Is Ther a Future for Collection Development Librarians?

Clark-Collier, Kelsey

Thomas A. Karel, "Is There a Future for Collection Development Librarians?" (2013). Proceedings of the Charleston Library Conference. http://dx.doi.org/10.5703/1288284315257

How has the development of the E-Book and other digital resources impacted the role and purpose of the collection librarian? This is the core question that Thomas A.Karel seeks to discuss and address in his article titled Is there a Future for Collection Development Librarians? Reflecting on his career as an academic librarian, which required a great deal of collection development responsibility, Karel discusses how factors such as changing acquisiton plans combined with a lack of available space for the thousands of journal databases and 500,000 book titles housed within his library has resulted in an increasing number of demands being placed on the institution to develop an effective collection development and management policy. 

Following this, Karel touches upon his main critical point, which is the effect of the introduction of E-Books into his library's collection. He argues that the expertise of librarians regarding selection is considerably diminished when it comes to digital materials, a concern shared and supported by a wide  variety o recent literature. Karel goes onto list factors that pose threats to the collection librarian (such as E-books, diminished interest from faculty in ordering materials and the ever incresing demands from students regarding information needs) as well as potential opportunities (establishing closer relationships with vendors, working more closelywith faculty to select materials, and taking the opportunity to update exisiting collection development policies). Karel concludes by reflecting upon a teaching session he attended withother librarians where themes affecting collection development were discussed, along with varying degrees of concern and hope regarding the future of collection development in all different types of libraries.

This article stood out to me for a variety of reasons. While the impact of digital resources and technology on traditional print library collections is a complex topic that I have expierenced in prior courss, it is my belief that the notion of digital materials replacing print materials is somewhat overestimated, especially in school and public libraries. That's not to assume that patrons have been reluctant to adapt to new forms of technology and digital services. Rather, I feel that libraries as repositories of print and tangible resources is a deeply ingrained concept that spans thousands of years, and is likely not going away anytime soon. As Karel discusses however, the real core questionp is not whether digital materials will overtake print materials, its to what degree are which librarians in the present day willing and able to incoporate digitial materials innovatively into their institutions in such a way that benefits both library users and potential non-users. He takes it one step further by providing three excellent questions that serve as solid foundations for discussion and debate regarding the topic:

1.) What does a Collection Development librarian do?

2.)What tasks can be effectively carried out by other staff? 

3.) What, ideally, might be the role of a Collection Development Librarian in the new electronic enviornment?

These questions serve as excellent foundations for further discussion and debate because they provide an opportunity to gain insight not only into the current role and purpose of collection development librarians, but also the factors that are affecting this particular position both here in the present and in the future. 

Cartoons?! Digitizing and Cataloging Challenges...

Nguyen, Jennifer

 

Citation:

Dyer, M. A. (2014). Full Speed Ahead: The Challenges of Cataloging a Historic Editorial Cartoon Collection. Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America, 33(2) 279-294.

Summary/Notes:

This article is about the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Libraries digitizing [the Charles Henry Sykes Cartoon Collection] of original editorial or political cartoons from the 1940s. Multiple library departments and staff involved in the project included the digital collections systems librarian, the digital specialist, the Digital Scanning Unit, and the metadata catalog librarian. There were cataloging issues due to missing or lack of information about cartoons donated. Image cataloging issues surrounding what the image is of versus what image is about. Scholars scrutinize the lack of cultural context provided with image digitized. And Dyer, wants us to note importance of text used in cartoon, as there aren’t many text used to begin with. Some solutions found were to obtain original newspaper and editorials the cartoons were printed in, document and note front pages of newspaper that contains cartoon to figure out the context of the cartoon. Only with context would we understand the humor of the cartoons drawn by Sykes’.

 

Reflection:

I was looking for ways and how librarians digitize images while researching for presentation 4. I tried to understand the process of digitization so that I can mention it in the digitization of a collection at the academic library I have been studying all semester. This article showed a whole other dimension of digitization that I hadn’t thought of before: cataloging and digitizing dated materials. It wasn’t as simple as I had thought of it. Apparently, it isn’t as easy as scanning and inputting the metadata information. Dyer does a great job explicating how cartoons work, the context and information to catalog, and additional research needed to fully catalog one cartoon image.

This makes me think about how Instagram functions. Images are often posted, but the source, creator, or information isn’t mentioned, just a partial caption underneath the image. Instagram will make it hard for information professionals to categorize or search for images there. But Instagram has hashtags. Some hashtags often used have nothing to do with the image, but more about what the person posting the image has done. Heck, even I have had trouble searching for a restaurant or place I randomly found an image of on Instagram. It takes me an extra 2 to 20 minutes following hashtags, tagged profiles, and locations to find an art exhibit.

            Overall, read this article if you’re thinking about cataloging, digitizing, and working with images during your librarianship. Dyer writes an easy and coherent article about VCU, Sykes, and the struggles of cataloging historical editorial cartoons.

Using Digital Latino Children's Books to Promote Multiple Literacies

Bradley, Rebecca

INFO 266

Fall 2016

Naidoo, J. C. (2010). Using print and digital Latino children’s books to promote multiple literacies in classrooms and libraries. In J. C. Naidoo (Ed.), Celebrating cuentos: promoting Latino children’s literature and literacy in classrooms and libraries (pp. 301-317). Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

As a relatively new Spanish bilingual teacher-librarian in a high-needs public elementary school in San Francisco, I spent my first year completely reorganizing the library space. Before I started this project, all of the Spanish books were stuffed into one shelf area with several small rolling carts used for overflow. After months of hard work and funding for new shelving, the library is now clearly divided so that all of the English books are on one side and all of the Spanish books are on the other and are spread out among seven new ample book shelves. Starting this year, I am focused on improving the online links for teachers and students on our school library webpage as well as providing relevant and engaging lessons teaching our students how to use online resources effectively. Therefore, Jamie Naidoo’s essay has given me wonderful ideas about using digital resources among our Latino students.

Naidoo’s essay recreates a lesson by a sixth grade teacher reading Julia Alvarez’s Return to Sender, which sparks a lively debate about immigration and deportation among his students. To learn more, the teacher directs students to a Webquest site where they find out information on current immigration laws as well as important leaders in the Latino community such as César Chávez and Dolores Huerta. Quite frankly, this lesson overview has opened my eyes to a myriad of ways in which I could enhance the learning experiences of the students at our school. The only obstacle I see at this point is the fact that the fourth and fifth graders are already loaded down with reports on other topics such as the California Native American tribes and US Presidents, which are required by California curriculum standards. Nevertheless, it is worth talking to the upper grade teachers at my school about fitting in a new topic such as immigration that is more personally relevant to our students given that more than 90% are Latino.

A library of design: Electronic collections inspire modern research spaces

Pierucci, Jessica

Hampton, N. (2015). A library of design: Electronic collections inspire modern research spaces. Codex: The Journal of the Louisiana Chapter of the ACRL, 3(2), 68-79. Retrieved from http://journal.acrlla.org/index.php/codex

Summary

This article discusses the transition to focusing on curating an electronic collection at the Xavier University of Louisiana Library Resource Center. The library lost part of its collection when 18 inches of water flooded the first floor during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The library did not have money available for easy replacement of lost materials at the time so the library relied on gifted items and interlibrary loan instead. In 2013, noticing the print materials left were not well used, the library undertook a collection evaluation and determined the best and most cost efficient way forward was through collecting electronic versions of many materials, including many journals, and getting rid of print versions to open up library space for a new information commons area where shelving could be removed after weeding. Feedback showed the project transitioning to more electronic resources and using the freed up library space for an information commons was overall a success.

Evaluation

The article is a great example of what I see as a likely future of academic libraries where parts of the print collection that duplicate the online collection move to just online, freeing up the library's physical space for study space. The article specifically discusses the transition of the library's journals, which I think are a prime candidate for removal from the print collection when the material is accessible, and more easily searchable and findable, online. Where I work we've weeded to only keep the last five years of print journals where we have online access and in the future I would be unsurprised if there's a decision to cancel all of these print subscriptions where we have online access to avoid duplication and free up shelf space for other uses. I really liked seeing how well this transition worked at one school and the benefits of having a nice new collaborative space for students to use in the library. I'm curious to see more examples of this transition and how it plays out in different types of library spaces in the coming years.

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.