Agenda of Meeting of Collections Special Interest Group held on Thursday 20 February, 2014 10am to 1pm
Item
1. Attendance &
Apologies
Agenda
Emily Braithwaite (emily.braithwaite@wyndham.vic.gov.au) MINUTES, Brandt McCook
(bmccook@portphillip.vic.gov.au), John Radford (jradford@moreland.vic.gov.au), Justin Edwards
(jedwards@moreland. vic.gov.au), Sarie Miles (sarie.miles@frankston.vic.gov.au), Fiona Capon
(Fiona.capon@frankston. vic.gov.au), Susan Thomson (sthoms@cgd. vic.gov.au ), Neville Harley
(neville.harvey@melbourne vic.gov.au), Terry May (terrym@melton. vic.gov.au), Robyn Fisher
(fishra@mornpen vic.gov.au), Teresa Wight( Teresa.wight@cclc vic.gov.au), Anita Catoggio
(acataoggio@yprl. vic.gov.au)Tania Barry (taniab@hume. vic.gov.au), Caz Smith
(carole.smith@darebinlibraries.vic.gov.au), , Karen Vardon (kvardon@hobsonsbay. vic.gov.au), Jenny
Lawrence (jennyla@brimbank.vic.gov.au)
Apologies: Sherrill Harvey (Sherrill.Harvey@grlc.vic.gov.au), Anita Catoggio (ACatoggio@yprl.vic.gov.au),
Action
By
Katie Norton (Katie.Norton@WML.VIC.GOV.AU),
2. Confirmation of
Minutes.
3. Business Arising
4.
Feedback from other SIGs
5.
General discussion about standards Brandt –Port Phillip- built on nature of turnover, think about other things like books are a network and the
success of a collection is how we build the relationship between items - do we diversify away from what the
collection is about if we base everything on turnover?
Terry - Melton - SLV had draft standards 10 years ago - wasn't adopted - only thing that we've got
Want to look at the breadth of our collection? Do we want just books that walk out the door? It's about balance
so that you have classics again - should turnover be about collection balancing - rather than 1 item's
1
Page |
Agenda of Meeting of Collections Special Interest Group held on Thursday 20 February, 2014 10am to 1pm
popularity?
Neville - Melbourne - original document was rejected by vic link/Vicnet? and think nothing happened - would
have been current standards if not rejected.
Karen - Hobson's Bay - how much money are we spending on eBooks - selection is not great - so many
limitations on it - publishers doing heavy restrictions. Good titles are very expensive. Can't get the titles that are
requested.
Terry - Melton - popular best sellers you can't get them and people expect to find them. Some things in NF are
going out but some are not - do these balance the others?
Jenny - Brimbank - collections analysis - statistics are going down and we need to be justifying what we are
doing. How do we measure this? New ball game -'start from the beginning and start fresh John - do we need to
accept lower turnovers? Nonfiction particularly targets are they unreachable?
How are we reaching a balance - reference collections - nonfiction that is not popular - need to have resources
for study. Which subjects are popular and which are not? Moving the JNF has made a difference for some
people - high interest areas are still popular.
Tania - Hume - surprised about how separating JNF has increased loans with popular JNF? Nature of the use
and collection has changed.
What measures can we use beyond turnover? Turnover can be low but area is messy - can we do more about
this? Measuring in house use? Who is doing this? Do you use LMS to monitor? Suggestion about creating an 'in
house use card' for tracking item use?
Teresa - Casey Cardinia- looks at the in house use stats for weeding - leave something there if it is getting in
house use.
Melton foot traffic up, magazine declined Hobson's bay different branches different things Port Philip fiction
has changed - nonfiction declined - but then balanced out. Need to support new formats and old formats small drop but not as dramatic as expected.
Jenny – Brimbank - hard to assess how magazines are doing.
2
Page |
Agenda of Meeting of Collections Special Interest Group held on Thursday 20 February, 2014 10am to 1pm
Neville - Melbourne - one standard worked on lately - replenishment rate - how many items you add to the
collection in a year - last year added 17% new items added. Interested in what other libraries do - if they add
15% then they should remove 15%. Why did we decide on 15%? This has come from the SA (?) library standard
which mentions this is the goal. This is the goal for 0 growth - otherwise you need to expand shelves.
Hobson's Bay - Williamstown new library - because of no more room in order to keep on track they add and
remove the same percentage of items.
6.
Lost and long overdue items - stocktake - Hobson's Bay can't remove the items that are lost long overdue in
stocktake - council assets.
Missing - do we remove after 6 months from system? Do we need permission to delete missing items?
Stocktakes - asset management - what happens to these items? How often do people do them?
Stock takes using RFID systems - is this working or not? Some systems seem to be working better than others, is
the old manual way better? Port Phillip are doing them regularly - some people traded in their RFID wands in
for upgraded versions.
Fiona - Frankston - libraries closed to do stocktake - each branch for one day - had equipment failure and had to
do some manually. Discarded all the missing items - 1st one in 3 years. Happy with the outcome - not system
process - closing the library made edit much easier.
What is our definition of a stocktake? Is this whole collection or just 'not borrowed in more than x period'
How much is your collection 5 years or less? Is this the standard? Is 80% the goal? Do we exclude certain
collections? Heritage, genealogy, etc.? Do magazines distort this?
7.
eBooks - 1 supplier - catalogue records are poor - pay the DRM fee for the book - places are responsive to
feedback.
1 supplier - presentation very poor - small covers hard to see - technical problems - Future - what's the current
play? Do we need players back to present?
Discovery layer - 1 supplier searching for them is difficult - no genre searching - filters are poor - federated
searching not working - Marc records create 2 entries sometimes - do they have to look in two places?
3
Page |
Agenda of Meeting of Collections Special Interest Group held on Thursday 20 February, 2014 10am to 1pm
How will we delete these MARC records once the eBook items have been deleted? eMagazines - can have
MARC records - then they go you have to delete.
EBooks - selecting takes a long time need to check multiple platforms for duplication - purchasing quick cataloguing / fixing the records can take a long time - is it easier to select a hard copy book? The book however
is delivered instantly.
Some eBooks suppliers have been responsive to requests/suggestions and are negotiating with publishers.
8.
eMagazines - Mornington purchased but not implemented yet, waiting for improvements .
It is complicated for people to use - staff are not confident with it - 2 logins - password issues - staff need to be
confident to promote it - they have made some improvements - easy to use on iPad once they have gotten set
up. Get patrons use the same sign in for both. More checkouts for some than eBooks downloads. Mostly
overseas magazines - not a huge Australian selection. They had better titles but now some have disappeared.
Public libraries - will we be 5% physical like academic libraries? Bookless libraries - Texas - is this the model we
are going for? What about for children? What is the balance? Is it 50/50 by 2020? Is it 50% physical by 2020?
Will this happen - some think this might be possible in some places? The library as a safe meeting place - some
people are coming in everyday - cafés are working well.
9.
Site reports Neville - Melbourne docklands opens in May - beautiful building - staff member seconded to do the buying - SIG
to meet there later in the year - 70 tram will take you there. Carlton library in another 12 months - loans going
up.
Terry - Melton - Melton has won awards for building - going to write collection strategy for the next 10 years major weeding program of Caroline Springs branch - open since 2008. Trailing outreach at Diggers Rest, set up
mini branch of 300 items - outreach librarian will go out and promote eResources etc.
Emily – Wyndham - new library in Tarneit and main library moving to new location in the next 18 months –
launching the Your Library Everywhere initiative, official launch of our eLibrary, promotion of online resources,
Facebook, mandatory training for all staff in eBooks and the various platforms – Launch of the local history
4
Page |
Agenda of Meeting of Collections Special Interest Group held on Thursday 20 February, 2014 10am to 1pm
website using Omeka – program developed by the Smithsonian http://www.wyndhamhistory.net.au/
Karen - Hobson's Bay - Newport moving to temporary location for 2 years, big weed, reduced nonfiction and
increased fiction, looking at moving things around, teen fiction has been moving. Just getting CHQ
Jenny - Brimbank a redevelopment of Sunshine - moving the library to the old library for 3 years - interesting to
see how this will effect loans. Stocktake in 2 branches, rest to be done - waiting for number count. Textbook
collection, budgeted for them to support learning, trailing them to see how it goes. Some will be kept in the
reference collection.
Brandt - Port Phillip - developing a library plan, looking at vision statement and principles - felt current was
more description of process rather than goal, community connectedness, sense of place, sharing of feelings and
stories. Interested to see where the focus will move to, interested in standards for collections, looking at
Collection Development Policy. New library opened Emerald Hill, beautiful building, Heritage Centre digitisation, records. CHQ still considering
Fiona - Frankston - stocktake, just added small eBook collection with new vendor to add to existing collection of
eBooks, revamping collections in some of the libraries, outreach into shopping centres. Library express - 10
years at the station, celebrating this - going live with eMagazines soon, doing project plan to remove JNF and
separate, not locking AV cases anymore. They have tags on the discs, hasn't seemed to impacted on number of
removals.
Susan - Greater Dandenong new library at Dandenong about to open - 40th celebration of the library service,
celebration for the community and one for staff. Focus on the opening day top up collection, putting all the NF
in genre lounges, going to see how it goes, get some feedback, did a survey beforehand with patron
consultation, some people keen, some not 50/50. Keep the Dewey on the spines - for staff can shelve.
Interfiling of JNF and ANF to be retained because of literacy levels. Can have a future meeting there.
Tania - Hume - new in position, updating the documents, creating new strategy integration collection
development with library 2030 - action plans. Sunbury looking to become separate shire.
John - Moreland - redevelopment of Brunswick - majority of the work was engineering, Glenroy going to get a
redevelopment and expansion starting soon. RFID moving into the smaller branches, CHQ getting started and
hoping to implement soon, had some LMS systems that didn't work with them. Digitisation and local history,
5
Page |
Agenda of Meeting of Collections Special Interest Group held on Thursday 20 February, 2014 10am to 1pm
working towards this - LMS has a module for this.
Caz - Darebin - launched the local history website in December - have got some books, have some complete
reproductions, produced by staff members so copyright is ok. Redeveloping collection guidelines, supported
through collection plans, go through every collection, look st what is is and what we want to do with it. Looking
at expanding shelf ready, increasing the access and increase number of resources coming in. Broaden the skills
of current tech services. Reduced eMagazines sub slightly due to cost - not happy with eMusic stats, not going
so well. Looking at more collaboration with collections and programs.
Teresa - Casey Cardinia - ongoing struggles with RDA and the impacts of records and databases, introduced
parental permission to access the internet, all parent must give permission, positive response. LMS upgrade can
link family members cards, parent can renew loans, keep tabs on items, could cause some teenage angst.
Ability for one person to manage the accounts will be handy for parents.
Robyn - Mornington - building maintenance issues, eMagazines about to launch, reaction times could be better.
CHQ been using for a few months, fortnightly data sets a possibility, need to sell it to each branch and get one
person passionate about it.
Local history discussion about - scanning old books and copyright issues – digitisation.
What do we want to explore for the future meetings?
Having a catch up with eBook providers
eResource marketing
Ideas on gauging themes and trends - how can we predict them? Sociology of changing nature of community
Profile and standing orders Reference collections - analysis - what is it now?
Unique collections to your library
Next meeting - bring the standards for your library. Compare the old standard with the ALIA one.
What does each council/org have as their mission and goals? Do they differ between libraries?
6
Page |