A Dual Approach to Assessing Collection Development...

Rowland, Sarah

Danielson, R. (2012). A dual approach to assessing collection development and acquisitions for academic libraries. Library Collections, Acquisitions, & Technical Services, 36(3/4), 84-96. doi:10.1016/j.lcats.2012.09.002

Summary: This article is about a dual approach study that was done to evaluate the collection development and acquisitions process. This was achieved by looking at what was collected, what was actually used and what wasn’t collected, but should have been. The study was done using B.L. Fisher Library of Asbury Theological Seminary and the collection was split up using the LC Classification. They concentrated only on monographs excluding serials, electronic resources, reference and other materials. They looked at what was bought within a certain time frame and how much was checked out. They mention that it isn’t exact science due to “There is no way to know how a particular monograph was used, if it was check out and never read, or if it was a foundational resource for an academic paper” (p. 86). They examined what should have been bought by looking at what patrons requested through Interlibrary Loan. In conclusion it was determined that, “Both of the two studies revealed important strengths and weaknesses in the library’s approach to collection development and acquisitions. One type of study alone would be insufficient to get a clear view of how effective the library is at these tasks” (p. 95)

Evaluation: I thought it was a well written study and article with lots of details of what they looked at. If a library wanted to do a similar study they could determine how to approach it from this article. I found it fascinating that they determined that 526 titles should have been added to the collection but weren’t, along with “six to seven out of every ten books acquired are not being used” (p. 87). It would be interesting to see this study done in a patron driven acquisitions system.