Librarians and OER: Cultivating a Community of Practice to be More Effective Advocates

Shana Hay

Smith, Brenda and Lee, Leva. (2015). Librarians and OER: Cultivating a Community of Practice to Be More Effective Advocates, Paper presented at the Distance Library Services Conference, Pittsburgh, PA, April 20, 2016. Vancouver: University of British Columbia. Retrieved from: https://bccampus.ca/files/2016/04/DLS-Conference.pdf 

   This paper discusses how a group of academic librarians working in the province of British Columbia, Canada joined forces to share best practices, ideas and tools with the aim of creating resources to support fellow academic librarians in OER-related interactions. By entering into a community of practice, the BCOER librarians were able to support each other, ensuring no librarian was left feeling overwhelmed in the face of this additional responsibility. The paper also brings up some of the reasons OER development has not been tackled more aggressively in many academic libraries- mainly faculty uncertainty as to the reliability of information obtained through OERs versus traditionally published materials. This paper highlights the role librarians in academic institutions can play in changing this attitude of resistance through promotional campaigns, the development and maintenance of relevant OERs, the provision of long-term, stable access, and by linking OER resources to the OPAC for ease of access and a sense of curation. Some of the interesting events BCOER have sponsored include hackathons and OER awareness events throughout the community. Some of the tools the BCOER librarians have collaborated to develop include an OER Repository Assessment Rubric, and OER advocacy poster for conference use, and BCOER Guides which are LibGuides for OER material sorted by type. 
   This paper did a great job of addressing the various reasons the use and development of OERs has met with resistance, both from the point of view of librarians (who have a tonne to do already) and faculty (who trust traditional texts and require reliability).  By highlighting ways this resistance can be overcome namely through cooperation between librarians and education between librarians and instructors, the authors of this paper make an excellent argument for the increased adoption of OERs in the academic world. By stressing the importance of things such as communication and building relationships across library systems, the BCOER offers a template for other libraries, encouraging them to overcome perceived obstacles and harness the power a of well-maintained network of OERs for their patrons.

Practice Makes Perfect: While Collection Development Remains as Much Art as Science, Adopting Best Practices Can Help Selectors Choose What's Right for their Communities

Vigil, Sharon

Mickelsen, A. (2016). Practice makes perfect: While collection development remains as much art as science, adopting best practices can help selectors choose what’s right for their communities. Library Journal, 141(14), 34-37. Retrieved from  http://bi.galegroup.com.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/essentials/article/GALE%7CA462044787/0cca9aca1e2499431f16987e0a782a23?u=csusj

Summary:

This article discusses best practices for selecting and maintaining print and electronic materials. It touches on selection decisions, budgets and formats, collection analysis tools, donations and self-publishing, and weeding and maintenance. Common challenges that are mentioned include stretching budgets to cover multiple formats and deciding how many copies of a popular item to buy without sacrificing diversity in the collection.

Evaluation:

This article provides some very helpful tips in managing a collection. Librarians must not only be knowledgeable about a particular field or subject area but must also have an understanding of what patrons want while being mindful of the available budget. A few tips to help librarians track books that are newly released, or are about to be released, include signing up for publisher newsletters and the LibraryReads recommendation tool, registering with Edelweiss to access publisher catalogs, and keeping track of authors featured at NPR Books. One librarian that was interviewed emphasized the importance of making sure there is some method in place for accepting requests from patrons in order to know what is missing from the library’s collection. Another librarian suggested getting out of the library and interacting with patrons. In regards to budgets and formats, one recommendation was to allocate more funding to popular subscription services such as Hoopla and OverDrive and, in choosing which streaming services to use, librarians should consider patrons’ ability to access the Internet and technology that is required. This article provides some great advice for collection development librarians or anyone who participates in the collection development process.

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT

Fair, Jeremiah
CB

Mickelson, A. (2016). Practice makes perfect. Library Journal, 141, 34-36. Retrieved from http://web.b.ebscohost.com.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/ehost/detail/detail?sid=a5794a3c-fb6b-4e84-8a8e-ffe98744c05d%40sessionmgr102&vid=11&hid=107&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=117655292&db=llf

Summary of article: A beginner's overview to the current climate and challenges for public libraries in terms of collection development. Mickelson goes over several factors that collection development and building are currently undergoing in the internet age including: Budgets and formats, Tech tools and the human touch, Donations and self-publishers, and weeding and maintenance.

Analysis: While just a basic overview, this article does a great job of describing the base foundation of collection development for public libraries. Mickelson interviews a few librarians on how they go about collection development and building to get the current climate of how they go about doing it. A very great part of this article in my opinion is that Mickelson lists several of the websites and databases that the current librarians use to help them make their selections for their collections. This includes LibraryReads, Edelweiss, NPR Books, and Netgalley. As someone who is very new to the library world, I had no idea of the existence of such sites.

Special Libraries and Collection Development

Amy Kumar

Holder, S. (2013). Library collection development for professional programs: Trends and best practices. Hershey, Pa: Information Science Reference.

Summary
This ebook is a great resource available through SJSU's King Library. It is a compendium of essays by special library collection developers, and includes chapters on medical libraries, academic business department libraries, theological libraries, interdisciplinary collection assessment, architecture programs, and much more. The field reports each chapter are headed with an abstract and are readable as stand-alone articles well worth citing in scholarly communications. The various issues are presented from a professional librarian standpoint and are illustrated within the context of each special library environment.

Analysis
I find this ebook to be quite helpful in understanding how all of the issues we have learned about operate in those different environments. I would suggest reading whichever chapter interests the reader, however, as the issues of selection and collection are so similar between libraries that some of the views can seem redundant. Where they vary, however, is how the librarians learn to deal with those issues and the lessons learned. The book also presents reference information specific to each field, and makes for a great resource for those looking for those subject-specific resources. Overall, however, this is an excellent and thorough treatment of the issues in collection development through the eyes of a variety of library professionals.