Open Source Library Services Platform

Greta Acosta

Breeding, M. (2016, April). EBSCO supports new open source project. American Libraries. Retrieved from: https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2016/04/22/ebsco-kuali-open-source-project/

EBSCO Supports New Open Source Project


The survival and future of libraries begins with such innovative projects as the one featured in this article. The project borrows from the very successful business models of tech industry giants such as Apple. Instead of developing one rigid software, EBSCO will fund a platform where collaborators are given the autonomy and flexibility needed in order to expand and maintain the system.

"Its launch opens a new chapter in the library technology industry—potentially wielding an even greater impact than the latest rounds of mergers and acquisitions."

Book Trends and the Future

O'Brien, Sarah

Kellogg, Carolyn. (2016) Six Book Trends for 2016: Look Into The Future. Los Angeles Times.

Although this article is not directly about libraries and their collections, I think it is important to implement the trends this writer suggests. It was reported that 571 million print books were sold in 2015, while ebooks sales stayed at 25% this past year. We all worry that print is dead, luckily this statistic proves otherwise. With print books coming back, Harper Lee’s much anticipated second book “Go Set A Watchman”, David McCullough’s book about the Wright Brothers and Jeff Kinney’s Diary of Wimpy Kid Series, along with the spike in coloring book sales, print books are on the way back, which means libraries are getting busy. With magazines going by the wayside and bookstores closing left and right, libraries are full of titles and material just waiting to be discovered. With box office success like Star Wars, Harry Potter and highly anticipated television shows like Game of Thrones, the fantasy doesn’t stop after two hours. Publishers and Marketers want to keep fans in the loop, buy Game of Thrones action figures and games, visit theme parks (have you been to Harry Potter World yet?) and stock up on every book ever written about Star Wars because it’s out there. It’s not just about the movie experience anymore, we live in world where we can further explore the worlds that authors create.  And although journalism is taking new shapes, we know that with the success of podcasts like Serial, the Netflix original docu-series, Making a Murder and the fantastic reporter and sensational nonfiction writer, Jon Krakauer, it’s clear that deeply reported nonfiction stories have a ready audience.  The last point that is brought up in this article is a call to diversity in books. Toni Morrison was the last American award the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, as our country becomes more multicultural, it’s important that we have something for everyone.

Again, this article is not really discussing these trends in the library setting but I think it’s important that these trends can be used as connections to make library collections stronger, programs/events bigger and better and make the library experience as a whole an important part of our weekly routines. This article can serve as an excellent guide as we think about collection development and programming for the future. With the release of the new Star Wars film, The Force Awakens, many libraries are adopting a whole festival celebrating the world and characters George Lucas created. The same can be said with diversity in literature. This is something that we have been struggling with for years, as a Children’s Librarian I am constantly looking to publishers that focus on diverse stories and searching for authors of different ethnicities. In fact, I came across this blogger and author from London, Ann Morgan and her quest to read books from all over the world. Looking to the future of libraries, all these points and trends that the author brings up are very relevant to sustaining successful libraries.  

Patron-Driven Acquisitions at City University of New York

Hober, Michael

Egan, N., Yearwood, S. L., & Kendrick, C. L. (2016). Patron-driven acquisitions at the City University of New York: A case study. Technical Services Quarterly, 33(2), 131-144.

Descriptive Summary: This study describes how a patron-driven acquisition system was tried at City University of New York, which is made up of 24 colleges spread throughout New York City. Working with publishers, they developed a list of 4,602 titles were not duplicated within their library system that would be automatically purchased when patrons viewed these items beyond the table of contents when browsing. Their $75,000 budget lasted for four months with this system. They found that several concerns present in their literature review - that collection quality would diminish, that patrons would intentionally trigger purchases, and that librarians would assert influence over the process - were not found to be issues in this program.  The authors conclude that if budget limitations and the time to set the program up to run well were not so high that they would continue to use this as a tool for collection development in the future.  

Evaluation: The article does a good job of highlighting how important the work of setting up the program before its implementation was in the success of the program. The librarians who implemented this needed to comb through all 24 college libraries to eliminate duplication, select titles appropriate for their college aged audience, and negotiate with publishers before the program went live. Their work beforehand was what allowed them to have a successful program that avoided the common pitfalls that participants in similar programs that were discussed in the literature review had issues with.  Even so, I'm not entirely convinced that patron-driven acquisitions should be a large part of collection development, though maybe it can have some small role.  

The Hidden Cost of Sharing

Situ, P., & Voyles, J. F. (2008). Collecting forever or just-in-time: An alternative to enhance customers’ access to Chinese language materials through resource sharing. Resource Sharing & Information Networks, 19, 39-50.

This university has a physical storage issue that impacts its Chinese language collection especially. Off-site storage was not an option, and the types of materials in this collection are less likely to be available in digital format. The library decided to try a just-in-time approach (versus an anticipatory approach, or "just-in-case" as they put it). They decided to use ILL to meet the patrons’ needs instead of buying books.  

The program worked well enough, but what I found potentially perturbing was an idea discussed in the literature review.  The paper's authors cite Ferguson & Kohoe (1993) as showing ILLing articles being cheaper than owning them.  This would be problematic as a widespread policy for multiple reasons: if no one buys the periodicals, no one can borrow them, and the fewer people who invest, especially in academic publications which don’t enjoy wide circulation to begin with, the harder it is for periodicals to survive.  The journals can’t meet their overhead costs, so they are forced to raise their prices, which hurts everyone.  Another cited work (Ameen 2005) said patrons didn’t “care how the library obtained materials for them,” the encouragement of which attitude could lead to unrealistic expectations and a sense of entitlement in the patrons, and which wouldn't take into account the cost or consequence to creators or manufacturers. 

The section is a bit choppy—the authors included the ideas without connecting them critically—so it’s not clear if they agree with these ideas, or whether the original articles offer solutions or no (or in what context the original authors discussed these topics), but to me it demonstrates how important it is to raise awareness among our patrons about what goes into our trying to make as much information available to them as possible despite the limitations of space and budget, and the repercussions--ethical and otherwise--of some of the choices that we make to do it.

References 

Ameen, K. (2005). Developments in the philosophy of collection management: A historical review. Collection Building, 24(4), 112–116.

Ferguson, A. W., & Kehoe, K. (1993). Access vs. ownership: What is most cost effective in the sciences. Journal of Library Administration 19(2), 89–99.

Building a Collection from the Ground Up

Leininger, Isis
INFO 266
4/28/2016

Flater, E. (2016). Building a collection from the ground up: Notes from a first attempt at developing a collection for a new master’s degree. Strategic Library. Retrieved from http://www.libraryspot.net/SL/Collections.pdf

Flater, E. (2015, November). From the ground up: Notes from a first attempt at new collection building [PDF poster]. Retrieved from http://schd.ws/hosted_files/2015charlestonconference/1e/poster2dark.pdf

In the midst of all my subscriptions to listservs and newsletters, I found something that is related to this class and that could actually help us with our projects both in school and in our careers. The article was linked through the newsletter and I was able to find the author's online poster so you can look through both the article and the poster. I highly recommend that you read them if you plan on becoming an academic librarian when you graduate.

The article and poster are accounts of how an academic librarian developed a collection to support a new graduate program. The author talks about the funding she had access to, the deadlines she had to meet, and tools she used for collection development. She also talks about the challenges they met through the process, where they are, and where they want to be in the future.
She talks about how they divided their budget to buy new, older, and eBooks. She discusses that her library had to reevaluate expenditures and invest more money on eBook databases for Architecture. E-book collections subscriptions, as she came to realize, became a great way of improving the collection quickly and effectively.
The author also discusses using LOC classification for finding materials in other disciplines that related to the field. She also followed the guidance of other libraries, professional organizations, bibliographies, book reviews, and other resources. In addition, she points out the importance of improving the communication with campus faculty in order to better meet the needs of the campus.

This article and corresponding poster can certainly serve as good guides for us as we develop collections in academic libraries. It is a good overview of what kind of resources we should look into, and what kinds of challenges we might face in collection development. It also serves as a good example of how academic librarians can do collection development under a limited budget. In fact, I have saved the article and poster so that I can use it as a quick guide if I ever have to do this kind of collection development in my career.

Library Collections and Objecthood

Tiffany Harkleroad
INFO 266
4/27/16

Roll, A. (2016, September 26). Library collections and objecthood. [video file].  Retrieved from https://youtu.be/jk0nynPHOM8

This was an excellent video presentation by Ann Roll, discussing how books can become "objects" and this objecthood often inhibits weeding in a library collection.  Emotional responses to books can cause an emotional response from a library engaging in weeding.

The video proposes that physically interacting with books as objects is what creates such an emotional attachment to books.  Books become more like props in our everyday emotional situations, and the emotions experiences are then transferred to the books.

I found this to be a very interesting presentation, examining the emotional relationships people have with books.  I know that weeding can be a hot button issue to book lovers, and patrons often get upset about the act of weeding.  This presentation does a great job of explaining why these reactions happen, and how we can better approach weeding in a way that can reduce such emotional responses to weeding.  We all know how important weeding can be to keep a library thriving and useful, so this is a great guide to making the process a little less painful.

Greener Collection Development

Megan Hamby
INFO 266
4/26/16

Connel, V. (2010). Greening the library: Collection development decisions. Endnotes: The Journal of the New Members Round Table, 1(1), 1-15. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/nmrt/sites/ala.org.nmrt/files/content/oversightgroups/comm/schres/endnotesvol1is1/3greeningthelibrary.pdf

Connel’s paper discusses how libraries recycle and reuse resources as well as how they can further educate patrons as well as themselves about the various ways to reduce the amount of waste in their institution. These are two of the levels she presents as ways libraries create a greener collection as well as working with schools and adding resources to create a more sustainable collection. Connel also mentions how libraries work towards creating greener collection development policies including recycling e-waste and computer equipment, repairing old computers and consolidation.

One of the interesting things I found about this article was that Connel provided a large amount of data addressing the carbon footprints of the U.S book and publishing industries. What is great is that she addresses the fact that libraries are often adaptable and flexible. She also mentions the importance of being mindful to the “energy-saving and resource-recycling policies and behaviors (p. 10) which is something libraries already take into account.