Thoughts on my experiences thus far

I've had a lot of fun working to expand both my knowledge of Jazz and collection development issues and practices this semester. I hope that I've provided some valued services to the music library at Indiana University.

I've had a good time reading literature on collection development that I chose to read, not a list of readings that was imposed upon me by a course instructor. I think the most valuable readings were Michael Fling's book, Library Acquisition of Music, and Ross Atkinson's article, "Six Key Challenges for the Future of Collection Development: Introduction for the Janus Breakout Sessions." These would be good documents for any library intern for music to read.

In the next few days I plan on taking a closer look at Jazz reviews in current Jazz periodicals to select new recordings for the library collection. I also plan on taking a look at the library video collections for Jazz. That's all for now.

Abstract: Mary F. Casserly, "Collection Management as Risk Management," Library Collections, Acquisitions, & Technical Services 28 (2004): 79-92.

This paper identifies some of the risks to library values, as well as to scholarly communication and the information marketplace that those in collection development must interact with. Casserly identifies two main sources of challenges to library primacy:

1. changing constituent needs and expectations: evidence that a change has occurred, but unclear if any patterns have emerged in the information seeking patterns of researchers; and
   
2. competition from emerging information services: external products and information services, internal competition from Blackboard and other course management software that can manage course reserve materials, but most important competition coming from the World Wide Web, which not only responds to information needs, but has literally reached into every aspect of life in the 21st century.

To help better understand the changing needs of students and faculty, the author identifies some steps that can be taken. These include:

• Talk to faculty about materials for teaching needs
• Identify user needs using assessment tools like LibQUAL+
• Do environmental scanning of external and internal forces acting upon collection development practices, budgets, etc.
• Make sure to market library services to users
• Enhance collections by improving access channels to them
• Hire employees that are adaptable to change, and focus professional development on the changing educational environment.

Another way to understand the risks of collection development is to understand the market for information resources:

• Actual collection use
• publisher and vendor mergers limiting access to purchasing avenues
• vagaries of intellectual property and copyright laws
• subscription-for-access resource changes, unplanned additions and deletions
• growth of library system and consortial acquisitions taking purchasing power away from individual collection managers.

It is clear that Casserly has identified a number of possible risks involved in the world of library collection developments. But more importantly, she tries to propose some solutions for these risks. Perhaps it would be interesting to read more about how following some of these recommendations is affecting collections management in libraries.

Abstract: Ross Atkinson, "Six Key Challenges for the Future of Collection Development: Introduction for the Janus Breakout Sessions," Library Resources & Technical Services 50, no. 4 (2006): 244-51.

Ross Atkinson had a long and distinguished career in collection development for academic libraries. At the time of his death earlier this year, he worked for Cornell University, and had organized the "Janus Conference: A Look Backward and Forward at Collection Development," of which this was one of the major addresses. There is a streaming video of Ross's presentation at http://libdev.library.cornell.edu/glopad_test/tests/RA/RA_video.htm . The six key challenges for collection development have been talked about and worked on since his presentation at this and other conferences and in other library organizations. He outlines three reasons for collecting information:

• Political and economic: institutional capital. We collect to differentiate the quality of the educational experience students receive at a particular institution. Atkinson believes that worries about growing homogeneity of collections are really unfounded, as the varying paths to accessing that information will inevitably differ from one library to the next.
• Material: preservation. Long-term access, cultural memory. Problems include technological limitations of digital preservation, and the increasing access instead of ownership mentality of many academic disciplines.
• Contextual: privileging. Inclusion of materials in library collections is a process of deciding which information resources are more important than others, and effort to bring this information to the library historically meant making access to this information easier for the patron. Now, with digital delivery and free availability of many information resources online, print collections in libraries are less accessible, turning the privileging system on its head.

These motivations for collecting beget issues affecting the activity of collecting in the current economic, political, and social world of academic communication. It was Ross's goal that identifiying these six challenges would also result in significant action:

1. action to digitize collections in a great retrospective conversion effort,
2. to make a rapid transition to electronic information by demanding scholarly publishers to deliver their content in this format,
3. to develop deeply coordinated and integrated collections by creating core lists and dividing out advanced, peripheral subjects,
4. to negotiate collectively with publishers for the best and most cost-effective access to electronic publications,
5. to ensure the long-term archiving of digital materials for the sake of cultural preservation, and
6. to support alternative modes of scholarly communication to circumvent the stranglehold some publishers have on libraries (think Elsevier).

I liked this article because I could tell that Atkinson was putting everything he cared about out for others to see and scrutinize, and for its high level of informed insight into the profession by one of its great luminaries. Atkinson's adventurous spirit is evident in some of his recommendations to challenge legality of collective collection development and the implicit challenge to copyright through such activities as recon digitization of print materials and archiving of subscribed digital content to ensure future access.

Abstract: Lynda Fuller Clendenning, J. Kay Martin, and Gail McKenzie, "Secrets for Managing Materials Budget Allocations: A Brief Guide for Collection Managers," Library Collections, Acquisitions, & Technical Services 29 (2005): 99–108.

Clendinning, Martin, and McKenzie explore the process of encumbering budgets for library monographic materials in an effort to help collection managers use budgets most effectively. The key to over-encumbering budgets is to understand first that not all materials ordered will be delivered, and that items ordered from different areas of the world have different rates of fulfillment. The savvy collection manager will take these factors into account when ordering from foreign (i.e. non-U.S.) vendors.

The authors summarize four important points at the end of their article that a collection manager would do well to remember, paraphrased below:

1. Order new titles consistently through the fiscal year. Placing orders in large batches a couple times a year interrupts a consistent flow of book receipts. If orders are placed en masse near the end of the fiscal year, items may not be received, reducing purchasing power for the following year.
2. Review open orders at least once each year. This allows managers the opportunity to know which titles are taking longer to be received so that appropriate adjustments can be made: titles could be cancelled, or funds could be unencumbered.
3. Determine the right over encumbrance level for individual budgets and publication regions. Analyze the length of time from order to receipt, average price and discount mix of vendors and their performance.
4. Watch the encumbrance and expenditure levels throughout the fiscal year. As the year progresses, attention should move from a focus on unencumbered balance to expenditures and the corresponding cash balance.

Having had experience ordering monographic materials for a large academic library, I'm familiar with the process of encumbering funds and paying invoices when items are received. I didn't understand why some selectors chose to overencumber their budgets, and my supervisor in acquisitions didn't seem to, either. This article helped me understand how doing so, with the knowledge that all items will not be received, is a good way to take full advantage of funds in a fiscal cycle, but that doing so requires an increased level of attention and knowledge of vendor fulfillment.