Collection Development
(T. Weech's Revision of Syllabus submitted by Mary H. Munroe)
Course Overview
This course will investigate the elements of collection development, no longer a discrete
part of librarianship, but rather an endeavor central to work in the current library world, a
world that is characterized by integration and cooperation. Within one's own library,
between the library and the larger institution, like the college or university or township it
serves, and among other libraries in regional or larger consortia, the decisions that we
make concerning our collections have ramifications far beyond the walls of our libraries
or the computer networks that we build for our constituents, ramifications not just for the
decisions we make about electronic sources, but for the ways we spend our resources for
materials in all media. What I hope we will learn together this term is how we can go
about making the decisions we would need to make as collection development librarians,
or as librarians who would have some connection to the development of the collection,
decisions considered in the largest context we are able to imagine.
Course description
The course examines issues affecting the development and management of collections for
academic, public, special and school libraries: collection development policies, collection
assessment, the marketplace, publishing, legal issues, and budget allocation; document
delivery; collaboration and cooperation.
Course objectives
This course is designed to present principles and elements of collection development that
will allow students to understand the dynamics of the marketplace, the needs of users, the
realities and implications of budgets and budgetary constraints, and publishing and
marketing trends that affect many types of libraries now and in the future.
By the end of the course, students should be able to:
 identify the elements in a library's community of users that affect selection,
deselection and acquisitions decisions
 write a collection development statement
 identify aspects of publishing that affect collection development decisions
 read, understand and negotiate basic aspects of licensing agreements
 discuss the implications of components of document delivery
 understand the basic components of collection assessment
 discuss contemporary issues and trends in collection development, including
collaboration and cooperation among libraries, document delivery, electronic
formats, censorship, preservation, and pricing issues.
The text for the course is G. Edward Evans Developing Library and Information Center
Collections , 4 th ed. Englewood ,Colorado : Libraries Unlimited, 1999. There are
additional readings in the literature, depending upon the topic under discussion.
1
Grading
Grades are based on active participation in this class: fulfillment of assignments,
consistent webboard postings, and evidence of having read assigned material. Your actual
grade will be assigned to your portfolio (see assignment five below), which will be due at
the last class of the semester.
Assignments
The work of this class aims to simulate some of the problems of working in a library, i.e.,
you will be asked to work on several different projects at the same time, all inter-related,
but each with a discrete beginning and ending date. At the same time, you will be
expected to be a full participant in the webboard discussions and present at the
synchronous sessions. For both your major assignments in the class, the Collection
Development Policy and the consortium project, you will need to envision a fictional
library that you are going to use as your basis for the class. It can be any type of library –
school, public, academic or special. You will need to have in mind subject areas that
the library specializes in (curriculum, public concerns, reading interests, business
mission, etc., depending on the type of library). You will also need to think about the
library’s patrons – age, economic status, academic level, etc. And you will need to think
about whether you have a small, medium or large library and what kind of budgetary
restraints you have. If you wish to base the library on one that you work in, please confer
with me before the assignments begin. As you move through the course, you may wish
to change your library but it helps if you start out with a situation in mind.
1. Evolving Map of Collection Development-- first map due right after the first class
before you read anything for this course, then send me next version each time you
produce it, (at least once every three weeks, for a total of five), delivered in one of the
forms suggested in the second paragraph below. This assignment will not be graded,
but must be completed.
Before you read any of the texts in the course, I would like you to visualize what you see
as the process of collection development. And I want you to map your thoughts before we
start to have discussions on the webboard or in our synchronous sessions. In first thinking
about it, I would like you to imagine the factors you would consider important in the
decision-making process and map out their interactions and intersections. Show me
which you consider most important, which less important, and why. As we look from
different perspectives, I would like you to take a new look at what you first thought and
to tell me how your perceptions of the process have or have not changed. Please keep a
discrete version of each week's map, which can take any form you feel is appropriate.
These maps will be important for later assignments and for the portfolio to be handed in
at the end of the year.
I mean this to be done in a visual form, with just enough text to make sense of way you
are conceptualizing the process to yourself and to me. All of the maps will be loaded to
the course bulletin board so that the whole class can share different approaches to the
decision-making process. If you need a sample, I will mount one or two from previous
semesters on the bulletin board.
2
2. Collection development policy –
Choose and describe an imagined (but imaginable!) library in which you are interested. It
may be any type of library with any user population, budget, personnel, etc. It may very
closely model the library you intend to work in or one that you do actually work in, but it
should not be identical. Describe the collection, its size and composition in general. You
will need to be specific about collections policies about general subject areas or formats,
but a complete format structure is not required. Write a collection development statement
of five to six pages that will be useful to this library. It should pay particular attention to
the decision-making process in building the collection that would be most useful for your
library and it must include a section on special collections and a section on subject
coverage. The draft should be a complete draft; outlines are not acceptable. The first
draft will be returned to you with comments and a preliminary grade. The final draft will
be graded and this is the grade that will be recorded.
3. Leading a debate - due throughout the first half of the semester
There are six debates scattered through the course, and you will participate with your
colleagues in one of them. They will constitute most of the discussion matter on the
webboard for that week’s class. The debate topics are listed below, along with the dates
of presentation. Each debate topic will have a team of equal or as close to equal size as
the class roster will allow. I would like you to sort yourselves into groups during the first
week of class. Participants in the debates may be presenters or background researchers
on the topic - this is up to the team to assign roles and responsibilities.
Debate One -- A strong collection development statement is an important tool for
sustaining and defending collection decisions.
Debate Two -- Approval plans turn over too much selection authority and collection
responsibility to vendors.
Debate Three -- Some users are more important than others when it comes to selection.
Debate Four -- Librarians must have in-depth knowledge of the subject area to select
titles and develop collections in specific areas of a library.
Debate Five -- The conspectus is a valuable tool for assessment of a library collection.
Consortial collection development needs take precedence over local collection
development decisions.
4. Consortium Evaluation of Virtual Information Systems - due in stages throughout the
second half of the semester, final version to be handed in on April 21.
After you have written your collection development policies and have done two or three
versions of your maps of the collection development process, you will be asked become a
3
member of a consortium of libraries with up to three other members of the class. You will
have the major task as a group of evaluating a library-related virtual information system,
comparing and contrasting the way vendors of various abstracting, indexing, and full text
data sets serve up the same or similar sets of data. How do the various offerings compare
and contrast? What factors would compel your library consortium to select one offering
over another? You are expected to analyze the various product offerings. You are not
expected to negotiate for lower prices or to conduct research into why print information
(generally speaking) is better or worse than electronic information. An excellent example
of this kind of analysis can be found at:
http://www.coalliance.org/reports/ejournal.htm
The group will write its report together, but each of you will also write a separate
confidential memo to your library director (i.e. me!), explaining your reasoning in
going along enthusiastically, grudgingly, or not at all with the consortial
decision. This memo should include some evaluation of the group process.
Elements of the Analysis
Pricing
Security
Electronic page layout
Copyright/Fair Use Issues (e.g. is interlibrary, lending prohibited?)
Backfile availability
Reliability and accessibility of data
How the product differs from the print version (e.g. does the electronic version include
only part of the information contained in the print version?)
Standards used in data preparation and production (e.g. is SGML used for text
preparation, Z39.50 for serving?)
Where to go for information
The publisher of the data should be able to tell you which vendors sell the data. Publisher
and vendor web sites are an excellent source of information. Sales people can often be
contacted directly from the homepage and can provide information packets and very
often will give you limited-use passwords for a free trial. When talking to the vendors
simply indicate you are working on a research project comparing and contrasting
electronic product offerings to research libraries. If you need help in getting a trial to the
database, please check with me.
The other main source -- becoming the most important source -- is the aggregator. We
will be discussing aggregators, what they do, how they operate, as the course proceeds.
Your consortium will probably decide to compare how aggregators package the offerings
that they make available to libraries and might focus more on the front-ends of these
offerings and the indexing of them than on the data itself.
Vendors, aggregators and publishers will often give you a list of library customers -- it
4
may be worth your while to contact these customers for their opinions. Faculty and other
librarians working in the discipline are another excellent source and can often describe in
great detail how an electronic product differs from the print one. Subject specialists and
other library faculty at UIUC are an excellent source of information as well. If your
group wishes me to help you find a vendor representative to work with you or needs to
work through the GSLIS office to get a trial set up, please do so early! Vendors are often
hard to contact and a good contact may take some time.
Depending on the consortium to which you belong, you may be interested in choosing
more popular or more scholarly electronic information, although the borderlines between
the two are blurring more each day. Your consortial group will present your project in
class on date to be specified
5. Portfolio:
Your portfolio will be the source of your final grade. It will consist of successive versions
of your mental maps, selections of the postings of which you are most proud from the
webboard debates and discussions, your collection development policy and the major
consortial assignment. The portfolio should be compiled as you move through the course
and should be a record of what you are learning; a narrative explaining how your work
fits together should link the pieces . The best portfolios will be those that critically
examine the way in which you have developed an understanding of what collection
development is. We will spend the last class session, during finals week and completely
optional -- asking those folks who are willing to participate to share their portfolios with
the rest of the class.
Class Schedule (Contact hours 3 hours a week for 14 weeks)
1. INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE
What collection development is and what it is not; collection development overview,
historical and contemporary; organization of collection development in libraries; the case
for the user: why we do collection development; professional aspects of collection
development; standards and guidelines; CD tools.
Answering your questions about the course, introducing ourselves to each other, to the
topics in the readings. How the debates work. In this first week of class, you will draft
your first "map" of collection development before you start any readings and you will
organize yourselves into debating teams on the web board. You will also be assigned to
discussion groups that we will use throughout the semester to talk about the readings.
READINGS -- Do your first map before reading!
Evans, Chapter 1.
Atkinson, Ross. "Old Forms, New Forms: The Challenge of Collection Development,"
College & Research Libraries 50, no. 5, September 1989: 507-520.
5
If concept mapping is new to you, two articles that might help are:
Taricani, Ellen. “Influences of Concept Mapping and Learning Styles on Learning,” in
Annual Proceedings of Selected Research and Development Papers Present at the
National Convention of the Association for Educational Communications and
Technology (23rd, Denver, CO, October 25-28, 2000 ), 8pp. ED455 819. or
Scappaticci, F. Thomas, “Concept Mapping in the Classroom with Inspiration Software,”
Proceedings of the Society for Information Technology and Teach Education
International Conference (11th, San Diego, California, February 8-12, 2000 ), 6 pp. ED
444 469.
PowerPoint of a report presentation at the American Library Association Conference,
Toronto, Canada, June 25, 2003. For this PowerPoint, see the Slides for Class.
2. COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT POLICIES
Preparing your collection development policies; rationale for writing a statement;
components of a useful collection development statement; process of formulating policy
statements; understanding and impact of standards; how statements can be used.
Approximately ½ of the class will be discussion based. The discussion groups are listed
on the bulletin board. A different leader and recorder will be selected for each discussion
group. Discussion questions and the names of leaders and recorders will be listed on the
board 5 days before the class. The recorder will post a summary (very brief) of the
discussion topics within two days after the class has met. General reaction to the
discussions can occur at any time after the summaries are posted.
READINGS
Evans, Chapter 3.
Atkinson, Ross. "The Language of the Levels: Reflections on the Communication of
Collection Development Policy," College & Research Libraries 47, no. 2, March 1986:
140-149.
DEBATE ONE: A strong written collection development statement is an important tool
for sustaining and defending collection decisions.
3. VENDOR PERSPECTIVES --Guest speaker: Judy Luther, Librarian and MBA, sole
proprietor of Informed Strategies http://www.informedstrategies.com/
How monographs, serials, and other formats are sold to the library; pricing issues;
publishing savvy publisher-vendor library alliance; the work of the vendor. The
changing roles of book and serial vendors. How materials get from creators to libraries;
producing, pricing and marketing of material; the work of the vendor and the importance
of the work to the library community. User-driven collection development
6
READINGS
Evans, Chapters 5 & 12
Brown, Gary J. "The Business of Scholarly Journal Publishing," in Understanding the
Business of Library Acquisitions, edited by Karen A. Schmidt. Chicago ,ALA , 1990: 3348.
http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=164387
4. BUDGETS AND BUDGETING
How the materials budget works; the interaction of the business officer and the
collection/selection librarian; ethics, or, how to act and what to do when you have money
to spend. ½ of the class time will be spent in group discussion
READINGS
Evans, Chapter 13
DEBATE TWO: Approval plans turn over too much selection authority and
responsibility to vendors.
5. SERIALS SELECTION
The nuts and bolts of serials selection; building a periodical collection; "Access versus
ownership" debate and effect on collections and the user; existing document delivery
services; the cost of document delivery.
READINGS
Evans, Chapter 6.
Chrzastowski, Tina E. "Seeking the 99% Chemistry Library: Extending the Serial
Collection Through the Use of Decentralized Document Delivery," Library Acquisitions:
Practice & Theory 19, no. 2, 1995: 141-152.
Gossen, Eleanor A. and Suzanne Irving. "Ownership versus Access and Low-use
Periodical Titles," Library Resources & Technical Services 39, no. 1, 1995: 43-52.
Hamaker, Charles. "Library Serial Budgets: Publishers and the Twenty Percent
Effect," Library Acquisitions: Practice & Theory 12, no, 2, 1988: 211-219.
Munroe, Mary, “Including Access in Conspectus Methodology,” with Rebecca
Drummond, in Thomas W. Leonhardt, ed., Advances in Collection Development and
Resource Management , Vol. 2 (Greenwich, Connecticut: JAI Press, Inc., 1997).
Peek, Robin P. "Scholarly Publishing: Facing the New Frontiers," in Robin P. Peek and
Gregory B. Newby, Scholarly Publishing: The Electronic Frontier .Cambridge ,MA :
7
MIT Press, 1996: 3-15
FEBRUARY 24 -- BOOK SELECTION -- SYNCHRONOUS SESSION -- Guest
Lecturer: Bob Kieft , Librarian of Haverford College .
Selection process and sources on information; reviewing sources, electronic and
commercial; currency of selection decisions; censorship, its meaning for different
libraries; defending selection decisions; how and when to weed collections; issues in
handling de-selected materials; how library acquisitions works, things you should know
about the "black box" of acquisitions.
READINGS
Before class, please look at the "Guide to Reference Books" selection guidelines as an
example of what it means to think about collection development for today's reference
collections. http://www.haverford.edu/library/grb/selection.html .
Please also look at the Haverford College Collection Development Policy at
http://www.haverford.edu/library/about/cdpolicy.html
Evans, Chapters 4, 11, 14 and 15
Richard D. Altick , "Bibliographies: How Much Should A Reviewer Tell?" in James O.
Hoge , ed., Literary Reviewing (University Press of Virginia, 1987).
"Reader's Advisory: Matching Mood and Material" ( Library Journal ,2/1/01 ), pp. 5255.
DEBATE THREE: Some users are more important than others when it comes to
selection.
6. PROTECTING AND MANAGING THE COLLECTION
Proper handling, security, environmental control, weeding, storage, nonpaper
conservation issues. ½ of the time will be spent in small group discussions (See January
27 for further information).
Evans, Chapter 17 -- Preservation
7. COLLECTION ASSESSMENT
The topic for the session will be Collection Assessment, dealing with the question of
assessing users real needs, answering the question of the place of the mission of the
institution in assessment, how does an effective assessment happen, the conspectus, the
use of electronic methods to assess a collection, assessing the use of electronic resources.
By now, you should have completed 3 to 4 collection development maps.
8
READINGS
Wood, Richard J., "A Conspectus of the Conspectus," in Collection Assessment: A Look
at the RLG Conspectus, edited by Richard J. Wood and Katina Strauch, New York:
Haworth Press, 1992.
Henige, David, Anthony W. Ferguson, Joseph W. Janes, Ross Atkinson, and Peter
Hernon, "Waiting for the Great Pumpkin? On the Whereabouts of Justification in Library
Research: A Symposium," Journal of Academic Librarianship , vol. 17, no. 6, p. 348358.
"The Collection Depth Indicators," in Bushing, Mary, Burns Davis, and Nancy Powell,
Using the Conspectus Method: A Collection Assessment Handbook , Lacey, Washington:
WLN, 1997, pp. 27-38.
8. MULTI-MEDIA FORMATS & THE FUTURE: PUBLISHING, TEXT AND
COLLECTIONS IN THE DIGITAL LIBRARY
Differences and challenges in collecting in non-traditional and multi-media formats. ½ of
the time will be spent in small group discussions
READINGS
Evans, Chapter 10 --
Formats
DEBATE FOUR: Librarians must have in-depth knowledge of the subject area,
preferably subject degrees, to select titles and develop collections in specific areas of a
library.
9. LICENSING CONTRACTS AND LEGAL ISSUES FOR LIBRARY
COLLECTIONS
Licensing contracts for traditional and non-traditional materials; reading, understanding
and negotiating agreements for the users; networking agreements; when to call for expert
opinion; Copyright Clearance Center; copyright issues; gifts; tax issues. ½ of the class
will be spent in small group discussions.
READINGS
Evans, Chapter 18
Marsh, Corrie . "The Library Perspective on Non-Cash Charitable Contributions,"
9
Acquisitions Librarian 3, 1990: 37-52.
Nissley ,Meta . "Taking License: Librarians, Publishers and the New Media,"
Acquisitions Librarian 3, 1990: 71-82.
Four standard agreements
that can be used by all: http://www.licensingmodels.com/
The ICOLC specs: http://www.library.yale.edu/consortia/
http://www.library.yale.edu/NERLpublic/EJrnlPrinciples.html
http://www.nasig.org/
http://www.against-the-grain.com/
DEBATE FIVE: The conspectus is a valuable tool for assessment of a library collection.
10. COLLABORATION AND COOPERATION
Models past and present (e.g., RLG, CIC, CCMCC, CRL); effect on collections and user
community; why collaborate? Consortial and state-wide assessments and their
effectiveness as collaborative tools.
READINGS
Evans, Chapter 16
Ferguson, Anthony, "The Conspectus and Cooperative Collection Development: What It
Can and Cannot Do," in Collection Assessment: A Look at the RLG Conspectus. New
York: Haworth Press, 1992: 105-114
DEBATE SIX: Consortial collection development needs take precedence over local
collection development decisions.
11. COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT IN THE REAL WORLD – CENSORSHIP AND
INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM
Discuss the questions arising from the session about the consortia and the major
assignment and a guest lecture:
READINGS
Evans, Chapter 19
"The Legal Foundation of Intellectual Freedom in a Public Forum," in Jones, Barbara M.,
Libraries, Access, and Intellectual Freedom ,Chicago: American Library Association,
1999, pp.31-59.
10
http://www.ala.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Our_Association/Offices/Intellectual_Freed
om3/First_Amendment/First_Amendment.htm
12. ELECTRONIC RESOURCES AND SERVICES / NEGOTIATING FOR
ELECTRONIC RESOURCES -- Updates on your research for your major assignments
Information formats; issues in access and automation; user interaction and multi-format
collections; problems associated with automated indexes, holdings, etc.; how to choose
among different platforms and agencies; negotiating for electronic products, especially
within the consortial environment. ½ of the class will be spent in small group discussions
READINGS
Evans, Chapters 7 and 8
"The Internet and Collection Development: Mainstreaming Selection of Internet
Resources," Library Resources & Technical Services 39, no.
3, 1995: 275-290.
Hunter, Karen. "The National Site License Model," Serials Review 18, no. 1-2, 1992:
71-72+
Marshall, Stephen G. "Planning and Negotiating Contracts with Database Vendors and
Endusers: Key Legal Issues for Database Producers," in Proceedings of the IIth National
Online Meeting ,May 1-3, 1990 : 255-264.
13 -- YOUR PROJECTS: PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION.
14 -- Sharing Portfolios
11