The Point of Collection Mapping

 

O’Donnell, Meghan.

Herren, A. (2021). Transforming library collections and supporting student learning with collection mapping. The Serials Librarian, 80(1-4), 142-148. https://doi.org/10.1080/0361526X.2021.1883207

Summary:

A community college library in Florida revamped their collection to better align with curriculum using collection mapping in 2015. The project improved alignment to curriculum, collection diversity, and relations between library staff and college faculty. Having less unneeded works made room for more study space which students had been requesting. Circulation did not improve in the 6 years since then. However, at least the library staff know that what is circulating better meets student needs. When the project began in 2015, research showed that students tended to prefer print works over digital for research. As the project progressed, research in 2018 showed that digital works were beginning to be preferred over print by students. Therefore, the lack of improved physical circulation does not show a failure of the project.

Evaluation or opinion:

Since we approached collection mapping using infographics, I thought the process was mostly visual. I read an academic article about a university library’s experience using collection mapping. This article changed my understanding of collection mapping. I’m no longer seeing it as some ethereal thing. It is a tool used to accomplish a purpose.

Collection mapping has nothing to do with helping patrons or potential sources of funding understand your collection. It is not about creating an easily grasped visual or graphically displaying information. You might end up creating a collection map that is nice in those ways. However, doing so is not your goal.

The point of collection mapping is to assist library staff in charge of collection management. You need to identify what your collection contains, check for gaps and saturation points, and ensure that your collection aligns with user needs. It is a tool for selection and deselection. It could possibly be a tool for looking at rearranging your layout.

The appearance of your collection map does not matter. It might be a massive boring spreadsheet. It is simply data that represents your collection. You don’t need to make the data attractive. You just need to make the data actionable so you can act on the data and make your collection as useful as possible.

The article I read was Transforming Library Collections and Supporting Student Learning with Collection Mapping  by Arenthia Herren. Herren relayed the experience of using collection mapping to revamp physical holdings at Florida SouthWestern State College Libraries in 2015. The project realigned the holdings to better align with curriculum. Most interesting to me was that the libraries sought syllabi from classes and used them to determine what to have in the library collection.

I cannot use this technique for my non-school-affiliated library. However, that tactic has made me consider what I could do along the same lines. Homeschooling parents make heavy use of my juvenile nonfiction section. Are there homeschool educational benchmarks for my state that I could align some of my juvenile nonfiction collection to meet? The article made me think and definitely improved my understanding of what collection mapping accomplishes.

Enhancing Collection Development with Big Data Analytics

Peterson, Joy

Citation:

Crawford, S., & Syme, F. (2018). Enhancing collection development with big data analytics. Public Library Quarterly,37(4), 387-393. doi:10.1080/01616846.2018.1514922

Descriptive Summary:

Many professional organizations now use Big Data to analyze their operations and make evidence-based decisions. This article discusses the ways that libraries can use Big Data software to analyze collections and make decisions to purchase materials based on that supporting data. 

Evaluation: 

I think the use of analytics for collection development and management is an area that needs strong consideration.  While this article needs to be taken with a grain of salt, primarily because its authors are employees of the company that makes the analytical software highlighted in this study, collectionHQ, their claims are indeed valid.  

By actually tracking what is being circulated in a library system, collection managers can better anticipate the needs and interests of their patrons.  This will help increase future circulation and help eliminate what the authors call Dead on Arrival (DOA) publications, which are items that are never circulated once purchased.  The real issue here, however, is getting libraries to see the benefit of using analytics. 

Furthermore, libraries will then need to train their staff to develop analytical metrics that can be interpreted and incorporated into the collection development process.  My fear is that this kind of analytical rigor is not something that can be self-taught.  Ideally, a class in circulation analytics could be introduced into the current MS-level curriculum.  Regardless, this was a very interesting approach that I think will continue to gain traction among collection developers.

Managing Electronic Resources by Ryan O. Weir

 DiBello, Amy 


Weir, R. (2012). Managing electronic resources (LITA Guide). Chicago, Ill.: ALA TechSource.

Ryan O. Weir's textbook Managing Electronic Resources was published in 2012 and predicts the library of 2020. Ebooks will change libraries and outnumber print books. University publishing houses will be making content available through Project Muse/UPCC, JSTOR, and other online platforms. The digital divide will increase in Third World countries and the poor and computer illiterate will rely on public libraries to bridge these disadvantages.

Behind the scenes, how we will work will also change radically. The split between print and electronic materials is impacting technical services departments and since everyone is already understaffed, the problems are only being compounded. Flexibility and skill acquisitions turn every day into another episode of MacGyver.

The libraries of 2020 libraries will revolve around eResources and libraries will have to find new ways to weather economic turmoil. Catalogers will be replaced with metadata specialists and job titles will be rebranded. Reference services as we know them will have to adapt to new user needs.
Distance education will increase as people become accustomed to working and learning remotely.

Special collection libraries and archives will continue to digitize and make collections available online. Consortia will become even more important and open access ventures will give vendors a literal run for their money.

Librarians have to be flexible multi-taskers who can solve problems, be technologically savvy, and able to communicate and negotiate with staff, administrators, and vendors in various contexts. They have to be courageous enough to lead and be diplomatic. They’ll be put in the tricky place of "managing" up their supervisors and stakeholders too. Managing people you supervise will require emotional intelligence, coaching, collaboration, and communication. We will need to abandon traditional hierarchies and work together as peers.

Getting Data Right

Bailey, Rachel

Bradford, R. (2014). Getting data right. Library Journal, 139(8), 26-26.

Summary: This article addresses how collection development decisions can be made through data.  For example, after the economic downturn, circulation statistics showed that books about European statistics dwindled whereas books about “staycations” were more often checked out. Consequently, more “staycation” books were ordered. The author goes onto state that just because a book hasn’t been checked out for three years, it doesn’t mean it needs to be weeded from the system. Maybe the book is a classic that isn’t necessarily popular at that time. Finally, the article mentions data software that is becoming more popular such as HQ from Baker & Taylor and Decision Center from Innovative Interfaces, Inc.

Evaluation: I like how this article reiterates the importance of using statistics to acquire new materials as well as evaluate an existing collection. In the near future, I would like to see how the data software mentioned in the article is used.