Collection Assessment – Best Practices in the 21st Century
Sponsored by CMDS Quantitative Measures & Education Committees of ALCTS
ALA Annual Conference, New Orleans
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Evaluating collections is an essential activity for all libraries, but it becomes critical for those facing
budgetary and space constraints. This program provides an overview of collection assessment and
methods used to evaluate collections of resources in all formats. The program begins with an overview
of collection assessment. The second part describes different collection assessment methods and projects
to help participants identify methods to apply in their own institutions.
Peggy Johnson
Associate University Librarian
University of Minnesota Libraries
m-john@tc.umn.edu
Collection Analysis Overview
This portion of the program will provide an introduction to collection analysis. We will explore
answers to the following questions: What is collection analysis and why do we do it? How is assessment
different from evaluation? Who is the audience for collection analysis (and users of collection analysis)
and how does this influence the type of analysis being conducted?
Peggy Johnson is Associate University Librarian, University of Minnesota Libraries, with responsibility
for technical services, circulation and access services, and facilities. Her BA is from St. Olaf College, her
MA from the University of Chicago Graduate Library School, and she has an MBA from Metropolitan
State University. She edits two journals, Library Resources and Technical Services and Technicalities:
Information Forum for the Library Services Practitioner, has published numerous papers, and written
and edited several books. Her most recent book is Fundamentals of Collection Development and
Management (ALA, 2004), for which she is receiving the 2005 ALCTS Bowker Scholarship Award for
an outstanding publication in collection development. Johnson served as President of the Association of
Library Collections and Technical Services during 1999/2000.
Lucy E. Lyons
Collection Management Division
University Library
Northwestern University
l-lyons@northwestern.edu
Methodologies for the Analysis of Monograph Collections: From the Technologically Advanced to the
Cost-Effective and Expedient
This presentation defines successful methodologies as those that fit and can be plausibly carried out
given the environment of the library and its associated institution, staff skills, funding, and other
resources and considerations. For example, in an environment strong in staff time and funding, a
comparative analysis of your holdings with those of aspirational-peer libraries, for the purpose of
advocating for an even larger budget, could be successfully completed by employing WorldCat
Collection Analysis software. On the other hand, what happens when both time and finances are
severely restricted? The lack of either does not excuse the library from its responsibility to execute such
studies. So, what can you do when, for example, an academic department needs library statistics for a
grant due in two days and, even if you had the time, you have no funding allocated to collection
analysis tools? This presentation will focus on a range of practical methods for assessing subject specific
(including interdisciplinary) monograph collections.
Lucy E. Lyons works as an analyst in Collection Analysis and Planning and is the bibliographer for
Communication Sciences and Disorders, Gender Studies, Journalism, and Political Science at
Northwestern University.
Paul Metz
Director of Collection Management
University Libraries
Virginia Tech
pmetz@vt.edu
Using Software Tools for Comparative Collection Assessment: Ulrich’s Serials Analysis System and
OCLC’s WorldCat Collection Analysis
This presentation will be a pragmatic demonstration of two powerful tools for comparative collection
assessment. Attendees will see how the Ulrich’s Serials Analysis System was used to analyze current
journal subscriptions in the state of Virginia and how this led to somewhat unexpected conclusions
about the best ways to build and preserve our collective journal holdings. The second part of the
program will feature Virginia Tech’s usage of the WorldCat Collection Analysis software to compare
holdings against peer institutions in the southeast. This will include both global comparisons of the
collections according to age, subject distribution, and language and the means by which the system can
be used to identify important titles a particular library has somehow missed buying.
Paul Metz has been managing the collections of the University Libraries at Virginia Tech since 1988.
His many publications on collection development include The Landscape of Literatures: Use of Subject
Collections in a University Library (ALA, 1983). He has been active in university governance and in
VIVA, The Virtual Library of Virginia.
Cory Tucker
Business Librarian
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
cory.tucker@ccmail.nevada.edu
Bonnie Tijerina
Electronic Resources Coordinator, Collection Development
Georgia Institute of Technology
Library and Information Center
bonnie.tijerina@library.gatech.edu
E-Assessment: Evaluating Resources in a Digital World
This presentation provides an introduction to and overview of methods that may be used to assess and
evaluate electronic resource collections. After identifying some of the ways libraries evaluate electronic
resources, such as utilizing in-house or vendor-provided usage data or overlap studies, a current and
on-going electronic collection assessment project of business electronic resources at the University of
Nevada, Las Vegas Libraries will be presented. In addition to providing information on the design of
this project and other methods used to evaluate electronic resources for formal or informal electronic
collection assessments, topics such as information literacy and information overload related to online
resources, and how the techniques presented may be applied to online resources from different
disciplines will also be addressed.
Cory Tucker is the Business Librarian at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He is an active member of
BRASS and ACRL. He conducts research seminars for the Nevada Small Business Development Center
and Technology Ventures Corporation.
Bonnie Tijerina is the Electronic Resources Coordinator in the Collection Development Department at
Georgia Institute of Technology's Library & Information Center. Bonnie earned her MLS from the
University of Wisconsin, Madison and began her career as a North Carolina State University Libraries
Fellow. She is the coordinator of the Electronic Resources & Libraries Conference, the 2006 conference
was held in March in Atlanta.
Proceedings from today’s program will be available at http://www.ala.org/alcts/events