INFO 266 Research Forum: Fundamentals of Collection Development and Management

Monday, May 9, 2016

Johnson, P. (2009). Fundamentals of collection development and management. USA, ALA.

Those who practice collection management are called variously selectors, bibliographers, collections librarians, subject specialists, subject liaisons, collection development librarians, collection managers, and collection developers.
Public libraries

Collections theory began to focus on who should be selecting materials for the library, how selection decisions were made and the appropriate criteria, and alternatives to individual title selection for building collections.

Dorothy McGinnis traces the origins of school libraries and the idea that these centers should provide a variety of media to 1578, when an ordinance was passed in Shrewsbury, England, according to which schools should include “a library and gallerie . . . furnished with all manner of books, mappes, spheres, instruments of astronomye and all other things apperteyninge to learning which may be either given to the school or procured with school money.”
In the 80’s, some academic libraries had been acquiring data files on magnetic tapes and punched cards for several years, but widespread adoption of microcomputers presented libraries of all types with a variety of information resources on floppy disks, followed soon by CD-ROMs.

The growth of the Internet and ubiquitous access added online resources to the choices to be considered. Librarians selecting electronic resources faced new decisions about licenses, software, technical support, operating systems, interfaces, and hardware.

Libraries are moving from small, boutique digitization projects to coherent collections containing print resources digitized for preservation and access.
academic libraries have begun developing institutional repositories to collect and preserve the intellectual output of their parent institutions 24 Introduction to Collection Management and Development in digital format.