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Wood and Hoffmann, Library Collection Development Policies
14 Dec 06
Wood, Richard J. and Frank Hoffman. Library Collection Development Policies: A Reference and Writers’ Handbook. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 1996.
Chapter 1 consists mainly of bullet points drawn from various authors describing the advantages libraries obtain by writing collection development policies. This lengthy summary combines all W&H’s sources. I would place them in four general categories:
Planning
- forces thinking about organizational goals to be met by the collection
- forces staff to think through library goals, commit to these goals. . .
- establishes priorites for collection development
- helps assure continuity
- helps ensure a degree of consistency over time and despite staff turnover
- provides information to assist in budget allocations
- aids in rationalizing budget allocations
- provides information for determining library-wide collection management policies
- aids in weeding and evaluating the collection
Accountability
- helps assure the library will commit itself to serving all parts of the community
- provides outsiders with information about the purpose of collection development (an accountability tool)
- provides a means of assessing overall performance of the CD program
- helps demonstrate that the library is running a business-like operation
- sets standards for inclusion and exclusion
- helps set quality standards for selection and weeding
- serves as a tool of complaint-handling with regard to selections or deselections
- reduces the influence of a single selector
- helps minimize personal bias by selectors
Staff
- educates librarians responsible for collections
- contributes to operational efficiency in terms of routine decisions
- provides a means of staff evaluation
- serves as a good in-service training tool
- guides staff in handling complaints
- helps spare staff from unwarranted criticism
- generates some degree of commitment to meeting organizational goals
- assists in establishing staffing needs and priorities
Information
- informs users, administrators, governing bodies, and other libraries of the collection’s scope and nature
- informs everyone about the nature and scope of the collection
- informs everyone of collecting priorities
- provides a public relations document
- describes collections strengths and weaknesses. . . and supports grant proposals, funding requests, and accreditation surveys
- communicates between libraries for purposes of developing and maintaining cooperative collection building and resource sharing
If this is the best we can do, I find myself sympathizing with Richard Snow. Some of these points I find potentially useful, some not. A few border on absurd. In general, I’m bothered (but not surprised) by dreary bureaucratic “vision” that seems to dominate policy development. So many collection policy documents are barely readable! Is this because it’s considered advantageous to appear businesslike?
But what worries me more is the almost total irrelevance of patrons to this process. Collection development policies inform them about our collections? Seriously, who ever reads a library’s collection development policy before they go looking for a book? What LIBRARIAN ever looks at other libraries’ collections policies, except when called upon to write their own. They tend to be dull, jargon-laden, and if the conspectus format is used, pretty much incomprehensible. More importantly, apart from providing information, what does a collection policy do for our patrons? Admittedly, it won’t provide direct benefit for most. Still, I’d like to see the profession articulating at least some of our reasons for policy development from a more user-centred perspective.
I not too long ago read a fascinating article by Hur-Li Lee entitled, “The Concept of Collection from the User’s Perspective.” It’s quite thought provoking, and more needs to be done in this area. Here’s the opening sentence: “In library and information science (LIS), the concept of collection has no rigorous definition and represents many different entities that are often seen from a library management perspective rather than from the perspective of users” (67).
Works Cited
Lee, Hur-Li. “The Concept of Collection from the User’s Perspective.” Library Quarterly 75.1 (2005): 67-85.
Wood and Hoffmann’s bullet point lists are drawn from—
Evans, G. Edward. Developing Library and Information Center Collections. 2nd ed. Littleton, CO: Libraries Unlimited, 1987.
Farrell, David. “Policy and Planning.” Collection Management: A New Treatise. Eds. Charles B. Osburn and Ross Atkinson. Greenwich, CT: JAI, 1991.
Gardner, Richard K. Library Collections: Their Origin, Selection and Development. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981.
Posted by pzed on December 14, 2006 at 11.57am
Categories: collection policies, libraries
Comments on "Wood and Hoffmann, Library Collection Development Policies"
[...] In my first post on Wood and Hoffmann, I identified four general categories of arguments in favour of libraries having collection development policies: planning, accountability, staff, and information. Partially, what I’m thinking about now is not so much a reduction of those categories to two, but a recognition that specific aspects of a policy may be either internally or externally oriented. Indeed, a policy could be entirely oriented in one or the other direction. My gut feeling is that collection development policies often try to do too much. Does a library benefit from having a comprehensive policy, or is it better to sketch a general framework that outlines the library’s general philosophy? [...]
Posted by words » Blog Archive » Wood and Hoffmann II on December 19, 2006 at 4.11pm :: link
