Transcript DON’T PANIC! Your Guide to Total Collection Development Policy Revision—and putting it into action. Abbey Rimel, MLS Collection Development Librarian Missouri State Library, Reference Services Andy.

DON’T PANIC!
Your Guide to Total Collection Development Policy Revision—and
putting it into action.
Abbey Rimel, MLS
Collection Development Librarian
Missouri State Library, Reference Services
Andy Small
Acquisitions Tech II
Missouri State Library, Reference Services
Missouri State Library
 A division of the Office of Secretary of State
of Missouri
 3 Branches
 Reference Services
 Library Development
 Wolfner Library for the Blind and Physically
Handicapped
Reference Services
“The mission of the
Reference Services
Division of the Missouri
State Library is to
provide direct library
and information
service to meet the
informational and
research needs of state
government.”
May 5, 1981 Memo
Why we have a CDP…
 Define collection goals
 Show how library meets its mission
 Define intended users
 To respond to collection challenges
 Guidance for librarian(s)
 To create a cohesive collection
Revision Starting Points
 Literature Review
 Survey and ILL
analysis
 Walk through your
stacks.
Literature Review
 Old policy
 Books
 Other policies
 Mission
Statement
Old Policy-some problems
•A policy that just describes what is on the
shelf is not a real policy
•Extremely minimal language about
electronic resources.
•No real direction, no areas of emphasis.
Old Policy-what can be
salvaged?
•Some selection level description touched
on what should be collected
•Hints about future
direction of the collection.
•History
Books
 Library Collection Development Policies: Academic, Public,
and Special Libraries
 By: Frank W. Hoffmann and Richard J. Wood.
 Fundamentals of Collection Development and
Management
 By: Peggy Johnson
 Making a Collection Count: A Holistic Approach to Library
Collection Management
 By: Holly Hibner and Mary Kelly
 See Blog: http://awfullibrarybooks.net/
Other policies
 Indiana State Library
http://www.in.gov/library/2439.htm
 Connecticut State Library
http://www.cslib.org/coldevplcy.htm
 Maine State Library
http://www.maine.gov/msl/about/policies/collect/i
ndex.shtml
 The Library of Virginia
http://www.lva.virginia.gov/about/policies/colldev0
61107.pdf
Survey and ILL analysis
 Survey--self-reported data
 Use recent data
 Identify trends—Who are the strongest users?
Who uses you less? Why?
 ILL requests—user behavior
 ILL reveals gaps in your collection
 ILL data organized by each requesting
department may help identify subject areas of
need.
Survey says…
SOCIAL SERVICES
29.90%
NATURAL RESOURCES
16.21%
HEALTH & SENIOR SERVICES
15.03%
CORRECTIONS
7.60%
SECRETARY OF STATE
7.58%
CONSERVATION
4.59%
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
3.86%
ADMINISTRATION
3.02%
REVENUE
2.89%
AUDITOR
GENERAL ASSEMBLY
2.18%
1.64%
INSURANCE
0.98%
LABOR & INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS
0.92%
MENTAL HEALTH
0.74%
AGRICULTURE
0.71%
HIGHER EDUCATION
0.68%
TREASURER
0.56%
JUDICIARY
0.44%
ELEMENTARY & SECONDARY EDUCATION
0.22%
PUBLIC SAFETY
0.00%
ILL Data
60.00%
50.00%
Health and Senior Services
Conservation
Revenue
Natural Resources
40.00%
Transportation
Secretary of State
Corrections
Mental Health
30.00%
Social Services
Attorney General
Public Safety
20.00%
Economic Development
Elementary and Secondary Education
Judicial /State Courts Administrator
Higher Education
10.00%
Insurance and Professional Registration
0.00%
Percent ILL Usage
Collection Direction
Areas of Emphasis
 Social Sciences—trimmed down, updated
 Medical Sciences—moved online, more
extensive
 Environmental Sciences—mix of online
reference, journals, and physical books.
 Missouriana—all print, browsing collection.
 Library Science—because we work closely with
Library Development, we strive to expand this
area.
Policy Revision:
New components
 Electronic Resource language
 License agreement information
 Fund allocation and budgeting guidelines
 Gift Statement
 Retention and Review language
Electronic Resource Language,
Key elements:
 Link electronic resources with selection
criteria
 Pricing models—single user? limited seats?
unlimited access with ip authentication?
 Licensing—include some guidelines that
reflect the practical and legal considerations
of your library.
 Functionality—technical support,
communication, ease of use
License Agreement Language,
Key elements:
 Must fulfill institutional legal requirements—
may need to go through legal counsel.
 Ask for realistic expectations regarding your
ability to monitor use/abuse of product
 Make sure license definition of users match
with your intended users.
 Most libraries will want to provide remote
access through proxy server.
Fund Allocation & Budgeting
Key elements:
 Can’t make informed decisions without first
having a “baseline”
 What portion of your budget will go to each
format you collect? ie—62% e res, 30%
books, etc.
 How will you allocate spending among the
subjects you collect?
 Details about institution—fiscal year, budget
peculiarities, purchasing rules of your fiscal
department.
Gift Statement
Key elements:
 Acceptance of items based on policy
 Reserve right to treat materials as
determined by librarian.
 Will you accept conditional donations?
Retention and Review
Key elements:
 Frequency of evaluation
 Criteria for withdrawal of materials
 Methods of disposal
 Authority to dispose of materials
Policy Revised
I can take a nap
now, right?
Collection Development
Policy Report
 Building on Strengths—Missouriana, Library
Science
 Reaching out to Professionals—move to
purchase databases and books in the hard
sciences.
 Narrowing our Focus—move away from
broad social science collection and zero in on
items that apply more directly to state
employee jobs. Entire classifications fell
outside of scope.
Reasons to Weed
 A library is not an archive, warehouse, museum…etc.
 Change in mission, community, academic




departments.
Accreditation for academics
Pluto is no longer a planet
Sensitivity to cultural change
Books fall apart
Stuff to allay your feelings of
guilt…
Digitizers
 Hathi Trust
 Project Gutenberg
 Google books (maybe)
 Internet Archive
Warehousers
 Library of Congress
Re-purposers
 Better World Books
http://www.betterworldbooks.com/
 Reanimation Library
http://www.reanimationlibrary.org/
Suggestions
Keep primary stakeholders and patrons
informed with a blog.
 Light, entertaining, and simple posts that
reiterate what you are doing.
 Counter-balance the books that leave the
library with books recently added to
collection.
http://itcamefromthestatelibrary.blogspot.com/
Suggestions
 Give your frontline personnel a “canned”
statement to explain any changes in the
physical collection:
“We’re reorganizing…etc.”
 Further questions can be forwarded to
librarian in charge/director.
Collection Development
Policy in Action
80% of Circulating Collection was to be weeded
 Planning
 Adapting
 Lessons Learned
Planning…
 Automation Failures
 Lists generated from Catalog did not give
accurate data to pull books from.
 Our ILS did not allow a good hardware system for
withdrawing.
Planning…
 Workflow
 Started small to evaluate how successful potential
workflows would be.
 Amount of staff grew once workflow was honed
Planning…
 Disposal
 State Surplus
 No longer accepted books, weeding halted for a
short time.
 Offered to Tax Supported Missouri Libraries
 Recycled books not taken.
 Old/Rare books
 Special Offers list.
Adapting:
To policy and staffing changes
 Always be ready to change
 Policy.
 Workflow to suit staffing requirements/changes.
 Think of ways to improve process continually
 Base decisions on CDP and local policies
Lessons Learned
 More staff = Better
 Faster
 More people = more ideas to streamline workflow
 But! Make sure there is one point person to avoid
“weeding by committee”
 Try to automate but be ready not to.
 Don’t give up if automation won’t work
 Always look at workflows
Contact
 Abbey Rimel
[email protected]
573-526-5676
Missouri State Library, Reference Services
 Andy Small
[email protected]
573-751-1823
Missouri State Library, Reference Services