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Casserly, Developing a Concept
10 Apr 07
Casserly, Mary Frances. “Developing a Concept of Collection for the Digital Age.” portal: Libraries and the Academy 2.4 (2002): 577-587.
Casserly introduces what I find to be a compelling notion: “It is the abstract idea of collection—philosophy, purpose, scope and boundaries—that, as practitioners, we share with other members of the library profession” (577). Unfortunately, I didn’t get the sense that she really develops this idea through the article; or perhaps this is the forest, and I’m only seeing the trees. Casserly identifies four key elements that support the idea of “collection”: ownership, place, control, and permanence (579). Permanence is new, a reflection of the digital world, while the other elements make a transition from print to digital.
“Ownership” needs little explication, save the fact that generally speaking libraries have traditionally “presented users with only those resources for which the library assumed responsibility through ownership” (579), whereas now we are also in the business of providing access to off-site resources that might be owned consortially or accessed through licenses that give no actual ownership to the library in question.
“Place” in the context of collection management refers primarily to the library as storehouse (580). Casserly doesn’t directly discuss or even imply how the idea of place remains relevant to the concept of a digital collection, I suppose assuming that we can fill in the blanks for ourselves, although I’m not so sure we can assume that place is meaningless. She doesn’t seem particularly interested in the service or community aspects of the “library as place”.
By “control”, Casserly means inventory control at the basic level, quality control at a more conceptual level, and the assurance of content stability. Interestingly, she doesn’t mention bibliographic control, which functions at a significantly higher level than inventory control as she describes it.
Finally, “Permanence is a property of analog information resources that derives from ownership, place and control” (580). Permanence is inherent in paper and other physical information resources, but digital is inherently impermanent.
Casserly’s article by choice offers more questions than answers. Her introductory section, including the discussion of the four elements mentioned above, concludes with the following:
Most libraries select and manage digital formats within their existing organizational structures and in many these tasks are considered, by both management and staff, to be add-ons to existing responsibilities for analog materials. In these environments, practices grounded in characteristics, properties, and perspectives, such as ownership, place, control and permanence, which clearly do not pertain to digital resources, continue to define the concept of collection. (582)
I’m inclined to disagree. What may be happening is that these four ideas are themselves becoming hybrid, like the libraries they describe. Ownership and place especially can have both literal and metaphoric meanings that converge when the concept of a collection is considered. Control may be of even greater relevance in a digital context, as the complexity of our ownership and licensing situation increases. And permanence? Well, nothing’s permanent. Our paper collections may seem permanent, but they are really only longer-lived. Indeed, paper rots; in a digital environment where electronic archiving is carefully implemented, permanence may in fact be easier to achieve.
To give Casserly her due, she wishes to engage libraries with five questions to help develop the emerging concept of the collection, and I reproduce them here:
- What are appropriate and useful metaphors for your “library” and “collection” in the digital age?
- How will your library achieve effectiveness as it builds and manages the hybrid collection?
- How will your library define efficiency in acquiring and managing the hybrid collection?
- How will your library establish and maintain a focus on collection content in the challenging landscape of scholarly communications?
- What commitment will your library make to collection permanence?
Posted by pzed on April 10, 2007 at 4.11pm
Categories: collection policies, libraries
