Competency F

Use the basic concepts and principles related to the selection, evaluation, organization, and preservation of physical and digital information items.

Introduction

At the heart of information institutions like libraries are their collections. In order to fulfill their mission of serving the information needs of their customers, institutions need to ensure that their collection of physical and digital items remains relevant. Like many of the other aspects of information service, collection management follows a continuous process. The concepts and principles of budget and planning, selection and evaluation, organization, and preservation are critical to building and maintaining effective collections.

Explication

Budgeting & Planning

One of the initial stages in the collection development and management process is budgeting and planning. Like any other part of library service, planning is essential, especially with limited funds and space. This stage is extremely critical since communities and their needs are constantly evolving. Information institutions must be innovative and strategic in their decision-making to remain relevant to their communities (Disher, 2022). Libraries need to assess what resources are available and “evaluate the needs of their community to determine what materials are desired” (Wong, 2018, p.137). By developing a plan and being mindful of the budget, libraries can focus on the best way to spend the available funds and prioritize the most critical needs.

Two documents guide collection management – the collection development statement and the budget (Wong, 2018). The collection development statement highlights the library's mission, the collection's purpose, and all of the guidelines needed to build and maintain a collection. The budget highlights how the funds will be allocated across various categories of the library’s services and within the collection itself. Both documents directly affect which items and materials are selected for the collection.

Selection & Evaluation

The main objective of the selection process is “to create a cost-effective collection that meets the needs of the service population” (Saponaro & Evans, 2019, p. 92). After the funds have been allocated and the plan has been established, it is up to selectors to choose items that should be added to the collection. The selection process can be a librarian's responsibility or a team of librarians who manage various parts of the collection. While the selection process offers an opportunity for selectors to be creative, developing a collection can be challenging and complex. A lot of consideration is needed when attempting to meet the demands and needs of a community. Much of the work is performed during the evaluation stage.

The evaluation stage is continuous and can occur at various times during the collection management process for both physical and digital items. Before selecting new items, it is essential to evaluate the several factors that need to be considered. Saponaro and Evans (2019) provide an extensive list of key factors.

● The type of institution the collection and the needs of its users play a significant role in shaping the collection. Different institutions will have vastly diverse needs.

● Selectors can consult various resources to aid them in their collection development, such as bibliographies, vendor lists, as well as recommendation lists. The American Library Association (n.d.) also provides resources and tips for collection development.

● An important factor is to evaluate the existing collection to determine what the library already has and whether or not there are any gaps that need to be filled.

● Providing materials in languages other than English may be considered depending on the community.

● Selectors often determine the quality of materials through reviews and consider factors such as content, subject, authority, format, and/or relevance.

● The availability of materials elsewhere affects whether or not an item is added to the collection. For example, if the library is part of a consortium, customers can often make arrangements to borrow items through one of the libraries, making it less necessary to purchase the item.

● The cost of materials is a key determining factor in purchasing items, especially if there is a limited amount of funds.

By considering the above factors, selectors can prioritize which materials to purchase and how much is needed.

The evaluation process also plays a key role in the deselection stage. Library materials have a finite lifespan, and a key part of managing a collection is evaluating it to determine whether or not items need to be replaced, repaired, and discarded. One of the popular methods developed and revised by Larson and the Texas State Library and Archives Commission (2008) is the CREW (Continuous Review, Evaluation, and Weeding) method, which provides two formulas for evaluating and weeding materials – X/Y/MUSTIE and X/Y/WORST.

● X refers to the age of the item (number of years since the copyright date)

● Y refers to the maximum time in years since the item was last used

● MUSTIE is the acronym for the negative factors of Misleading, Ugly, Superseded, Trivial, Irrelevant, and Elsewhere

● WORST is the acronym for negative factors of Worn out, Out of date, Rarely used, Supplied elsewhere, and Trivial

Both the selection and deselection stages of collection management help ensure that institutions effectively serve their communities by providing relevant and high-quality resources and materials that satisfy their needs.

Organization

How a collection is organized contributes to the ease of access and use for both librarians and customers. Before shelving, new physical items must be cataloged and assigned a call number (Wong, 2018). This process is critical to adding a record of the items to the library’s inventory and aiding in findability. Collections are often allocated to different spaces, divided into categories, genres, and subjects, and organized by call number. Once items are on the shelf, continuous maintenance is required to maintain order and mitigate loss. Tasks include shelving and

Digital resources and items can be added to library websites, online catalogs, or other centralized information retrieval systems that allow users to search many resources in one interface. Like physical materials, digital collections are also divided into categories, genres, and subjects. Organizing digital materials require metadata records and databases to be well-developed and kept up to date to ensure discoverability and continued use.

Preservation

“Preserving and conserving resources is an essential element in achieving long-term usage and value for monies spent” (Saponaro & Evans, 2019, p. 310). In order to ensure that customers get the most out of the materials, both physical and digital, it is important that efforts are made to ensure that they last as long as possible by preventing or repairing damages and mitigating loss. Physical materials like books or documents are prone to everyday wear and tear as well as unexpected damage. As highlighted by Saponaro and Evans, many aspects of preservation include proper handling and storage, environment control, security, disaster preparedness planning, basic conservation, and insurance.

Digital items also require preservation. With the amount of digital information and objects generated daily, the need for digital preservation has grown exponentially. As a result, various challenges have arisen. Beyond the sheer volume of digital items, there is also the issue of changing formats, constant improvements to storage and delivery systems, and the complexity of the information itself (Baird, 2018, as cited in Saponaro & Evans, 2019). With the constant changes in technology. there are two factors that institutions need to consider – storage and access. How digital information and items are stored and how they are accessed requires continual management in order to ensure long-term usage.

Much like other library activities, the preservation of physical and digital materials requires an organized plan. Saponaro and Evans (2019) suggest the following steps from the Northeast Document Conservation Center:

● Assessing Needs

● Setting Preservation Priorities

● The Preservation Planning Team

● Writing a Preservation Plan

● Maintaining the Preservation Plan (p. 313)

With a plan in place, librarians have a reference guide to help them navigate or anticipate possible challenges making preservation more manageable and extending the life span of the materials for continued use.

Evidence

INFO 266 – Collection Management: Collection Development Policy

An important part of collection management is developing a collection policy. These policies establish a workflow and provide information professionals with a guide that they can refer to in order to mitigate or resolve problems. For one of the assignments in INFO 266, I drafted a collection development policy for a fictional library system after reviewing five example policies of my choosing. My policy provided a summary of the collection, the general selection criteria, a process to evaluate and maintain the collections, criteria for accepting gifts and donations, as well as how the library will consider requests for purchase and challenges to books. Each section is essential for collection management and answers some of the many questions that may arise during the process.

INFO 266 – Collection Management: Evaluation & Review of Library Resources for Selection

This assignment consisted of two parts. In one part, I selected and evaluated various book review websites with the help of the American Library Association’s Selection & Reconsideration Policy Toolkit for Public, School, & Academic Libraries that would be appropriate for librarians serving young adult needs. I listed the pros and cons of each of the seven resources and summarized my observations. For the other part of the assignment, I created a budget spreadsheet and allocated $750 of the provided budget to various books, audiobooks, and graphic novels I selected from the reviews websites I evaluated in the first part of the assignment.

On the websites, I found various lists and reviews for highly rated or anticipated materials that cover various, diverse interests. My spreadsheet included different columns for Date of Purchase, Material Types, ISBNs, Title, Author, Publisher, Cost, and Quantity. I also had three columns that calculated the debit and credit for each line item. In another section to the right, I calculated the breakdown of how the budget was allocated. This assignment allowed me to experience the evaluation and selection process on a smaller scale.

INFO 266 – Collection Management: Needs Assessment Group Assignment

One of the preliminary tasks of developing a collection is doing a needs assessment. My teammates and I decided to focus our needs assessment on a special library for our group assignment, an important part of building a collection for a particular group or community. The institution that we chose was the American Indian Resource Center (AIRC). The AIRC is an information resource center that provides information specifically related to American Indians* and claims to have the largest collection of American Indian items, including books, journals, and media pertaining to American Indian history, cultural heritage, and current events and resources. We gathered information from local demographics, library statistics, an evaluation of their website, and an in-person tour and interview with an AIRC librarian. After the analysis of the information, we highlighted areas that showed how the AIRC adequately served their community and where there was room for improvement. (*This is the term that the center uses.)

For this project, we didn’t have clearly defined roles; however, I operated as the team organizer and facilitated meetings when needed. We gathered resources and information, took notes, and worked on the paper's outline and drafts. While I contributed to many sections of the paper, I mainly focused on the abstract, analysis sections, and recommendations. The project improved our awareness of how special libraries operate and the significance they hold for their targeted users.

INFO 284 – Digital Curation: Final Project

The final project for INFO 284 allowed my teammates and me to apply the concepts and principles of digital curation and preservation we learned about throughout the semester in a hypothetical scenario of our choosing. My primary role in this group was the note taker and timekeeper. I assisted with organizing and coordinating the various tasks we developed for our project. I was also in charge of storing and backing up the data, information, and resources we collected during the project. As a team, we all contributed by adding to, reviewing, and revising each section of our report and evaluating the digital content we wanted to select for our collection.

Our final project proposal and the final report contained the details of our curation and preservation plan and a summary of our collection. They highlighted what data we collected, documentation and metadata that was included, information regarding ethics and legal compliance and responsibilities and resources, how the data will be stored and backed up, our process of selecting and preserving the data, and how users will gain access to the data.

Conclusion

While a library’s collection may simply appear to be an assemblage of inanimate and inorganic objects, the collection is a living entity that needs to grow and evolve in order to support the needs of library users and the community. Only through the stages of collection management can a library and its collection thrive and continue to effectively serve its community. Every single stage is essential to the state of the collection. Budgeting and planning provide librarians with a guide to help them with the decision-making that’s involved in collection development. Selection and evaluation ensure that that collection continues to be relevant. Organization and preservation aid in the ease of and continued access to materials in the present and the future.

References

American Library Association. (n.d.). Collection development. Retrieved September 28, 2022, from

https://www.ala.org/tools/atoz/Collection%20Development/collectiondevelopment

Disher, W. (2022). Managing collections. In S. Hirsh (Ed.), Information services today: An introduction (3rd

ed., pp. 332–341). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Larson, J. & Texas State Library and Archives Commission. (2008). CREW: A weeding manual for modern

libraries. Retrieved from

https://www.tsl.texas.gov/sites/default/files/public/tslac/ld/pubs/crew/crewmethod08.pdf

Saponaro, M. Z., & Evans, G. E. (2019). Collection management basics (7th ed.). Libraries Unlimited.

Wong, M. (2018). Developing and managing library collections. In K. Haycock & M. Romaniuk (Eds.), The

portable MLIS (2nd ed., pp. 137–152). Libraries Unlimited.