, Sarah Burke Cahalan

Marian Library Faculty Presentations

This presentation responds to research presented by Eira Tansey, Ben Goldman, and Whitney Ray. Both presentations were part of the seminar “Climate Change and Cultural Heritage: Gathering Data and Exploring Professional Implications for a Very Different Future,” presented on June 22 at RBMS 2018.

Looking Forward To Look Back: Digital Preservation Planning, Jennifer Brancato, Kayla Harris

Marian Library Faculty Presentations

Digital information resources are a vitally important and increasingly large component of academic libraries’ collection and preservation responsibilities. This includes content converted to and originating from digital form (born-digital). Preserving digital material, such as social media and websites, is essential for ensuring that future generations know everyone’s story, especially those groups which have been historically underrepresented in official records. This presentation will detail the steps undertaken by a digital preservation task force to first assess the weaknesses in current practice, and then develop a plan to implement a digital preservation policy and workflow. As part of the project, the task …

Rethinking Special Collections Moves As Opportunities, Not Obstacles, Colleen Hoelscher, Sarah Burke Cahalan

Marian Library Faculty Publications

In the summer of 2017, the Marian Library—a special library devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary within the larger University of Dayton Libraries system—completed a move of its rare book and archival collections into a new space within the main library building. The space, previously leased to the Society of Mary provincial archives, was already outfitted with a Liebert system for temperature and humidity controls, as well as shelving and some furniture.

Prior to the move, the rare book collection and archival holdings were stored in less than ideal conditions. In 2014, a consultant from Lyrasis conducted a preservation assessment …

Living Seeds Of History: The John Stokes And Mary's Gardens Exhibit, Stephanie Shreffler, Kayla Harris

Marian Library Faculty Presentations

This panel describes how the University of Dayton planned and carried out an exhibit on the John Stokes and Mary’s Gardens archival collection, featuring a garden inside the library. A “Mary garden” is a garden filled with flowers named for Mary.

The panel describes the content of the collection and how the exhibit was originally conceived; the exhibit design and programming; and the challenges faced during the planning process.

The exhibit provided a way for the Libraries to promote an archival collection that not only closely connected with the University’s mission as a Catholic institution, but also provided new opportunities …

Storytime Censored, Maureen E. Schlangen

Roesch Library Staff Publications

A exhibit of rare first editions of banned and challenged books -- many of them children's classics -- celebrates young people's freedom to read. Exhibit dates: Sept. 6-Nov. 13, 2016. Exhibit location: Roesch Library first-floor gallery.

Separating The Wheat From The Chaff: Intensive Deselection To Enable Preservation And Access, Colleen Hoelscher, Jillian M. Ewalt

Marian Library Faculty Presentations

In 2014, the Marian Library at the University of Dayton completed a long overdue revision of its collection development policy. The new document more clearly defined the scope of the library’s collections, and was intended to guide new acquisition decisions. However, this new document had the unexpected benefit of providing a framework for deselection projects that enabled preservation and improved access to the collections.

This paper will discuss and analyze two of these projects, and demonstrate how the revised collection development policy laid the foundation for successful deselection outcomes. In the first case study, legacy collections of genre-based ephemera were …

Library Testimonial: Mary Kuttler, Maureen E. Schlangen

Roesch Library Staff Publications

Graduate Mary Kuttler '15 shares the value of her library skills in her career.

An Olympic Ode To Cataloging, Maureen E. Schlangen

Roesch Library Staff Publications

When my colleagues in the University Libraries gathered on the west portico of Roesch Library June 9 for our own version of the Olympics, our competitive nature, mostly dormant in our daily work, emerged in events that put our teams to the test both physically and mentally: journal Jenga, journal toss, cart racing, book balancing, speed sorting and the hardest scavenger hunt I’ve ever participated in.

But like many things I’ve discovered in my two years in the Libraries, the information science that inspired these trivial games is anything but trivial.

As I raced to put a cart full of …

International Travel, Groovy Guys ... And Fathomless Good, Maureen E. Schlangen

Roesch Library Staff Publications

In 2013, the Marian Library received the papers of the late John S. Stokes Jr., co-founder of Mary’s Gardens, a Philadelphia organization that taught and encouraged the planting of devotional gardens in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mother. Active in civil rights and social justice movements, he was the director of the Wellsprings Ecumenical Center in Philadelphia. He died in 2007.

Among his papers was a collection of promotional brochures from a variety of religious orders. The University of Dayton Libraries have digitized them and made many of them available in eCommons, the University’s open-access institutional repository. In observance of …

Management And Administration, Joan Plungis

Roesch Library Faculty Publications

According to Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005), a revered and prolific writer in the field, “management pertains to every human effort that brings together in one organization people of diverse knowledge and skills.” Managers in both the forprofit and nonprofit arenas share similar responsibilities, he wrote, “among them defining the right strategies and goals, developing people, measuring performance, and marketing the organization’s services.” (The Essential Drucker: The Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker’s Essential Writings on Management. New York: HarperCollins, 2001, pp. 7–8.) Planning, organizing, leading, directing, and controlling are functions traditionally ascribed to management, but the field comprises …

Selectedworks User Guide, Berkeley Electronic Press (Bepress)

Roesch Library Staff Publications

Guide provides instructions for new and existing users of SelectedWorks, a companion product of eCommons designed to collect an author's scholarly work in one location from many different collections in the Digital Commons network.

Content, Credibility, And Readership: Putting Your Institutional Repository On The Map, Maureen E. Schlangen

Roesch Library Staff Publications

Open-access institutional repositories have become a reliable and stable medium for sharing scholarly work, advancing research, and elevating an institution’s profile. However, it takes time and effective marketing to gather content, build the repository’s credibility, and attract readership. Here, a handful of successful repository managers share what they have learned from the launch and growth of their repositories.

Library Testimonial: Margaret Mcaleese, Maureen E. Schlangen

Roesch Library Staff Publications

Experience in the University Libraries led Margaret McAleese to pursue a career in business research and helped land her a job with an industry-leading firm.

Library Testimonial: Deogratias Eustace, Maureen E. Schlangen

Roesch Library Staff Publications

Civil engineering professor and Transportation Engineering Laboratory director Deogratias “Deo” Eustace shares his thoughts on the people, materials, services and technology available in the University Libraries.

Library Testimonial: Barath Narayanan, Maureen E. Schlangen

Roesch Library Staff Publications

Electrical engineering doctoral candidate Barath Narayanan shares how he relies on the University Libraries to help him find the materials and information he needs to succeed.

Library Testimonial: Linda Arvin Skuns, Maureen E. Schlangen

Roesch Library Staff Publications

Secondary education graduate Linda Arvin Skuns ’63 shares how the role of libraries has grown and changed since her time as a student at UD.

Library Testimonial: Madeline Mcdermott, Maureen E. Schlangen

Roesch Library Staff Publications

A research instruction in the University Libraries and a visit to the Marian Library on the seventh floor of Roesch Library inspired Madeline McDermott '15 to create an archive for her high school alma mater and pursue two master's degrees in library and information science and public history.

Library Testimonial: Sam Wallace, Maureen E. Schlangen

Roesch Library Staff Publications

Sam Wallace remembers when Roesch Library opened in 1971; since then, it has been as much a part of campus life as Flyer basketball, Christmas on Campus and the student neighborhood. Its technology, spaces and resources keep advancing with the latest learning, research and teaching methods, he says.

Library Testimonial: Libby Durnwald, Maureen E. Schlangen

Roesch Library Staff Publications

Student Libby Durnwald shares the impact the University Libraries had on her studies, service and work.

Library Testimonial: David Darrow, Maureen E. Schlangen

Roesch Library Staff Publications

History professor David Darrow, director of the University Honors Program, shares his thoughts on the value of the University Libraries to students and faculty.