In its local role, the library will be optimized to meet the needs of its campus community. The library is likely to provide repository infrastructure for stewardship of university-based information assets. Most of those assets will support pedagogy, administration, student life, alumni affairs, and other things vital to the school. A much smaller portion of them will support research. Research will be a far more global phenomenon than local institutions can support on their own.

In its networked role, the library will be able to support research and dissemination to the extent that it is tightly networked into the increasing cluster of inter-institutional collaborations that enable the creation and use of scholarly content. These collaborations will be key elements of research cyberinfrastructure, an infrastructure that will be a research-and-dissemination platform. In the magic phrase of the digital era, it “will scale,” be ubiquitous, and support a variety of scholarly domains, from astronomy to nanobiology, archaeology to urban design. The next-generation research library must be firmly embedded in that infrastructure, because that will be the platform to which scholars will gain access on their laptop library. (18-19)

Those who might be interested can follow some of our discussion on collection policy development through the Leddy Collection Policy White Paper, prepared using CommentPress, a WordPress template that allows commenting at the level of the paragraph.

(cross-posted from Leddy News)

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:

1. What are appropriate and useful metaphors for your “library” and “collection” in the digital age?
2. How will your library achieve effectiveness as it builds and manages the hybrid collection?
3. How will your library define efficiency in acquiring and managing the hybrid collection?
4. How will your library establish and maintain a focus on collection content in the challenging landscape of scholarly communications?
5. What commitment will your library make to collection permanence?

Kennedy asserts that the heyday of collection development policies has passed, for a couple reasons. For one, “collection development policies are closely linked to print materials in the minds of librarians. . . . For many professionals and paraprofessionals today, in particular those working in major academic and research libraries, it is digital resources that are of primary importance” (239). This is especially true in a case where a collection development policy will be developed locally, but the majority of big-ticket electronic resources are purchased consortially. However, Kennedy suggests a larger issue that explains the neglect of collection policies:

The very concept of collecting has been called into question as a primary activity of libraries. When increasingly the resources that the library makes available are ones which are not physically collected and brought within its walls but to which it provides access if and when they are needed, it would hardly be surprising if some came to regard a document that seeks to guide its collecting activities as of diminishing relevance. (240)

Of course, Kennedy is only setting up a straw man here and really wants to argue that collection policies are still relevant and worthwhile. He acknowledges that digital information is less tangible and more subject to change or even to disappear; that the “content of the [digital] collection may be more fluid that it ever was in any print collection subject to the ravages of theft and physical deterioration” (241). And although he doesn’t draw this conclusion directly, it may be that this fluidity is itself justification for the development of a policy document. He goes on to identify a number of key roles that a policy can play, all of which we have already seen, but which he hopes to place in a new context with respect to digital information: accountability, decision support, planning, communication, and protection for library staff.

Lee describes a case study analyzing collection development processes in a women’s studies collection through the 70s, 80s, and 90s. She starts from the “basic assumption. . . that collection development involves not only objective professional activities but also complex social interactions” (23). In the course of the study, Lee analyzes data culled from internal documentation of library activities, archival records that represent the make up of the institution and how it changed over time, and interviews with librarians involved in collection activities in the area:

The data revealed two distinctive points of view towards women’s studies and women’s collections: feminist, and non-feminist. The standpoint held by librarians on both sides of the issue colored their perceptions of user information needs and information seeking and, in turn, became part of their justifications for collection decisions. The feminist group took a women-centered collection approach and worked persistently to establish a separate library collection focused on women. The non-feminist group adhered to the traditional disciplinary model and objected to the proposal for a separate women’s studies collection. (26)

It’s important to point out that Lee does not characterize either side as being necessarily more valid than the other. She gives considerable attention to a fair treatment of the two perspectives in an effort to understand the biases inherent in each. Interestingly, she concludes that, “Neither of the conflicting positions on interdisciplinary inquiry in women’s studies was evidence-based” (27).

If there is an implication for collection policy development—in other words, for that process by which we might attempt to codify in a policy document how selection and other relevant collection decisions are to be made—it would fall somewhere between one of two poles. Arguably, a collection policy document could attempt to be the governing factor that would eliminate subjectivity by establishing criteria by which decisions would be made. However, I consider that naive wishful thinking. It would be much more interesting to develop a policy document that would recognize and accommodate the implications of Lee’s findings. These are the implications I have so far come up with:

• Collection development is contextual, within the institution, within society, and taking into consideration the individuality of the librarians, faculty, and students directly or indirectly involved;
• The influence of individual biases must be understood and allowed for;
• Political realities, both institutional and societal, will have an impact on decisions being made;
• A policy document will need to provide clear guidelines in terms of direction and expectations, but still allow flexibility for the librarians involved to act with autonomy.

I’m not sure if this article contributes to where I want to go in my thinking about policy development, but I think its important if only because it is a fascinating and well-evidenced case that describes the reality of how collection librarians behave much more accurately than most collection development policy documents I’ve examined.

Miller’s article is now a little old, and the literature it reviews even older, but reading it prompted me to think of a couple things. Discussing the transition to electronic, she writes:

The discussion of the larger issues has sometimes been lost in catchy slogans, but the balancing act of obtaining resources for library users with limited funding pivots on resource sharing, from interlibrary loan to coordinated collection development. . . . (287-288)

I believe she meant to say “obtaining, with limited funding, resources for library users,” but I’m betting you got the point. For some reason this reminded me of Mita’s idea of listing simple goals for building a collection. If we approach the same kind of thing from a service perspective, a collection policy could read more like a list of pledges: “here’s what we promise to do for our patrons”. Examples could included things like

• will maintain relevant, recent holdings in all areas under study at Uwindsor
• will preserve access to important works in all disciplines
• will provide free ILL/document delivery services to the fullest extent possible

These are TOTALLY off the top of my head and would need considerable thought. However, there’s no point in putting out a meaningless feel-good document and calling it a policy. And only the last really speaks to services. I’m intrigued by the idea of developing a policy document that focusses on services.

Miller’s lit. review continues under 12 headings: access and ownership, acquisitions and budgeting, the Internet, cooperation, resource sharing, scholarly communication, serials, electronic publishing, organization, policy statements [yawn], selection and evaluation, and preservation. These could provide ideas for areas in which a policy document should make service pledges.

Interestingly, under the access and ownership heading, Miller cites an article by Thomas W. Shaughnessy:

Shaughnessy discusses the difficulty of maintaining collection strengths during a shift in focus; he notes that bigger is not necessarily better, contrasts the “supply-oriented” to the “demand-driven” library, and calls for evaluating the cost of access with costs of ownership. . . . (289)

I’ve mentioned in other posts on this topic that I like the idea of a user-centred collection policy. The tone of the literature Miller discusses under this heading is distinctly in favour of just-in-case vs. just-in-time acquisition. The terms don’t map exactly, but I can’t help but think just-in-case ≅ supply-oriented, collection-centred, and object-focussed; just-in-time ≅ demand-driven, user-centred, and service-focussed.

Also Cited

Shaughnessy, Thomas W. “From Ownership to Access: A Dilemma for Library Managers.” Journal of Library Administration 14 (1991): 1-7.

Vickery’s article is a nice overview of the arguments for and against collection development policies. The “for” section is brief and canonical, with its arguments grouped under four broad headings: selection, planning, PR, and “the wider context” (referring generally to consortial and collaborative approaches).

The “against” section is, naturally, richer. He covers much of the same ground as Snow, but has surveyed the literature perhaps a little more broadly. Rather than cover that ground again, here are some tantalizing excerpts from Vickery’s conclusion:

What is required is not merely a traditionally detailed written document, but a broad statement of purpose and a flexible, continually-revised description of the library’s aims. (341)

Sounds good, but I’m a little concerned that a traditionally detailed written document still seems to be required as a baseline. He finishes with this:

A clear, broad statement of purpose, flexibly interpreted, would allow selectors to adjust to changing technology and evolving user needs. Experience shows that the traditional written policy is no longer a self-evident necessity, and work is needed to develop new models. (341)

But isn’t that just a mission statement? Or if not, what is it?

From what I recall, a collection development policy can be summed up as several pages of call number ranges with words that essentially express: “we are trying to get lots of this”, “we want some of this stuff”, and “there’s not much on this subject that we want”.

What Mita describes corresponds to the conspectus approach, and she correctly points out that it’s pretty uninspiring. I like the rule-based method she describes. It’s contextual, lends itself to qualitative reasoning, perhaps even to something like narrative.

The title pretty much sums it up. Stoller summarizes the current state of library collections: electronic resources usually purchased in big, expensive suites eat up more and more of our acquisitions budgets; many of these are actually rented rather than bought; decisions on big ticket items tend to be made by administrators rather than liaison librarians.

In this environment, market research seems more essential than ever. We always needed to know what our users wanted. But the parameters of that knowledge are infinitely more complex now – to buy or not to buy, to buy in paper or electronic, to locate onsite or offsite. It is a maze of choices, and we need our users’ help. The complexity of the environment means we must be all the more sensitive not only to what research materials they need but also how they use them. (6)

It’s this last that intrigues me. Use. To an extent, we can only look at past use. We might argue that use over the last 2-5 years constitutes a good estimate of current use. And of course we can only guess at future use. How interesting is it that a soft cover edition seems to circulate more than a hard cover edition of the same book when they sit next to each other on the same shelf? What is the relationship between use and the decisions we make as bibliographers?

I’m getting a little off-topic as far as Stoller is concerned. What he mainly wants to do is trumpet the importance of the subject specialist librarian:

Quite frankly, when all is said and done, there is no better model for communicating with our user communities. Mind you, I am not referring to the old model of the selector, who sits in an office, pouring over review lists or sorting offer slips from vendors. I am talking about someone with a strong academic background in his or her subject on top of a librarian’s training, actively engaged in reference work, instruction and a vigorous liaison program with the faculty and students of a particular discipline. When all these functions come together in a single librarian, we have perhaps the ideal resource for knowing what our users want of us, someone who can talk their language, understand their methodologies and translate them into the information we need to build our collections with accuracy and precision. (7)

Corrigan suggests that web-based collection policy documents are fundamentally different from the paper-based documents that are the subject of the literature. “These new policies reflect the advantages of the online medium in which they are presented and in some cases appear to represent significant changes in how collection policies are structured and used” (65). Corrigan is at Tulane, where a change in both library and campus leadership compelled the library to reconsider policy. A task force was established to lead the policy renewal:

The task force soon discovered that collection policies had dramatically changed from dreary summary documents attempting to broadly describe the overall scope of the collection. Instead, these newer policies were most often sets of individual working documents focused on specific disciplines covered. Most of them seem to have the practical utility of having been developed and maintained by the bibliographer assigned to the discipline at hand. (66)

This is consistent with the approach to collection policy development outline in Leddy’s Operational Strategic Plan (2005). Our plan calls for the department head to write a general policy document, after which a committee of collection librarians will develop guidelines for discipline-specific area plans. However, it’s interesting to think of this as a web-based document from the outset. Writing for the web is different from writing for paper. Writing for the web could also conceivably include commenting or even collaborative writing through something wiki-ish.

Corrigan reports that Tulane decided to make a focus on curriculum needs central to its policy development process: “the process of writing a comprehensive set of collection policies. . . began with an inventory of academic departments and programs” (67). Step two was to develop specific guidelines for use by bibliographers in developing their policies. These policies have since been transferred to a database allowing bibliographers to login and update their policies with ease.

Interestingly, Corrigan makes no mention of any systematic attempt to involve faculty or students in the process. The subject-specialist’s liaison activities will necessarily come into play to some extent, but I think user feedback needs to be an explicit part of the process.