Info 266- The Collection Development Policy

 Anna Nicholson

Sullivan, M. (2013). The collection development policy [for children's services]. In M. Sullivan (Ed.), Fundamentals of children's services (2nd ed., pp. 45-54). ALA. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sjsu/detail.action?docID=3001691 

Summary: In this chapter, the author explains the purpose of a collection development policy, defines policy, and explains the different pieces that make up this policy- particularly in children’s services. The chapter then expands upon the importance of aligning the policy with the organization’s mission and vision statements. Next, the chapter explores how service roles and selection criteria and responsibility need to be reflected in the collection development policy. Finally, Sullivan explains how to break down a collection by topics and subsections to determine what resources are needed, where they should be placed, and how the collection supports intellectual freedom. 

Evaluation: This was a useful chapter because it did a good job explaining the purpose of a development policy and how to create and use one. In addition, I appreciated that this resource was specific towards children's services because it helped me understand the different concerns and issues that I should be aware of when making a collection development policy for a school library. Ultimately, this was a clear, concise resource that I would recommend reading for more information about the roles information professionals play and the criteria that should be used when selecting or deselecting children's materials. 

Dewey Lite: Flippant or Forward Thinking?

Gattullo Marracolla, E. & Parrot, K. Dewey-lite: a solution to the nonfiction problem (PDF document). Retrieved from Institution Handouts: http://www.ala.org/alsc/sites/ala.org.alsc/files/content/NI14Handouts/Dewey-Lite_Handout1.pdf

From a collection development standpoint, is reorganizing the school library using a system other than Dewey Decimal a good plan?  The 2014 ASLA Institute presentation, Dewey-lite: A Solution to the Nonfiction Problem, explains some of the potential benefits of this method, such as a significant rise in nonfiction circulation, better visibility of a wider variety of titles, and ultimately a patron-focused collection.  This presentation may be an oversimplification of these benefits, although this has become a trend across US children's libraries, as well as in Canada and others.  So what would one of these library collections look like?

First, nonfiction sections are broken up into, what is considered more intuitive categories such as these mentioned in the presentation from Darien Library,

• Create: which includes music, arts, gardening, dance, and cooking
• Then & Now: which includes geography, history, and current events
• Animals: which includes all living things prehistoric and currently living

Or these from the Metis system as mentioned in a School Library Journal 2012 article,

• Languages
• Humor
• Community
• Countries
• Machines
• Ourselves

When the reorganizing first takes place, sorting, organizing and weeding will likely take place too.  These new categories may bring unidentified collection needs to light and/or may help to address some needs that had been previously identified.  

Here is a look at this process in action, and the reaction afterward of two elementary school librarians in Ontario, Canada.  

J. Hasselberger

Spring 2016

Getting into Play: Cataloging Toys, Games and Puzzles

Washechek, Evan

BASTIANSEN, C. Y., & WHARTON, J. (2015). Getting Ready for Play!. Children & Libraries: The Journal Of The Association For Library Service To Children, 13(4), 13-29.

This article goes into great detail to show the positive effects which “free play” or allowing children unstructured time with games, puzzles or toys can have. There has been a serious reduction of the time that children have to discover things on their own. The article goes on to state all of the benefits of free play and talks specifics with regard to studies that have been done on children who have had notable increased “exploration skills, language skills, social skills, physical skills, and creativity activity”. These skills, the study goes on to note are even more important for those in poverty settings. This compounds with the sad reality of a lack of money for such toys, games and puzzles in poverty situations. The Public Library is shown to be an example for a possible solution. The Author also note just how much of the budget was spent toward the collection of the studied library. It was particularly relevant to myself as a public library employee and someone who feels strongly encouraged to help specifically those economically disadvantaged patrons.

Reflection

By expanding the collection and adding (or simply barcoding existing) toys, games and puzzles to the collection we would facilitate and foster these outcomes that are so valuable to the community. There is a certain amount of person hours which goes into a project such as this, which would be cataloging items, creating shelving/space, labeling the items as well as creating policies for their lending. This would be in addition to extra time that would be spent keeping these items sanitized. Germs would be a major factor in some libraries not lending out these kinds of items. All libraries have some responsibility to maintain the cleanliness of their items on a professional level, but items specifically for children (some of which are at high risk for disease) is even more important. 

Throwing Dewey Overboard

von Mayrhauser, Heidi.

Parrott, K. & Gattullo, E.  (2013).  Throwing Dewey Overboard.  Children & Libraries: The Journal of the Association for Library Service to Children, 11 (3), 3-33.

Length: 6 pages

Notes Summary and Evaluation:  This was an interesting article about a library in Connecticut that got rid of the Dewey Decimal System--and then the amazing results that followed.  I was interested in this topic, as classmates talked about the possibility of this after looking at our core, emphasis, and special collections in presentations three and four.

After reorganizing their picture book and early reader collections by topic (instead of author last name) the circulation went from 18,926 to 121,245 in the first year!  Then they went on to reconsider their older juvenile fiction collection and non-fiction collection.  I went into this article feeling that getting rid of the DDC would work in a small, non-fiction collection.  But for a large non-fiction collection this might be too overwhelming to find a single book, say for a paging list.  This library came up with a "Dewey Hybrid Model" or "Dewey Lite."  This meant that the collection was divided into several broad subject areas.  The DD numbers remained on the spines.  An example of how they moved things around is by putting all animal books together (500s--animals and 600s--pets).

Here are their main subject areas:

• Kids Animals
• Kids Create
• Kids Facts
• Kids Fun
• Kids Poetry
• Kids Self
• Kids Sports
• Kids STEM
• Kids Then & Now

This article also walks you through the entire process and gives lots of tips in case you want to implement something similar.  It also addresses possible problems, the main being outliers of these subject areas.

Children's Services Today, J. Larson, Chapter 3: The Children's Collection

Tatarakis, Kelly

Larson, J. (2015). Chapter 03. The children's collection. In Children's services today: A practical guide for librarians [EBL Reader version]. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Retrieved from http://www.sjsu.eblib.com.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=1983586

Summary: 

           This chapter deals with development of the children's collection, particularly for public libraries. It covers selection, diversity in materials and subjects, supporting intellectual freedom, and how to promote reading and using the library among children. Suggestions for how to evaluate and select materials in all formats are given, including audiovisual and digital materials. Formats specific to the children's collection - board books, picture books, etc. - are considered separately as the author outlines evaluation methods and gives tips for developing selection criteria. Emphasis is put on understanding your library's collection development policy, and in making a needs assessment of the community and target users before planning acquisitions. A portion of the chapter reviews selection tools including review sources, catalogs, and websites. The different Awards for children's literature are summarized as an additional consideration in the selection process. The chapter also discusses how collection development can be affected by representations of diversity, and the impact that the concept of intellectual freedom has on acquisition policy.

Evaluation:

            This book is a great help to public librarians working in the children's department, and this chapter in particular is highly useful to acquisitions librarians focused on children's materials. I found it a helpful guide in planning selection criteria and procedure for a children's collection.

Diversity on My Mind

Lederer, Haylee

Johnson, A. (2015). Diversity on My Mind. American Libraries, 46(3/4), 82.

Summary: This article really stresses the importance of diversity in a library's collection. And more specifically, in a children's library collection. Children's librarians have a lot of power over what information and resources are available to their patrons, and Johnson argues that diversity should be a top priority. She advocates for setting goals when it comes to creating and maintain a diverse collection, as well as working with local community groups that push for diversity and acceptance. She pushes for children's librarians to do a lot of reflection, on themselves and their collection. She asks this question to end the article - does your collection adequately reflect the needs and wants of your community?

Evaluation:As an elementary school librarian, diversity is something I thrive for. Budget cuts and constraints make it difficult to achieve, but it is a goal of mine. So this article really resonated with me. I feel that it is a subject that deserves more research and space in academic journals. One page is hardly enough to really make an impact on librarians. Step by step guides and anecdotes from other librarians could really have given this article some much needed context, as well as providing the reader with some real life inspiration. Besides that, it does get the conversation and mind going on issues such as diversity. I know that I started thinking about even more ways to approach it after reading this short blurb.

Building virtual spaces for children in the digital branch

Kimura, Camden

Dubroy, M. (2010). Building virtual spaces for children in the digital branch. Australian Library Journal, 59(4), 211-223. doi:10.1080/00049670.2010.10736027

Summary: In this article, Dubroy explores the different studies and literature that has been published in the past decade about children and digital branches. She also provides her own comparison study of five digital branches for children using David Lee King’s framework for the necessary elements of a digital branch (his framework for a good digital branch being staff, collection, community, and building [Dubroy, 2010, p. 220]). She finds both in the literature and in her own study that it is difficult to create a digital space that appeals to all children; children have varying needs at different ages and there is no “one size fits all” digital branch for children (Dubroy, 2010, p. 220-221). She also finds that the five different children’s virtual branches she examined all have King’s elements “to varying degrees”, however I noticed many of the libraries she looked at were missing the “community” element as not all of them invited user-to-user interaction (Dubroy, 2010, p. 220). However, the scale of her study was very small (only five digital branches) so it is impossible to say whether this lack of community interaction is/was a trend with all children’s digital branches or if it is just happens to be that the children’s digital branches she looked at that do not have good community interaction.

Evaluation: This article provides a good literature review. She uses many articles and studies to compare what children want out of digital branches and what is generally available. Her comparison study is interesting, but ultimately too small to carry much weight. Further studies would be necessary to pick up real trends. (I realize that this article was written in 2010 though so it is likely that there have been further studies in the ensuing five years.) Still, it is a good introduction to an interesting topic; how can libraries serve children with digital branches? Furthermore, how can libraries get kids to use digital branches? Is it “if you build it, they will come”? Children have different cognitive and emotional needs from adults and libraries that create digital branches for children must be cognizant of their young users.

The library in which I work does not have a digital branch for children; digital services/resources for them are folded into the general, all-ages resources page. If children have never visited our library website before, they will need help from a parent or librarian/staff member to navigate the resources page to get the digital services that would be appropriate and useful for their ages. Since I don’t have a lot of experience introducing child users to the digital services, I have no idea whether or not a digital branch of children would be used. Certainly it might be helpful to have all the children’s resources listed on a page of their own for ease of access, but I’m not sure an entire digital branch would be used by children. This is a question I had about the digital branches that Dubroy examined; most of them were visually appealing and looked useful, but were they actually being used? This is key information that Dubroy was missing in her comparison. To weigh whether or not it would be worth my library’s time and money to create a digital branch, it would be good to see in articles such as this whether digital branches are actually being used.