Collection Development and Management Commons^™

Using Technology To Facilitate Pre‐Acquisition Workflows For Electronic Resources, Paoshan W. Yue

Charleston Library Conference

Investigation of new e‐resource requests before a purchase decision is made can be very complex, potentially involving gathering information from various parties (publishers/vendors, library stakeholders), setting up a trial, gathering trial feedback, and making sure stakeholders are notified in a timely manner throughout of the investigation process. The University of Nevada, Reno Libraries approached this management challenge by creating a dynamic online form. With its front end originated in InfoPath and its backend database and workflow controlled in SharePoint, this form allows an automated process covering request submission, product evaluation, collection development review, and selection decision. All the information regarding …

Strengthening Regional Collections One Request At A Time: Using Resource Sharing Technology To Facilitate Coordinated Collection Development, Shannon Pritting, Kate Ross

Charleston Library Conference

There can be many barriers for success in Coordinated Collection Development (CCD) projects. Delivery and ownership are major concerns, and libraries are committing institutional funds, often to contribute to group or consortial collections, which requires trust and a consistent measuring of whether the CCD venture is a good use of scarce collection dollars. CCD efforts often require advance agreement on policies, collection areas, and dedicated funds, which can lead to decreased overall satisfaction. In many CCD projects, mutual trust is not built through a shared practice and workflow that allows for choice and data-driven decisions but is established through CCD …

Finding The Right Fit For Article Delivery: Using Resource Sharing Technology To Provide Enhanced Access, Shannon Pritting

Charleston Library Conference

Electronic subscriptions occupy an ever increasing majority of budgets and prevent libraries from expanding services in other areas. There are few attractive options for libraries who want to provide access to research materials to users in a way that is cost effective and simple for users. Libraries are caught between subscriptions to single journals, large packages, or article-level purchasing that is either not instant or must allow access to everyone, which can quickly become costly. The IDS Article Gateway platform, developed by the IDS Project and SUNY Polytechnic Institute Library, uses resource-sharing technology and workflows to deliver fast or instant …

Wrangling Services Contracts In Libraries, Michael Rodriguez

Charleston Library Conference

As more and more academic libraries outsource information technology services and enter into cooperative consortial schemes with other organizations, librarians push into a minefield of contractual negotiations, obligations, and liabilities more complicated and consequential than the typical e-resource licenses is. A poorly wordsmithed license may result in loss of access to journals, whereas becoming entangled in troubled consortia, watching an essential technology go offline during finals week, or getting audited by a vendor without contractual safeguards or recourse can produce much greater financial and administrative burdens. This concurrent session was a crash course in negotiating service contracts favorable to libraries, …

Is Small Beautiful? The Position Of Independent Scholarly Publishers In An Environment Of Rapid Industry Consolidation, Charlie Remy, Steve Cohn, Richard Gallagher, George Leaman

Charleston Library Conference

The publishing industry continues to consolidate, with large multinational publishers acquiring journals and other content from academic societies and independent publishers. This panel provided candid insights into the challenges facing smaller publishers, including how/why they continue to exist in a business environment increasingly dominated by large companies. The discussion examined the advantages that smaller, independent publishers enjoy and addressed their adaptation strategies, business planning (including open versus paid access models), strategic partnerships, technical infrastructure, production procedures, relationships with libraries, and the work needed to meet the evolving needs of library end users. The impact of industry consolidation on libraries, including …

What Are Subject Liaisons When “Collections” And “Subjects” Don’T Matter?, Darby Orcutt, Mira Waller, Scott A. Warren

Charleston Library Conference

In this interactive lively lunch discussion, participants explored issues around how the traditional subject liaison role is evolving. Users increasingly require functional information support (e.g., for geographic information system (GIS) or data mining) rather than simply domain-specific. At the same time, reports from the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Pilot Library Liaison Institute and others have noted self-conscious trends toward developing liaison roles that engage and support the full research life cycle, as opposed to traditional service models focused on building and promoting library collections as more or less fixed products. Hosts Darby Orcutt, Mira Waller, and Scott Warren outlined …

Bridging The Divide: Collaborating Across Departments To Improve Communication And Collections, Nancy Fawley, Laura Gewissler

Charleston Library Conference

Flat budgets, rising subscription rates, and the need to communicate the (bad) news to librarians and faculty are part of the academic library landscape. Additionally, the University of Vermont recently implemented incentivebased budgeting, requiring financial transparency and demonstration of value to community stakeholders. Collaborative efforts between liaison librarians and collection management departments are increasingly necessary as libraries work to support research, teaching, and learning with fewer resources. This article will focus on the venues and the mechanisms that facilitate a culture of librarians sharing information across departments about financial realities within the libraries and the university to promote cooperative decision-making …

An Electronic Resources Workflow Is Worth A Thousand Words, Christine Davidian, Lauren Orner

Charleston Library Conference

The processes involved in managing electronic resources are complex. They are becoming even more so with the addition of streaming media, demand-driven acquisitions (DDA), evidence-based subscriptions, weeding, and unanticipated changes. Rowan University’s electronic resources group recently documented its electronic resource management workflows in order to a) communicate complex processes to a diverse group of library stakeholders such as reference and instruction librarians, collection development professionals, acquisitions, and technology and systems staff; b) provide guidelines to train new employees; and c) to establish a record of current processes for future reference, evaluation, and revision of workflows. This poster session shows how …

The Odd Couple: Teaming Up To Reduce Textbook Costs For Students, Teresa C. Hazen, Niamh A. Wallace

Charleston Library Conference

Since 2012, The University of Arizona (UA) Libraries have partnered with the UA BookStores to identify and make available e-book versions of required course materials accessible through the campus course management system and the BookStores’ website. These e-books have multi- or unlimited use licenses and are available at no cost to students. In advance of each semester, these two stakeholder groups work in partnership to acquire, make discoverable, and promote this service to faculty and students in a variety of ways.

With the maturity of our partnership and of this service to faculty and students, the UA Libraries are investigating …

We’Re On A Roll: Transforming E-Book Acquisitions In A Shifting Budget Landscape, Sheldon D. Armstrong, Ellen E. George, Arielle R. Lomness, Sally J. Taylor

Charleston Library Conference

In response to the challenging budget landscape in 2015–2016, the University of British Columbia Library took a new approach to e-book acquisitions. The Associate University Librarian, Collections, established a working group with a mandate to develop and implement a strategy for library-wide e-book purchasing. Members of the group were drawn from both campuses and represented public and technical services and a broad spectrum of disciplines. In this presentation, we will briefly review the factors that led to the formation of the working group, then discuss the steps taken in the analysis, selection, and purchase of e-books. The committee’s two-pronged approach—the …

Ordering E-Books From A Print Book Vendor, Jennifer R. Culley, Cindy Human

Charleston Library Conference

The University of Southern Mississippi began ordering e-books through its primary print book vendor, Midwest Library Service, in 2016. The demand to purchase e-books has steadily increased, and when the opportunity arose to save valuable staff time searching over several vendor sites for e-books and print books by consolidating the search interface, a change was made. There were multiple steps to set up this program; however, the time invested was worth it. While there were challenges along the way, the program is up and running, and there have been many benefits in addition to the staff time savings.

Post-Acquisition Management And The Issue Of Inaccessibility, Beth Caruso

Charleston Library Conference

Though advocates are calling for publishers to develop born-accessible e-books to comply with Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Digital Accessible Information System (DAISY) standards and the EPUB 3.0 measures now backed by the Society for Disability Studies, the realistic timespan for this achievement to become standard practice is far from ideal. To equitably serve users with disabilities, stronger technology and a mindset toward accessibility must become the standard in electronic collections. Librarians are expected to have a strong working knowledge of the library’s collections but receive little training in best practices for assisting patrons with disabilities. We cannot wait …

Nobody Knows And Nobody Is Responsible: Issues In E-Books Workflow And Access, Tina M. Adams, Paromita Biswas

Charleston Library Conference

Hunter Library at Western Carolina University is a midsized academic institution managing 10 large e-book packages and about 80,000 individual e-book titles. Managing e-books involves working with multiple vendors and staff from different areas of technical services. This paper examines issues in e-book workflows; in particular, we will share the results of a project to document our e-book workflows and utilize an existing technology, Microsoft SharePoint, to better manage this workflow and share information and communication among staff involved in this process. The idea for this project came with the almost simultaneous hiring of the electronic resources librarian and the …

Open Access, Open Access, How Does Your Catalog Grow? With Selection, Access, And Usage All In A Virtual Row!, David W. Schuster, Susan J. Martin

Charleston Library Conference

Much of the open access (OA) focus and discussion has been on journals (think Glossa), but the open access monograph has come fully into its own. University and scholarly publishers are providing high-quality books, often in areas that rely on long-form scholarship. However, open access monographs presented a challenge. How do they fit into the traditional models of selection, acquisition, cataloging, and tracking usage?

In the spring of 2016, Texas Woman’s University Libraries created a simple workflow to make open access monographs accessible through the libraries’ discovery layer using Google Sheets to track the workflow and EZproxy to track usage.

“We’Ll Do It Live”: Building Access To Video Content Based On Freedoms Of Use, Christine Fruin, Trey Shelton, Aimee Barrett, Allison Jai O'Dell

Charleston Library Conference

Film collections in academic libraries, including streaming video and DVDs, serve a variety of user populations and needs. Videos are used by faculty as part of instruction, by student clubs or other groups as part of public programming, and by individuals for personal study or entertainment. These various use situations are addressed by the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. sec. 101 et seq., and license agreements that accompany video purchases. To maximize use of video collections, and by extension, funds expended on video collections, libraries need to fully understand their rights under the law, track video licenses, and build access around …

Tower Of Babel: New Realities In Foreign Language Acquisitions, Michele Casalini

Charleston Library Conference

Outlined within this proceeding are the challenges facing libraries and other institutions when they wish to acquire foreign language publications. The niche role of specialized vendors and its evolution over time is highlighted. From providing approval plans to assisting with cataloging and the maintaining of online journal collections, the role of vendors in meeting the challenging needs of libraries is discussed. Looking to the future, new endeavors are considered as Casalini Libri strives to respond to and anticipate developing market needs.

Adding And Slashing Serials, Zebulin Evelhoch

Charleston Library Conference

During a time of stagnating budgets and rising journal costs, Central Washington University’s Brooks Library evaluated and added a popular print magazine collection and worked with faculty to eliminate redundant and low-use resources. The process of identifying the need, researching, evaluating, and gaining student input for popular magazines to be added to a recently opened coffee shop is addressed first. Secondly, the systematic approach the library used to identify journal titles received in multiple formats and low-use/high-cost resources then worked with faculty to change access models to realize a net savings is discussed. Throughout, insights are provided into the processes …

Rolling With The Wheels Of Commerce: The Challenges Of Business And Industry-Based Resources, Natasha Cooper, Peter Mccracken, Darby Orcutt, Ellen Rotenberg

Charleston Library Conference

Collections and liaison librarians receive requests for specialized resources that may require use of passwords or other mediated access, local hosting, or special software. Sometimes, although not always, these resources are used in a business or industry setting, and their subscription and licensing processes do not follow typical academic library acquisitions patterns. Librarians may also receive requests for raw data that is part of a subscribed resource. How do librarians respond to these user needs? How do vendors make decisions about which products to bring to the academic library market? The authors present views on these issues and options to …

Boom Or Bust: Short-Term Loans Five Years Later, Sherri Brown, Lea Currie, Andi Back

Charleston Library Conference

The University of Kansas (KU) Libraries began a demand-driven acquisition program for e-books in late 2011, which included short-term loans (STLs). At that time, STLs cost 5 to 10% of a book’s list price, with libraries paying no more than 130% when actually purchasing an e-book. The literature from the early years praises the new purchasing model as cost effective, often saving libraries thousands of dollars annually. However, in 2014, the cost of STLs began to increase, with a handful of publishers charging as high as 30 to 35% per loan. In FY14, the KU Libraries saw a sudden 122% …

Do We Approve? New Models For Assessing Approval Plans, Sarah Tudesco, Julie Linden, Daniel Dollar

Charleston Library Conference

Yale Library’s Collection Development Department and Assessment Librarian teamed up to build an approval plan assessment model that builds on traditional approaches to add new assessment tools and ask new questions, and particularly to consider approval plans not in their silo but in the broader ecosystem of monograph collection and use within Yale Library and in its primary resource-sharing network, Borrow Direct. This short paper describes key aspects of this project, which is a work in progress, as well as possible future directions for approval plan assessment.

Mapping Change: An Examination Of Curricular Shifts And Collection Impact, Michael A. Matos, Jenise R. Overmier

Charleston Library Conference

Whether adding a new course or ending a program, curricular changes represent a formal notification from the university to the library that it must support. At American University, all curriculum changes require, as part of the approval process, a library review. While these reviews are shared with collection managers, there has never been a systematic review of the effect the changes have had on purchasing and use. One of the most prohibitive factors in undertaking such as review is that curricular changes are often difficult to map to collections because they reflect interdisciplinary adjustments or courses that push the boundary …

A Tale Of Two Serials Cancellations, Mike Olson, David Killian, Debbie Bezanson, Robin Kinder

Charleston Library Conference

Beginning in 2016, both Western Washington University (WWU) and George Washington University (GWU) found that they needed to make significant and similar reductions in continuations costs over the next five years. In response, this past year, both institutions took independent, significant steps toward these ends, developing systematic, sustainable procedures for addressing these reductions. The approaches taken by the two institutions will be compared and contrasted in this presentation, particularly with respect to the following questions, which both libraries encountered:

• What defines a successful cancellation process in 2016?
• What are the most effective approaches to cancelling serials?
• When do cancellations do …

To Buy Or Not To Buy: Rolling Into The Future With Illiad, Alison E. Lampley

Charleston Library Conference

Librarians at East Tennessee State University (ETSU) have spent a lot of time over the past few years eliminating paper waste and encouraging the use of digital forms for many library services. One such service is the library’s suggest-a-purchase program. When the database that held our previous online form was dismantled, paper forms and e-mails starting coming in. Most of those e-mails were printed out by library staff. The previous acquisitions librarian retired soon after, leaving behind mountains of papers and no real idea for how to proceed. This paper presents how we solved this problem with ILLiad addons and …

Housing Diversity In Children’S Literature, Carla Earhart

Charleston Library Conference

Previous studies have examined diversity in children’s literature: Gender diversity, racial diversity, religious diversity, and diversity in family composition. This project examines an often overlooked diversity issue in children’s literature: Housing diversity. In the stories they read and the accompanying images, children need to see a variety of housing environments and need to see the settings and the people portrayed in a positive manner.

Renting an apartment is an increasingly popular housing option for many families. However, many children’s books glamorize living in a traditional house. Using a rubric designed by the course instructor, students in a university immersive learning …

Albatross: Rolling On A Sea Of Data, Annette Bailey, Tracy Gilmore, Leslie O'Brien, Anthony D. Wright De Hernandez

Charleston Library Conference

Big deals and journal package incentives are an increasing reality for academic libraries, yet the solutions for evaluating these package scenarios in a timely, cost-effective manner are few. The proliferation of these offers requires the examination of numerous and complex questions. There is a need to know the utilization and strength of a package, the inflation costs for various titles and packages, and the ability to identify cost trends. A team of librarians at Virginia Tech created a solution for addressing these concerns and for managing their journal data by designing and developing an in-house database. Albatross, named in reference …

Rolling The Dice And Playing With Numbers: Statistical Realities And Responses, Natasha Cooper, Kimberly Nolan, Mike Poulin, Nancy Turner

Charleston Library Conference

Librarians invest time gathering numbers about collections for various entities, such as accrediting groups and organizations, as well as their user communities. Gathering collections-related statistics regarding the numbers of things our libraries subscribe to or purchase, as well as the items our users use, often requires a significant investment in time. Definitions can be difficult to apply, and some questions do not seem to reflect our current reality or demonstrate value. The authors explore the challenges of annually gathering and recording collections related statistics and offer suggestions for improving the process.

Extreme Makeover: How We Decreased Our Collection By 40% And Simultaneously Increased It By 50% In 10 Months, Lydia A. Sampson, Amy Thurlow, Del Hornbuckle

Charleston Library Conference

The Brennan Library at Lasell College had not conducted a systematic weeding in over 20 years. With space in demand and an increase in online courses, desperate times called for drastic measures. Over a 10-month period, the library withdrew 40% of its tangible collections. Simultaneously, the staff’s focus shifted to promoting e-resources and adopting the EBSCO EDS discovery layer. Using a weighted collection development allocation formula, the librarians overhauled the materials budget and designed a departmental liaison program. After calculating the holdings of new e-book and streaming video packages, the library’s collection increased by 50% despite the massive deaccessioning. This …

Apples To Oranges: Comparing Streaming Video Platforms, Steven Milewski, Monique Threatt

Charleston Library Conference

Librarians rely on an ever-increasing variety of platforms to deliver streaming video content to our patrons. These two presentations will examine different aspects of video streaming platforms to gain guidance from the comparison of platforms. The first will examine the accessibility compliance of the various video streaming platforms for users with disabilities by examining accessibility features of the platforms. The second will be a comparison of subject usage of two of the larger video streaming platform providers (Alexander Street Press and Kanopy) done at Indiana University Bloomington, a large public university.

Valuing Consortial Resources: A Framework For Assessment, Genya O'Gara, Madeline Kelly, Julie Kane, Anne Osterman, Cheryl Duncan, Crystal Newell, Beth Blanton-Kent, Summer Durrant

Charleston Library Conference

Grounded assessment begins with establishing the goals of an institution and its users, but there is an added layer of complexity in determining value at the consortial level, where individual institutions will naturally perceive the value of a particular resource differently. The shared resources of a consortium are also often diverse in both format and acquisition method. How should the relative value between e-books and streaming media be compared? Between leased and demand-driven acquisitions? Between open access and collaboratively owned models?

Rolling Out A Database Review: Initiating A Comprehensive Database Review At The University Of Maryland Libraries, Leigh Ann Depope, Margaret Z. Saponaro

Charleston Library Conference

The University of Maryland Libraries (UMD) has experienced a static collection budget for over 14 years. Despite the best efforts of the Collection Development and Acquisitions departments to mitigate the continuing effect of serials inflation, it became evident in the summer of 2015 that budgetary expenses would have to be curtailed in order to meet increasing serials costs. In the fall of 2015, the libraries initiated the first-ever comprehensive database review across all subject areas. The review involved subject specialists as well as acquisitions and collection development personnel. This paper describes the process undertaken to develop the review process, who …