International School Libraries Count!: Collection Development from Across the World

Aiani, C. W. (2015). International school librarians count: current issues with intellectual freedom and access to information. Knowledge Quest, 44(1), E5-E9.

1948 marked the turning point when United Nations declared intellectual freedom a basic human right.  While school libraries all over the world and in the United States alike uphold and defend the right of access to information, there is a distinct difference in the fight.  Candace Aiani, library coordinator and upper school librarian in Taipei describes her experiences in Taiwan and the experiences of her colleagues.  She says the main difference is that each library is pretty much left to fend for itself and while that may seem lonely, Aiani argues it can sometimes be a good thing.  She shows that librarians are charged with making all of the decisions for their community and for the most part they are trusted to do so with little complaint.  On the other hand, there are few laws and professional organizations to uphold a strict standard, which can act as support and guidance when areas are gray.  Aiani calls for more international collaboration and coalition building between school librarians world-wide.


J. Hasselberger
Spring 2016

The Death and Resurrection of Collection Development Policies

Bishop, Andrew

Pickett, C., Stephens, J., Kimball, R., Ramirez, D., Thornton, J., Burford, N. (2011). Revisiting an Abandoned Practice: The Death and Resurrection of Collection Development Policies. Collection Management, 36(3), 165-181, DOI: 10.1080/01462679.2011.580426

Using Texas A&M University Library’s process to create a new, up-to-date collection development policy following at least ten years of not having updated or even consulted one as a lens, the authors examine the reasons libraries abandon having a written collection development and maintenance policy and how and why to return to having and using one.  The literature review found that many libraries do not have written policies, or have not updated them in several years.  The policies that do exist vary in the level of detail.  The studies cited say lack of budget and manhours is the main reason a policy does not exist or is not maintained, although there is some lack of understanding as to “the lack of precise definition of what a written policy is as opposed to what it does” (168) can also be a reason no codified policy exists.  Proponents of formal policies in the literature say written policies provide a guide for acquisitions, as well as a “rationale” for development decisions that helps protect against censorship.  Opponents say the policies limit selector freedom and can be inflexible.  Policies focusing on content were found to be more flexible as electronic resources became more prevalent.

Texas A&M’s Collection Development Committee began their revision and updating of the policy by reviewing the current environment by reviewing the university’s statistics listing not only all the majors, but the enrollment and number of courses for each college and department.  They also reviewed the university’s strategic plan for the new century and several ALA publications relating to policy creation.  They also looked at the websites and catalogs of the libraries from comparable institutions throughout the country, looking specifically at their collection development policies.  The committee determined each subject would have its own, specific policy, based on a committee generated template, while the overarching policy would deal with management issues such as storage and consortial membership.  The authors concluded that collection development policy creation and maintenance require clear purposes and goals.  Texas A&M needed a new policy, for example, because collection development “lacked coherence” (172) and the mandates articulated in strategic planning needed more planning to implement. 

The authors’ final conclusion was that the policy creation process was overall a success due to the committee’s organization, level of study, quality control given to the subject groups, standardization, and recognition of the fact that if the collection development policy needed to remain updated and in touch with the curriculum in order to keep the libraries relevant to the campus community.  The resurrection of the policy helped bridge the gap between the strategic plan and daily collection development practice in a way that supports the subject selectors’ efforts.

Evaluation

A good in-depth look at one method of policy creation in action.  While the method of determining current needs isn’t explicitly explained, given the committee’s review of the curriculum and the recognition that some majors and certification programs were undersupported, it sounds like they used collection mapping or some variant in their process.  For a large, multi-disciplinary institution such as the A&M libraries, creating umbrella subject groups with their own specific policies as well as an overall university policy seems like a good way to combine solid guidance with flexibility and adaptability.

Reference is dead, long live reference

Pierucci, Jessica

Terrell, H. B. (2015). Reference is dead, long live reference: Electronic collections in the digital age. Information Technology and Libraries 34(4), 55-62. doi:10.6017/ital.v34i4.9098

Summary

The role of print reference in the library is becoming increasingly unclear as electronic information becomes more and more ubiquitous. The author explains that only about 10% of print reference collections are now used. Some librarians have expressed concern about the print reference collection diminishing in size and use, citing concerns of browsability of print, potential reliability issues for electronic sources, and access for those without library cards who therefore cannot use library internet. The author dismisses these concerns, explaining how ready reference is now best handled using mainly electronic resources in the current information environment and many electronic sources used in the library have no more issues with reliability than print sources. In addition, the author thinks the concern about patrons without internet access is better and more cost effectively addressed in ways other than keeping a mostly unused print reference collection for this group of patrons. For example, San Francisco Public Library has the Welcome Card allowing those who don’t qualify for a library card (often due to lack of an address or proper identification) to use computers and check out one book at a time, giving the user limited library privileges. The author cites this as a much better solution to the concern of those without ability to get library card being able to only use print than keeping unused reference material around.

Evaluation

The article’s title is a bit deceiving. The author doesn’t think reference itself it dead. Instead the author thinks the reference print collection is dead and needs to be dramatically weeded in favor of more highly used electronic reference resources. I’m happy that’s the case as I think reference is still important to help patrons develop valuable search skills and find what they want in the library’s collection. This just happens increasingly online.

I agree with the author’s assessment of the print reference collection as in the library where I work I’ve seen how rarely the librarians turn to print to answer reference questions. They generally favor library databases and other electronic resources. They show patrons how to search these resources to find the information they want to answer their inquiry. I was happy to see a passionate argument for weeding a rarely used part of the library’s collection. In a time of ever-shrinking budgets it’s great to find the places where the library can cut acquisitions and weed out unused material to put funds toward well-used parts of the collection.

LGBTQ Collection Assessment: Library Ownership of Resources Cited by Master's Students

Harkleroad, Tiffany

Graziano, V. (2016). LGBTQ Collection Assessment: Library Ownership of Resources Cited by Master's Students. College & Research Libraries, 77(1), 114-127. doi:10.5860/crl.77.1.114

After the Stonewall riots in 1969, gay and lesbian studies, either in the form of individual courses or in the form of entire departments, began to emerge in academic institutions.  LGBTQ studies continue to expand in higher education, and as a result, academic libraries are assessing the needs of their institutions in the context of developing LGBTQ collections.  This study examples the bibliographic citations (3,243 in total) of 28 graduate theses with a focus on LGBTQ studies, written by students at Concordia University between 1991 and 2013.  The goals are to assess the strengths of the university’s current LGBTQ collection, to identify LGBTQ collection materials that the university is lacking, and to assess overall LGBTQ collection needs.  The study determined that the library owned 73% of the citations studied; this is below the average number of citation in similar citation studies on different topic areas.  By breaking down the types of materials cited, it was determined that the collection was weak in terms of LGBTQ popular periodicals; however, the more recent theses tended to cite this particular type of material less often.  The study determined that the LGBTQ collection at Concordia was well developed, particularly given the fact that there is no LGBTQ studies department at the school at the time of this study.

As a student who is particularly interested in LGBTQ studies as relates to library science, I found this article to be quite interesting.  For academic libraries, it is important that the libraries contain the correct types of materials and topic matter to meet the needs of students.  As academic studies expand to include more social concepts and topics, collections will need to adapt to meet those needs.  This particular study shows that the library in question has taken a fairly progressive stance, by containing many of the materials used in the completion of the theses studied.  I found the discussion of convenience bias most interesting, meaning students are more likely to use materials readily available in the library, and that might have some bearing on results in studies such as these.

Reinventing the Library for Online Education: Chapter 6

Stielow, F. J. (2014). Redefinition Commentaries. In Reinventing the library for online education (pp. 139-168). Chicago, IL: American Library Association.


Summary:

This chapter  discusses the need for redefining acquisition, audio collections, collection assessment, collection development, video collections, and weeding for online education. In this section it reviews the need for redefining the process of acquisition in the twenty-first century.This is a scholarly work written by a library administrator with a doctorate in the field of library science. This chapter is a guide to redefining acquisitions and collection development for libraries working with distance learners. The author explains that copyright concerns, cost, and licensing issues are prominent concerns in virtual libraries. The author addresses the issues with consortia and rental packages are that they come with time limits. He also states that there are also often limits on the number of users with digital materials. The author believes that this means when using materials in a virtual classrooms libraries need to consider classroom size and proper licensing number/type. The author reveals how copyright becomes a bigger issue when materials are downloaded in library catalogs or embedded, LMS, or library support pages. This work is a clear concise manual of the issues that arise with libraries supporting online education. The work is well-investigated and well thought-out look into the future of libraries in an online education environment. This trend for colleges to offer online courses is increasing and this knowledge will be important to current and future librarians in academic environments.

Mass Observation: Birth of the Focus Group

Justin Choi

Reference:

Moran, J. (2008). Mass-Observation, Market Research, and the Birth of the Focus Group, 1937-1997. Journal Of British Studies, 47(4), 827-851

I came across this article for another SLIS class and thought it might be appropriate to consider collections development from the patron side. This article discusses some of the history of the focus group method of research. If we want to know what patrons are thinking, we are tempted to send out random surveys or worse, grab several patrons and ask them individually what they want the library wants. But if you want targeted, guided discussion and come up with a consensus so you can figure out which books in which format to buy or not, focus groups is a good arrow in your quiver.

Because this article is more historical than practical, it's a good place to start to think about focus groups.

Diverse population, diverse collection? Youth collections in the United States

Kimura, Camden

Williams, V. K., & Deyoe, N. (2014). Diverse population, diverse collection? Youth collections in the United States. Technical Services Quarterly, 31, 97-121. doi:10.1080/07317131.2014.875373

Summary: In this article, Williams and Deyoe present a study of diverse titles in youth literature (ages 0-18) in 5,002 public, academic, and school libraries. Their research consisted of building three lists of books with ethnic/racial minority characters, characters with disabilities, and LGBTQ characters. All the books on the lists were published between 2000 and 2009, had positive reviews or been recommended, and had been vetted for “cultural authenticity and avoidance of stereotypes” (Williams & Deyoe, 2014, p. 104). They then searched OCLC for libraries’ collections that contained books from the checklists.  Among other findings, they found that more than one-third of libraries spending over $100,000 per year on materials did not meet Williams and Deyoe’s minimum level for titles on the racial/ethnic minority and disability checklists and half did not meet the minimum level for LGBTQ titles (in fact, 15% of all libraries surveyed did not have any titles from the LGBTQ checklist.) Williams and Deyoe recommend that librarians assess their youth literature collections for diverse representation, paying particular attention to books with LGBTQ characters as these books seem to be the most under-represented.

Evaluation: Williams and Deyoe present an important study of diverse literature in youth collections. However, it is only a beginning; I think that this study serves as a very good starting point for further research into the area of diverse youth literature in libraries. The data are interesting and it is disheartening to read that there are so many libraries with materials budgets of over $100,000 that don’t meet the minimum level Williams and Deyoe set for good representation. I take issue, however, with their decision to only include books that had good reviews or were on recommendation lists. While I absolutely think that including books that have been vetted for cultural authenticity is necessary, I do wonder how many books did not make the cut simply because they had not been reviewed well. Their checklists of books were not terribly long, all things considered; the race/ethnicity checklist had 964 titles, the disability checklist had 334, and the LGBTQ checklist had 116 titles. Surely there were, for example, more than 116 titles with LGBTQ characters with suitable cultural authenticity published between 2000-2009, including books that hadn’t been reviewed well or recommended. I assume that Williams and Deyoe did not have the page space to fully detail their selection process but I am curious to know why they chose to use books that had only been reviewed well or recommended. (I know that there is probably a lot of overlap between well-reviewed books and books that have vetted for good portrayals of minority characters and this could be the reason why they only chose well-reviewed books.)

In sum, this is a good article with interesting data, but it is only the beginning of what is possible for studies on diverse youth literature in libraries.

Edited to Add: I've just discovered that a review of this article has already been posted on the blog. I'm going to leave my review up for anyone who is interested, but I won't count the article as part of my 300 pages. My apologies for double-posting and I am very sorry that I did not see this article had already been reviewed before submitting my own.