Selection Homework: West Valley Branch Library (San Jose)
by
Ohnmar Aung
LIBR – 266: Collection Management
Wayne Disher
San Jose State University
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Selection Homework
The Narrative on my selections
As a community analysis is critical for the selection assignment, the data from census
2000 was analyzed for the West Valley area in San Jose (zip codes: 95117 and 95129).
According to the statistics, it is found that the branch serves different ethnic groups with a huge
young population. 18 years and over is 75% of the total population and 65 years and over is 10%
of the total population. Among the total population, 86% graduated from a high school or
University and 68% of them are employed.
Even though DVD’s and Video collections are the most heavily used and there are a
variety of customer types, my selections focused on buying 75% of the allocation for biographies
and 25% of the allocation for career building. I believe that this will meet the current collection
requirements, will support the community with current career information and will utilize the
limited allocated funds efficiently.
The first thing that made me focus on buying biographies is the observation that the
collection needs more biographies because of the recent large weeding of biographies and fiction
books. Although some of fiction collection is also deselected, because the best selling fiction
orders are done centrally, my decision focused on buying biographies to fulfill the current library
needs. Besides, the $1000 limit made my selection focus on a specific area of need, and the
information on career building advice should be current. In general, only 50 books can be
purchased with $1000 and that is not enough money to spread on all areas for the needs of
various customer categories. This is why I decided to buy biographies and career books for
information seekers than spread the books around all categories.
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Selection Homework
After I decided what I should buy for the library based on the collection and community
needs, and considering the limited amount of money available, another decision was made to
choose the publisher or vendor and to prepare a selection. First, I reviewed booklist and the
school library journal; However, I could not find enough items about biographies. Finally, I
decided to use Mackin and Perma-Bound journals to read book reviews and to select new titles
for the required subject areas and for the list. I did this because the book reviews in these
journals are done and listed by professionals in the library and the educational environment,
library binding is available and the price is reasonable.
To avoid choosing duplicate items and to make the library current, new titles on current
issues were chosen for the selection. Besides, the selection was carefully done based on three
main criteria’s to prepare the selection according to the communities needs: to serve the diverse
population, to give current information for young ages and to support students in their area.
Therefore, the selections included biography books based on various areas: history, politics, arts,
civil rights, slavery, science, military, sports, AIDS and social sciences. Moreover, I chose
career books for people who did not attend college, books on great careers and some on popular
jobs to support the population of high school and college graduates and to aid the unemployed.
In closing, it is difficult to meet the requirements and upgrade the library according to the
current collection and the community needs within the limited budget.
According to the
collection and community requirements, I chose biography books focused on multicultural and
various areas as well as career building books which are suitable for a young, high school
educated and diverse population. Therefore, I believe the topics chosen in the selected areas will
be extremely useful for the community as it helps the library grow with the community.
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Selection Homework
References
Mackin Library Media . (2005-06). Best New Titles Mackin: Fall/Winter 2005-06. p. 43-44
Perma-Bound Books. (2005-2006). Perma-Bound Main Catalog: Gr. 7-12. p.85-96
U.S Census Bureau. (2000). U.S Census Bureau Fact Sheet. Retrieved Nov. 03,05, from
http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/SAFFFacts?_sse=on
West Valley Branch Library. (2005). Available from San Jose Public Library Website:
http://www.sjlibrary.org/about/locations/west_valley/