Collection Development and Management Commons^™

If We Had A Prologue: Lessons From A System Migration, Jodi Shepherd, Laura Krier

Charleston Library Conference

This paper is a reflection on a library system migration project from two project managers at two different campuses. The authors discuss challenges encountered, approaches taken, priorities established, and perhaps most importantly, what each would do differently with the benefit of hindsight. For those who are preparing to undertake a system migration, this paper will offer guidance and advice.

Introduction To Electronic Resource Acquisition, Linda Creibaum, Star Holloway

Charleston Library Conference

Two acquisitions librarians led an informal introduction to the basics of electronic resource acquisition in this session intended for those new to this unique and intricate field. The session explored acquiring e-books, journals, journal backfiles, primary source collections, and databases. Topics of discussion included vendor selection and services, timing for trials and purchases, access options, price negotiation, and licensing concerns. This session also reviewed communications with campus constituents concerning resource changes.

Participants left the session with a better understanding of possible options, considerations, resources, and support structures available to them as acquisition specialists.

Reimagining Print Materials In A Health Science Context: Creating And Marketing A Wellness Collection, Margaret Ansell, Ariel Pomputius

Charleston Library Conference

In the healthcare field in which out-of-date information can harm patients, the currency and immediacy of digital collections is highly valued. As a result, many health science libraries have deselected much of their print collections (Haapanen, Kultamaa, Ovaska, & Salmi, 2015; Lingle & Robinson, 2009; Tobia & Hunnicutt, 2008; Xiaoli & Kopper, 2005). However, print materials continue to be valued by health science library users for a variety of purposes (Houghton, 2017; Watson, 2016). This paper describes how one academic health science center library found a role for print materials in the context of a wellness initiative, which (1) gave …

History Has Its Eyes On You: Lighthouses And Libraries Weathering Storms Of Change, Corey Seeman

Charleston Library Conference

For hundreds of years, the United States has been protected by two venerable institutions. Lighthouses have served as a beacon on the shores to guide ships carrying both people and cargo to a safe harbor. Libraries have served as a beacon to guide people to books, magazines, journals, reference works, recordings, and other media for enlightenment, education, and enjoyment. Both lighthouses and libraries have enjoyed their status as “public goods” with little question in regard to the rationale for funding and support. Since most ships have navigation systems and we all have library items on our smartphones (we do, right?), …

Hosting A Library Vendor Week: A Better Way To Manage Site Visits?, Edward F. Lener, Carola Blackwood

Charleston Library Conference

Scheduling meetings between vendors and the appropriate library staff members is often a challenge, and the number of requests for site visits can quickly overwhelm any library calendar. The University Libraries at Virginia Tech recently held its first library vendor week in an attempt to address such concerns. Nearly two dozen vendors took part in the five-day event. This paper provides key lessons we learned during this experience and shares tips and strategies for libraries that may be interested in hosting their own multivendor event. With one perspective provided by the host library, and another from a vendor who took …

Navigating By The Stars: Library Leadership Lessons, Erin M. Gallagher, Jonathan H. Harwell, Mellissa J. Hinton, Annie M. Bélanger

Charleston Library Conference

In this unique and interactive Lively Lunch, participants will engage with four librarians with backgrounds in technical services and collections who transitioned to leadership roles. While some were thrust unexpectedly into the role, others followed a directed career trajectory. Yet, they all share the commonality of facing unforeseen challenges while seeking to emerge from the depths of inexperience. They will briefly share their experiences in leadership, as well as strategies for preparation, challenges they continue to face, and lessons they are still learning. Participants will learn about developing a personal leadership practice, as well as networking, mentoring, and professional development …

Landing The Job: Tips And Tricks To Prepare Students For The Job Hunt, Nora B. Wood, Heather A. Howard, Lauren Reiter

Charleston Library Conference

With universities, parents, and politicians paying close attention to student success after college, academic libraries are making efforts to support career readiness and preparation through collections and licensed resources as well as related instruction sessions and reference services. This paper presents examples from business librarians at three universities, covering a wide range of practical opportunities for libraries to support career preparation across campus, including partnering with Career Services for database cost sharing and career readiness workshops, teaching students to conduct company and industry research for interview preparation and salary negotiation, and out-of-the-box opportunities at career fairs and Alumni Association events.

Starting A Streaming Video Program On A Limited Budget, Cara M. Barker, Whitney P. Jordan, Jessica H. Zellers

Charleston Library Conference

Streaming videos are a desirable supplement to physical DVDs, but academic libraries may feel intimidated by the cost of adding another format to their collections. However, streaming videos can be surprisingly affordable. In the midst of a budget crunch, the librarians at Western Carolina University were able to start a streaming video program, first by selecting titles à la carte, and later by launching two streaming services, Kanopy (using a demand-driven acquisitions model) and Swank (using a mediated acquisitions model). These streaming videos allow for unlimited simultaneous access by local users as well as distance-education students, and they come with …

Managing Etds: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly, Dan Tam Do, Laura Gewissler

Charleston Library Conference

Mandating contribution of theses and dissertations (TDs) to university archives and their electronic equivalents (ETDs) to an institutional repository (IR) is common practice. Optimizing workflows for archival print copies while managing electronic copies in an IR can be challenging given such factors as embargoes and the skill sets required to ensure theses and dissertations are accessible, discoverable, and ultimately safely stashed where they belong. As rational processes were gradually developed at the University of Vermont, pitfalls and breakthroughs presented themselves. This article relates our experience launching an ETD mandate, including campus outreach initiatives and improvements to the various related processes …

The Digital Monograph And Primary Source Databases: Agenda Toward A Unified Conversation, James Kessenides

Charleston Library Conference

In the realm of scholarly research and publishing in the humanities, much interest and activity has focused on the impact of digital technology on the academic monograph, and on the application of this technology to archival collections. In terms of the former, this paper addresses the discourse of the “future of the monograph,” focusing on statements made about the digital monograph assuming new online forms. In terms of the latter, this paper comments on primary source databases. Whereas the “future of the monograph” has been approached mainly as a question of form, the matter of primary source databases has been …

What’S Past Is Possible: Opportunities And Perspectives For Library Alumni Resources, Jo-Anne Hogan, Corey Seeman

Charleston Library Conference

When considering the theme “What’s Past Is Prologue,” there might not be a better application than to think of former students at our colleges and universities. As they venture into the role of campus alumni, their information needs become complicated when they lose access to the wealth of electronic resources that are available at most campuses. Having resources at hand while a student is wonderful, but the grim reality of having little available upon graduation can be a bit of a letdown. A growing number of colleges and universities are offering alumni a suite of electronic resources that are either …

Assessing Large E-Book Collections: Is The Past A Roadmap For Developing Collections Of The Future?, Stacy B. Baggett, Andrew Kulp

Charleston Library Conference

Many academic libraries rely heavily on massive prepackaged e-book collections from vendors such as EBSCO and ProQuest to support their research communities. This shift away from traditional collection development is seen as a budget-friendly strategy to provide current monographs across many disciplines. Librarians at Shenandoah University questioned whether their largest e-book subscriptions, ProQuest’s Ebook Central and EBSCO’s eBook Academic Collection, measured up to standard collection development tools. This study uses the Outstanding Academic Titles lists published by Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries as a benchmark to measure the quality of large e-book collections. By analyzing five years’ worth of …

Eba In Practice: Facilitating Evidence-Driven E-Book Programs In Both Consortium And Individual Library Settings, John Abresch, Laura Pascual, Andrea Langhurst Eickholt

Charleston Library Conference

The University of South Florida (USF) Library maintains multiple DDA and EBA e-book programs as the basis for its collection management strategy in an effort to provide the scope of monographic material required by a large metropolitan research university in the most cost-effective manner. A patron-driven acquisitions program replaced the traditional print approval plan. Leveraging this usage data, several evidence-based acquisition programs were established with providers such as Wiley, Project Muse, and Elsevier. The process began with profiling the DDA and was developed combining factors that satisfied our programmatic requirements. Successful implementation at this scale requires collaborative effort from a …

O Brave New Print Collection, That Has Such Data Science Books In It!, Heidi Tebbe, Mira Waller

Charleston Library Conference

The field of data science exists at the intersection of several disciplines, including statistics, social science, information science, computer science, and visualization. This can make collection development for data science challenging, but it’s a field that has become increasingly important in industry and academia. Data scientists, and increasingly researchers, academics, and others, work with large amounts of data, complex computation, and data visualization to solve real-world problems. Those working in or studying data science may need to learn new skills and tools to be successful.

North Carolina State University (NCSU) recognizes the importance of this growing field, as shown in …

Beyond Cost Per Use: Exploring Multivariable E-Resource Assessment, Courtney R. Mcallister

Charleston Library Conference

The converging pressures of dwindling budgets, increasing subscription costs, and shifting user expectations has intensified the impact of collection management decision making. Assessing e-resource subscriptions is an integral part of any library’s collection management process, though it is especially important in academic environments. While cost per use (CPU) can be a straightforward and informative measure to consider, that lone data point might not reveal the true value of an e-resource. This paper outlines a multifaceted assessment strategy that considers the various merits of an e-resource, such as supporting accreditation, providing access to material not easily obtained through resource-sharing channels, discoverability, …

Critical Business Collections: Examining Key Issues Using A Social Justice Lens, Heather A. Howard, Katharine V. Macy, Corey Seeman, Alyson S. Vaaler

Charleston Library Conference

Academic librarians perform a balancing act between the needs of patrons, licensing restrictions, and the missions of our libraries. As part of the work to develop our campus collections, academic business librarians work with both schools and commercial vendors to provide resources that our business students and faculty require. Business publishers charge academic customers pennies on the dollar for access, but are likely to seek protections for their intellectual content by placing usage restrictions that run counter to what librarians would prefer. This can cause difficulties for librarians in serving their unique populations. This also can run counter to the …

Is It Really “Not Applicable?” Zoom In To Understand E-Book Accessibility, Xiaoyan Song, Danica Lewis

Charleston Library Conference

The decisions that we make when reviewing our collections and negotiating licenses have enormous effects on our users. They also have the potential to, in turn, shape the priorities and decisions of publishers and platform creators. The questions we ask and standards we set now set the stage for the chapters our users inherit. And while users with special access needs might not form a large percentage of our current user population, they will always be part of that population. For e-book accessibility, it can be difficult to draw the line between what is essential, what is aspirational, and what …

Are E-Book Packages Overwhelming And Redefining Your Collection?, Rhonda R. Glazier, Matthew J. Jabaily, Lynn E. Gates

Charleston Library Conference

Most academic libraries offer numerous e-books alongside their print titles. Traditionally, print materials have been chosen by subject liaisons with input from departmental faculty, whereas e-books have been acquired en masse through large collection purchases, subscriptions, or PDA/DDA programs that include large numbers of discovery records. At Kraemer Family Library, the print budget is divided into subject areas using a formula that includes the number of students in a discipline, level of program (bachelor, master, or doctorate), number of faculty by discipline, and average cost of materials in a subject area. This budget breakdown is an attempt to balance the …

Books On Demand: A New(Er) Look For Print Monographs Acquisitions, Paolo P. Gujilde, Cara Huwieler, Debra Skinner

Charleston Library Conference

How do you respond to increasing library materials cost? Do you still provide enough, fewer, or more print books? How do you sustain access to library resources? In the past few years, Zach S. Henderson Library at Georgia Southern University faced these questions and more. As many libraries have done, Henderson Library responded by decreasing monograph acquisitions to allocate additional funds for serial acquisition. However, these challenges provided opportunities for the library to be creative in purchasing monographs. One of the approaches the library chose to explore was establishing a print demand-driven acquisition (pDDA) or Books on Demand program with …

Is The Past Really Prologue? The Effect Of A University’S Consolidation On Its Jstor Subscription, Melissa E. Johnson, Kate Kosturski

Charleston Library Conference

University consolidations do more than just affect students and faculty. Changes to the makeup of a campus and the programs available can have a great influence on needed journal and database subscriptions. The electronic resources and serials librarian from Augusta University and the outreach coordinator from JSTOR investigated how the consolidation of two universities with different academic missions changed the usage of their six JSTOR collections. Using data produced by JSTOR in 2012, prior to consolidation, and compiled again for 2016, the authors describe changes in usage, factors that could affect usage, and the implications for future resources.

The Print Book Purging Predicament: Qualitative Techniques For A Balanced Collection, Allan Scherlen, Alex D. Mcallister

Charleston Library Conference

At previous Charleston Conference meetings, there was much discussion about how to massively and efficiently weed collections across disciplines using quantitative criteria. The presenters recently published an article in Collection Management entitled “Weeding with Wisdom: Tuning Deselection of Print Monographs in Book-Reliant Disciplines” in which they argue for the importance of retaining some print materials in areas such as history and literature where scholars are dependent on older, lesser-used materials for their research and teaching. Presenters offered suggestions and invited discussion on ways to improve the deselection process through the use of qualitative techniques for weeding book-reliant disciplines in an …

Showcasing E-Book Platform Features, Shaun R. Bennett, Xiaoyan Song, Danica M. Lewis

Charleston Library Conference

Faculty, students, and library staff are making increasingly nuanced use of e‐book collections, but the variance in e‐book attributes between publishers and platforms necessitates much more specific information about the various features of e‐books in order for patrons to make informed decisions. Librarians have been increasingly tasked with fielding questions ranging from the stability of links in syllabi, to the number of simultaneous users, download formats, soft ware requirements, and support for assistive technology. These new information needs have led the North Carolina State University (NCSU) Libraries to develop a public‐facing Web tool designed to help make the features, permissions, …

Developing A Weighted Collection Development Allocation Formula, Jeff Bailey, Linda Creibaum, Star Holloway

Charleston Library Conference

In this preconference workshop Bailey, Creibaum, and Holloway presented detailed instructions on how to create a spreadsheet-based library collection development allocation formula, one option to manage a library’s collection development budget. The presenters demonstrated and led participants through the process of creating customizable Excel-based formulas that can easily be modified to utilize the criteria relevant to a specific library and institution. The primary element in the success of such a formula is the use of weights applied to each factor contained in the spreadsheet. Potential factors include the number of students graduating from each degree program, total faculty per department, …

Prologue To Perfectly Parsing Proxy Patterns, Jeremy M. Brown, Gretchen M. Smith

Charleston Library Conference

As libraries spend an increasing percentage of precious collection funds on electronic resources, important questions arise to drive collection management decisions: What is being used? How much? and finally, Who is using our resources? Vendor-supplied statistics can help answer the first two questions, but we have encountered specific questions about our users at Mercer University.

To help answer this question, we turned to our proxy server logs and began a pilot study in the spring semester 2017. This presentation will explain the methodology we used in mining data from our proxy server logs in combination with our existing user database. …

Statistical Analysis, Data Visualization, And Business Intelligence Tools For Electronic Resources In Academic Libraries, Cheng Cheng, Tracy J. Gilmore, Colleen Lougen, Connie Stovall

Charleston Library Conference

Analytics, business intelligence, and data visualization have an increasingly important space in the changing assessment landscape of academic libraries. Today, most academic libraries are spending a significant amount of their total expenditure budget on electronic resources. While they are high-value assets for modern libraries, the expensive annual subscription cost and continuing price increases of e-resources also make them a substantial budgeting burden. It is therefore essential to have a clear statistical view of the trends and patterns in price changes for e-resources and vendors. This paper focuses on three major topics vital for developing such a view: first, the e-resources …

Where Are We? Providing Information For The Clinical Enterprise (17th Health Sciences Lively Lunch), Ramune K. Kubilius, Jean Gudenas, Laura Schimming, Jonathan Shank, Vida Vaughn, Neal Nixon

Charleston Library Conference

If the past is prologue to the future, where are we today? Though they are diverse, most academic health sciences libraries have historically described and continue to outline their missions as being directed to serving the education, research, and clinical information needs of their user populations. Over the years, Charleston Conference Health Sciences Lively Lunches have covered many themes, and in 2012, the focus was on the point of care information tools landscape. The 2017 17th Health Sciences Lively Lunch focused on issues and challenges of providing clinicians and clinical affiliates with access not only to point of care tools, …

Taking The Long View: A Case Study Of E-Book Usage At A Comprehensive Research University, Edward F. Lener, Mitch Moulton

Charleston Library Conference

The University Libraries at Virginia Tech made their first major acquisition of e-books in 2008 with a purchase of new e-book collections from Springer. While the business relationship has evolved over time, it has continued forward to the present day. Currently, the library’s online holdings include most of the frontlist subject collections available from what is now Springer Nature, as well as the Springer book series and the Springer Book Archives. In all, the University Libraries make over 120,000 e-books available to patrons through the SpringerLink platform. The cumulative usage of this material represents over two million chapter downloads by …