collection development
Mar. 18th, 2005 08:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deborahWhen I started this blog, I thought I would be doing a lot more explorations of the advances and changes so prevalent in library technology. The fact is, though, that right now I'm somewhat focused on being hired as a professional librarian in the job I currently have, which means that my library-like concerns are focused on the needs of this job. That's not a bad thing; this position calls for a broad set of skills, including management, collection development, reference, managing online resources and designing print and digital pathfinders, and the public services and facilities management aspects of a small library. It's also not all a bad thing that I'm being forced by circumstance to hone traditional librarianship skills instead of following my inclination and leaping off to spend time with the digital shiny before I have a handle on the basics. While I'm no expert, after combining my experience at this job with the cataloguing I've done elsewhere, I believe I've at least touched lightly on all aspects of traditional librarianship except budgeting and construction, and I did both of those extensively in my technology life. Which isn't to say that I believe that after a year of paraprofessional student library jobs I'm a library expert. I'm just glad that I'm getting some breadth and depth in traditional library experience. Heck, I have to keep reminding myself that I don't want to spend all day in front of the computer, anyway. If I didn't want to be in a traditional library, I never would have left IT. Just because I want to spend some time focusing on the digital doesn't mean it will serve me well to shortchange the traditional.
That being said, right now I'm interested by some of the things I'm learning about collection development. The reference books in my collection aren't the kind to get reviewed in Choice or Reference Books Annual. They aren't even the kind that get reviewed in Publisher's Weekly or the New York Times. They don't get reviewed at all, and nor do specific books get requested by patrons or faculty.
I need to fill needs, and it's extremely difficult to find useful information about how to fill those needs. To some extent I can rely on the mailing lists of other people building collections like mine. I rely on their web sites, as well, and see what books they've bothered to buy -- although most pathfinders I've found on the web are unannotated (unlike mine; I believe strongly in annotated pathfinders) and don't include books (also unlike mine), which makes it more difficult to figure out what books are valued by the librarians of similar collections.
Sometimes I choose books because I trust the publisher or the author to be... serviceable. Very few of the books in my collection advance beyond serviceable. It's not a field with classics. More often than I ever thought would be true, I choose books because Amazon reviewers gave the book positive comments. This disturbs me, because I know that Amazon rejects some negative reviews, and yet the books I need for my collection are not reviewed anywhere else, even elsewhere on the net, in weblogs or some such.
They also date very quickly. In an ideal world, 50% at least of the books in this collection would have new editions after about 2001, when the economy turned and global politics shifted. Oddly, I'm limited not by budget, but by availability. The books just aren't being written. The decision to weed a book because it is out of date even though no good alternative has been created is much more difficult than I thought it would be. I begin to understand the concept of "subject specialist" in a way that was never fully clear to me before.
That being said, right now I'm interested by some of the things I'm learning about collection development. The reference books in my collection aren't the kind to get reviewed in Choice or Reference Books Annual. They aren't even the kind that get reviewed in Publisher's Weekly or the New York Times. They don't get reviewed at all, and nor do specific books get requested by patrons or faculty.
I need to fill needs, and it's extremely difficult to find useful information about how to fill those needs. To some extent I can rely on the mailing lists of other people building collections like mine. I rely on their web sites, as well, and see what books they've bothered to buy -- although most pathfinders I've found on the web are unannotated (unlike mine; I believe strongly in annotated pathfinders) and don't include books (also unlike mine), which makes it more difficult to figure out what books are valued by the librarians of similar collections.
Sometimes I choose books because I trust the publisher or the author to be... serviceable. Very few of the books in my collection advance beyond serviceable. It's not a field with classics. More often than I ever thought would be true, I choose books because Amazon reviewers gave the book positive comments. This disturbs me, because I know that Amazon rejects some negative reviews, and yet the books I need for my collection are not reviewed anywhere else, even elsewhere on the net, in weblogs or some such.
They also date very quickly. In an ideal world, 50% at least of the books in this collection would have new editions after about 2001, when the economy turned and global politics shifted. Oddly, I'm limited not by budget, but by availability. The books just aren't being written. The decision to weed a book because it is out of date even though no good alternative has been created is much more difficult than I thought it would be. I begin to understand the concept of "subject specialist" in a way that was never fully clear to me before.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-18 02:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-18 02:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-18 03:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-18 03:50 pm (UTC)We have a somewhat specialised collection. That it's integrated into our regular library catalog is, I understand, somewhat odd. But if I end up being the professional librarian here, I'd like to join the appropriate professional group so I can talk to others about how they make these decisions.