Collection Development and Management Commons^™

Dollars And Sense: Examining The Rfp Process, J. Michael Thompson, Arta Kabashi, Carol Seiler, Eileen M. Condon

Charleston Library Conference

While the Request for Proposal (RFP) is not an activity that all librarians encounter continually, it is an endeavor that all library service groups and companies undertake as an essential part of their ongoing operations. This article summarizes the 2015 Charleston session entitled “Dollars and Sense: Examining the RFP Process” which delved into the RFP process from multiple viewpoints, serving both as a review of the process itself and as an investigation of how the process can generate positive results for all parties involved. The panel consisted of a librarian from a large academic library, a librarian from a medium‐sized …

Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe: E‐Books Changed Our Workflow, Denise D. Novak, Terry Hurlbert

Charleston Library Conference

As the popularity and sheer number of e‐books increased, it became evident that our existing process or workflow for acquiring and cataloging them would need some modification. This presentation will explain how the Carnegie Mellon University Libraries Technical Services implemented changes in workflow for ordering and cataloging e‐books. Including the topics of technology, user expectations, and getting reference librarians on board, we’ll cover the why of e‐books, what has gone well, and where we go from here.

Reconciling E‐Book Packages At Ncsu Libraries, Christee Pascale, Xiaoyan Song

Charleston Library Conference

As e‐books become an increasingly large part of our collection, the NCSU Libraries acquisition and discovery department created an e‐book reconciliation database to ensure that all of our purchased e‐book package content is available in the ILS and throughout the Libraries discovery layers and to create definitive title lists that associate and articulate e‐book titles with package purchases. This tool compares vendor title lists against ILS metadata in order to identify missing titles and generate reports. The paper will discuss what prompted the development of the database; present the e‐book data flow in NCSU Libraries and e‐book reconciliation workflows designed …

Rapid Collections Surveying With Book Traces @ Uva, Kristin Jensen, Carla H. Lee

Charleston Library Conference

Many donated books in circulating collections have value as historical artifacts due to unique interventions by their former owners, such as marginalia, inscriptions, and insertions. These interventions can potentially offer a trove of evidence of how books have been consumed across time and what they meant to past cultures, but are generally undocumented and therefore undiscoverable through library catalogs. Moreover, as circulating copies, these books may be vulnerable to damage, loss, and withdrawal. Book Traces @ UVa is a two‐year effort to survey pre‐1923 books in the University of Virginia Library circulating collection for uniquely modified volumes and enhance our …

Keep Those Booktrucks Rolling: Strategies For A Major Move Of The Library Collection, Edward F. Lener, Leslie O'Brien, Ladd Brown

Charleston Library Conference

The University Libraries at Virginia Tech recently completed an extensive move of the physical collection and reduction of the stacks footprint in our main facility. This session relates key elements of what we learned during this multi‐year process and share tips and strategies for an effective and efficient large‐scale move. We cover ways to address such issues as project management, communications, staffing, identifying materials for storage or deselection, and processing of materials as well as how the process we used may be applied elsewhere.

Evaluated, Removed, And Recycled—The Tale Of Two Deaccession Projects Across The Disciplines, Martha E. Higgins, Lauren Goode, Mary Jordan, John Abbott

Charleston Library Conference

How have two midsized public university libraries approached large‐scale weeding projects in their monograph and bound periodical collections? Space is at a premium in academic libraries as new roles combine and compete with traditional ones. How can the collection be refreshed to promote more use? Where will more collaboration and creative spaces be housed? How does a midsized library refine the collection to bring better campus alignment? How should the project begin? Who should be involved in planning? How can campus faculty be included in the deaccessioning process? How is the campus perception of the project handled? What should be …

Does Format Matter? Reader Preferences In An Academic Library Context, Jennifer L. Robertson, Weijing Yuan, Marlene Van Ballegooie

Charleston Library Conference

Although many academic libraries have dramatically increased their e‐book acquisitions in recent years, questions linger about format preference. When a scholarly monograph is made available in both print and electronic formats, which format will users prefer? Does format even matter? At the University of Toronto Libraries, we analyzed usage data for scholarly monographs from three key university presses, covering thousands of titles over several years of publication. By comparing print and e‐book usage patterns of identical titles, our goal was to examine format preferences and determine if there are differences in usage across subject disciplines or publishers. Through this analysis, …

The New Collection Development: Planning And Assessment To Promote Innovation, Daniel C. Mack

Charleston Library Conference

Library collections are in the midst of a radical transformation. Rapidly evolving technology, innovations in distributing and accessing content, new models of pricing, repurposing of library spaces, and shrinking collections budgets create a new environment for collection development. This new environment requires that librarians participate in a variety of new collection development activities beyond just selecting content.

In the emerging library collection development landscape librarians must engage with the disciplinary content of collections as well as a range of other areas. New areas of responsibility might include: information technology, including issues of personal data curation; copyright, open access, and scholarly …

Do-It-Yourself Title Overlap Comparisons, Melissa Belvadi

Charleston Library Conference

Discovery service indexing content can be highly customizable, which makes traditional title overlap analysis published by third parties less meaningful for a library making new subscription or cancellation decisions. This article presents a method for conducting basic title overlap analyses in‐house at minimal cost, tailored to the specific configuration of the library.

Acquisitions In A Nutshell, Linda Creibaum, Jeff Bailey, Star Holloway

Charleston Library Conference

Designed specifically for librarians new to the field of acquisitions, this session featured an informal introduction to the basics of acquisitions librarianship from three standpoints: a veteran acquisitions and serials librarian, a library director with a background in acquisitions, and a librarian who began her first professional appointment in 2013.

The session covered a variety of issues related to the acquisition of both monographs and serials in various formats, plus database and backfile purchases. Discussions included definitions, ordering considerations, avoiding purchase of duplicate resources, negotiating prices and access options, licensing, selecting vendors and jobbers, and various services that vendors’ representatives …

“But That’S The Way We’Ve Always Done It”: Shifting From A Liaison To A Centralized Model Of Collection Development, Amanda R. Scull

Charleston Library Conference

This session discussed the shift away from a subject liaison model of collection development to a centralized model in a small academic library from the perspective of a newly centralized Collection Development Librarian. The session addressed the limitations of the subject liaison model, the challenges faced during transition, and the functional realities of centralized collection development. I discussed outreach, selection, and assessment as the three major areas where the change to centralization has required new policies and approaches to communication.

Outsourced And Overwhelmed: Gaining A Grasp On Managing Electronic Resources, Matthew D. Harrington

Charleston Library Conference

Outsourcing the management of electronic journals has significantly reduced the autonomy academic libraries have over their collections’ metadata, as well as the ways in which that data is collected, organized, and made available to the library. However, the ephemerality of this metadata makes quality control burdensome and costly on the corporate end and necessitates ongoing title tracking and maintenance for the library. As a result, the quality of data in outsourced knowledge bases is often inversely proportional to the library’s tolerance of “bad data,” as well as its inability to tell the difference. This session demonstrates how an MS Access …

Creating A Standard Of Practice For License Alternatives, Christina M. Geuther, Mira E. Greene

Charleston Library Conference

A gap exists in library literature for license alternative practices. Although licensing processes are a new concept, there is enough knowledge of best practices that will apply to alternatives. Much of the life cycle of electronic resources with and without licenses remains the same; therefore, a workflow can be framed for alternatives. Kansas State University created a standard workflow for managing license alternatives in its management systems Verde and Alma. We based this standard on the differences between licenses and their conventional alternatives, the NISO Shared Electronic Resource Understanding, and terms of use without registered or signed agreement. Aspects of …

Moving A Library Can Be Easy, But Planning And Project Management Is Key, Katie Gohn

Charleston Library Conference

In the summer of 2007, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) received 48 million dollars to plan and build a new library. Planning for the moving of the collection began shortly thereafter. This paper details specific collections projects completed by UTC Library faculty and staff that resulted in a flawless move that took only 11 days to complete. The luxury of time to complete a collection inventory and accurate measurement was key, but so was selecting the right people for the project.

Going Local: Creating Unique And Special Collections In An Academic Library, Arielle Lomness

Charleston Library Conference

Over the past two years, the University of British Columbia–Okanagan Library has undertaken a review to update their special collections and focus on the local geographical areas and targeted populations. From this, a localized, accessible, and unique collection has emerged that can better serve the students and faculty on campus, as well as community user groups in the area. This project helped to grow the community engagement focused strategic direction of the university and increase the visibility of the library in the surrounding community through building new relationships.

This paper will focus on examining the roles libraries can play in …

Weeding Out In The Open: What Will The Neighbors Think?, Michael Demars, Ann Roll

Charleston Library Conference

Weeding is often an emotionally charged topic for both librarians and faculty. A healthy print collection needs weeding, but the campus community is often nervous and concerned about this practice. In preparing for a large scale monograph deselection project at California State University, Fullerton’s (CSUF) Pollak Library, library faculty and administration grappled with how to productively and efficiently involve the large CSUF teaching faculty in the weeding process. Library systems staff developed an innovative web‐based tool that enables faculty to easily provide feedback on deselection candidates on a title by title basis. This paper explains the thoughts behind the project, …

Purchasing E‐Books From Life And Physical Science Society Publishers: Trends And Considerations, Kelli J. Trei, Erin E. Kerby

Charleston Library Conference

This study evaluates e‐book publishing by professional life and physical science societies. In order to be good stewards of their resources, collection managers should always be aware of digital rights management (DRM) restrictions and access issues when contemplating an e‐book purchase. This can be difficult due to the wide variety of publishing models employed by society e‐book publishers. In this study the authors examine various life and physical science societies that publish e‐books, including factors such as DRM and access conditions, and purchasing options. The results provide information for collection managers to consider when purchasing e‐books from society publishers, as …

Acquisitions Everywhere: Modeling An Acquisitions Data Standard To Connect A Distributed Environment, Eric M. Hanson, Paul W. Lightcap, Matthew R. Miguez

Charleston Library Conference

Acquisitions functions remain operationally crucial in providing access to paid information resources, but data formats and workflows utilized within library acquisitions remain primarily within the traditional integrated library system (ILS). As libraries have evolved to use distributed systems to manage information resources, so too must acquisitions functions adapt to an environment that may include the ILS, e‐resource management systems (ERMS), institutional repositories (IR), and other digital asset management systems (DAMS).

This presentation is intended to articulate a vision for applying standards‐based practice—as already employed for resource description—to acquisitions functions in a variety of metadata schema and systems. Utilization of standards …

A Crossroads For Collection Development And Assessment, Its Fallout, And Unknowns: Where Do We Go From Here?, Thomas Reich

Charleston Library Conference

Where do we go from here? Achieving goals of sustainable resource collections through a thorough collection assessment is evermore challenged by fallout and unknowns lurking ubiquitously. There is an ever‐increasing competition for both physical space and economic space. We’re at an important crossroads for collection development, collection assessment, and libraries themselves. Change and assessment must be sustainable. To be effective, change must create its own momentum. Three years into our collection assessment project, momentum has been steady and efforts continue. However, we’ve encountered fallout and unknowns which we hadn’t planned on, and these are of an institutional and political nature.

Changing The Conversation: Using Agile Approaches To Develop And Assess Collections Holistically, Genya O'Gara, Cheryl Duncan

Charleston Library Conference

In 2013–2014, James Madison University (JMU) Libraries embarked on an endeavor to create a flexible, holistic model for developing, managing, and assessing collections. The effort began by surveying what qualitative and quantitative data was being collected that could inform big‐picture questions about whether library collections were meeting evolving campus research needs. The investigation included an in‐depth literature review, the launch, evaluation, and adoption of several pilot projects, and ultimately the construction of an evaluation rubric and disciplinary subject snapshots that articulate both the impact of collections and potential gaps within them at institutional and departmental levels.

In order to remain …

Bam: The Basic Access Model For Content Mining Agreements, Darby Orcutt

Charleston Library Conference

The Basic Access Model (BAM) provides a reasonable and practical framework of business terms for libraries and vendors to agree on how to facilitate user access to digital content for content mining purposes, as well as a principled and agreed upon industry foundation for future cooperation. BAM has already opened up significant content for mining access. The sooner we can open up our collections—both as libraries and as vendors—to the new and emerging tools and methods of content mining researchers, the more relevant we and our collections will be.

Implementing Collection Life Cycle Management, Annie Bélanger

Charleston Library Conference

In a time of increasing physical collection space pressures and rapidly evolving higher education institutions, a holistic understanding of the collection life cycle, a strategic approach to collection development and retention, and increased stakeholder engagement is needed. Some librarians struggle with what materials to withdraw, especially if there is faculty opposition, and how to move forward collaboratively. This article will explore leveraging the experience of leading the local culture shift in a large Association of Research Library, the principles, policies and methods required to shift mental models towards what must be retained, facilitating withdrawal decisions, and connecting collection development with …

An Account And Analysis Of The Implementation Of Various E‐Book Business Models At Queensland University Of Technology, Australia, Martin Borchert, Colleen Cleary

Charleston Library Conference

Queensland University of Technology (QUT) is a leading university based in the city of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia and is a selectively research intensive university with 2,500 higher degree research students and an overall student population of 45,000 students.

The transition from print to online resources is largely completed and the library now provides access to 450,000 print books, 1,000 print journals, 600,000 e‐books, 120,000 e‐journals and 100,000 online videos. The e‐book collection is now used three times as much as the print book collection.

This paper focuses on QUT Library’s e‐book strategy and the challenges of building and managing a …

Back To The Future: Re‐Examining The Need For Shelf‐Ready Processes In The E‐Book Environment, Susan J. Martin, Pamela D. Ward, Brittney L. Washington

Charleston Library Conference

Shelf‐ready processing of print materials is a commonly available service from library book vendors, and many libraries outsource these services in order to help save staff time and costs, and to expedite the process. However, in the age where print monographs are increasingly replaced with e‐books, do these services still make fiscal sense? In the spring of 2015, the Texas Woman’s University Libraries were looking to expand shelf‐ready services to a second vendor, but before doing so opted to do a feasibility study to see if shelf‐ready services were still needed and economical. This paper presents the findings of a …

One Library’S Successful Venture In Providing Comprehensive Streaming Media Services, Allyson Mower, Mary Ann James, Catherine Soehner, Maria Hunt, Dave Heyborne, Joni Clayton

Charleston Library Conference

Thoroughly understanding what professors and instructors needed to accomplish their teaching goals with streaming video was the first step enabling one academic library to successfully manage a rapid increase in demand for streaming media. The second element was incorporating an expert understanding of copyright law and the nature of the video marketplace.

This paper will strive to educate librarians and other professional library staff on how they can best integrate media streaming into mainstream library services for their campus faculty, as well as how to provide a full range of streaming services. The paper also will address workflow, communication with …

Give Us Your Stuff! Streamlining University Records Transfers, Carly Dearborn, Neal Harmeyer

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Purdue University Archives and Special Collections seeks out content created by university-affiliated departments, groups, and personnel. The collection development policy of Archives and Special Collections specifically states that documents important to capture university history, administration, or culture will be collected. This presentation outlines the steps and initiatives undertaken by Purdue Archives and Special Collections to implement a rigorous, standardized digital records transfer process.

Sexual Minority Health: A Bibliography And Preliminary Study Of The Book Literature, Sharon A. Weiner

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

The literature on the health of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersexual (LGBT) people appears in many types of resources and disciplines. To begin to address the need for relevant, easily accessible information for LGBT people and health care providers, this study identified popular and scholarly books published in the past 10 years and analyzed topics; number of books published per year; more prolific authors; and primary publishers. The results indicated that a relatively small number of books were published (521) by a wide range of publishers/self-publishers. Most were about mental health, relationships, or family and 24% were personal accounts.

Laying The Foundation: Digital Humanities In Academic Libraries, John W. White, Heather Gilbert

Purdue University Press Books

Laying the Foundation: Digital Humanities in Academic Libraries examines the library’s role in the development, implementation, and instruction of successful digital humanities projects. It pays special attention to the critical role of librarians in building sustainable programs. It also examines how libraries can support the use of digital scholarship tools and techniques in undergraduate education.

Academic libraries are nexuses of research and technology; as such, they provide fertile ground for cultivating and curating digital scholarship. However, adding digital humanities to library service models requires a clear understanding of the resources and skills required. Integrating digital scholarship into existing models calls …

Use And Cost Analysis Of E-Books: Patron-Driven Acquisitions Plan Vs. Librarian-Selected Titles, Suzanne M. Ward, Rebecca A. Richardson

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Many academic libraries have experimented with e-book patron-driven acquisitions (PDA) plans as small projects to test the concept of offering users thousands of titles, yet only paying for them as they are used. At the same time, many librarians continue traditional patterns of buying e-book titles the same way they bought print books for decades – purchasing titles based on their belief that these selections will be ones that local users need. This study shows that many librarian-selected e-book titles suffer the same fate as the traditional model of librarian-selected print books: many receive little or no use. The PDA …

Measuring Usability In The Database Review Process: Results From A Pilot, Ilana Stonebraker

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

The objective of this study is to examine the impact of incorporating user experience study methods into library database purchase and renewal. Purdue University Libraries introduced a heuristic evaluation into an existing yearly database review. Commonly used in usability and human factors engineering, heuristic evaluation is an innovative and dynamic method for librarians to evaluate electronic resources and provide expert feedback to database vendors. A form was developed to streamline the process for the librarians involved. In total, eight librarians evaluated 37 databases as a pilot project. This paper describes the outcome of the pilot.