Use the basic concepts and principles related to the selection, evaluation, organization, and preservation of physical and digital information items.
Collection management is one of most salient activities of librarianship, and arguably the primary raison d’etre for libraries throughout their history. Though collection management and the related terms “collection development” and “selection policy” are of relatively recent coinage and are associated with a body of modern theory and best practices, the act of collecting books and other objects, and preserving and providing access to them have very likely been integral to librarianship globally from its earliest days. Despite a gulf of over 2,000 years, some of the issues faced by collection managers in ancient libraries likely have distant echoes with concerns that contemporary collection developers must also deal with.
Selection policy is a vital aspect of collection management, and both should align with their library’s mission, vision and values statements. Evaluating the adequacy of the current collection can be approached from collection-based or usage-based perspectives, though Disher comments that “more often than not, the two techniques are fused and used in some combination, resulting in a hybrid of the two” (2017). Collection based techniques usually entail comparing a list or combination of lists of some kind to the contents of the library catalog. These lists may come from bibliographies, Publishers Weekly magazine, various book catalogs, school reading lists and many other sources. The objective of the evaluation will generally determine the choice of list (Disher, 2017). This approach is more effective when used to evaluate the coverage within a particular genre or section within the collection as opposed to trying to ingest the entire library catalog and check it against a massive meta-list of book titles. There is a common assumption that how well a collection scope has been developed can be measured in terms of the percentage of titles in a list of books that are owned by the library. This may be logical as far as it goes, but it fails to take into account the uneven demand, usage and supply across the collection that one would need to know in order to make smart acquisition decisions. Sounder selection policies can be shaped by including usage data alongside calculations of the completeness of the collection – or sections of same – as measured by checking inventory against various book lists. Both kinds of evaluation are needed to establish resilient criteria for buying new materials.
Usage-based evaluations survey a variety of quantitative and qualitative data sources that enhance understanding of the interests, information needs and format preferences of a library’s diverse users and communities. The specific metrics to collect and assess will depend on the library type; as Disher notes “there isn’t one single collection evaluation technique that can be used for each and every collection evaluation” (2017). There are many ways of gauging relevant characteristics of your library’s users, among them analyzing circulation desk metrics, examining Inter Library Loan (ILL) transactions, collecting data on bookmobile use and borrowing through other outreach programs, tracking electronic book usage and individual purchases and trends in Demand Driven Acquisition (DDA) logs, compiling staff reports on reference desk activity, looking at the use of electronic journals for research, and more (Evans & Saponario, 2005). Selection policies and criteria require constant refreshing based on up-to-date data about user behavior and inclinations as well as awareness of trends in publishing and library resources and technologies.
Selection policies determine selection criteria, which Rubin believes should be based on “authority, appropriateness, accuracy or timeliness, physical characteristics, collection fit, demand, content, and special characteristics” (2010). Through institutional mission, collection management and selection policy lenses, library managers weed existing collections, assess collection gaps and ascertain needs for new items that would strengthen the collection and benefit the library’s user communities. There are still boundaries on new acquisitions, however, most prominent being the organization’s budget priorities. Selection criteria implement selection policies and can be measured both as objectives (outputs / data) and goals (outcomes / growth). Written selection policies are easier to reference, share – amongst staff and with the public – and utilize, all of which will support consistency in the selection process and encourage more participation in growing and fine-tuning library collections. Written selection policies can also be useful in handling complaints from the public regarding items in the collection.
Assuming that the information organization promotes equity, diversity and inclusion and protects patrons’ rights to intellectual freedom, selection policies should include material that is contentious, created by or addressed to marginalized and underrepresented groups and published by small and independent presses and content providers. Where applicable, multiple viewpoints should be represented in a collection, even when there is pushback from the public or other constituencies. Emphasis should be placed on acquiring materials in different formats – multimedia, online, accessibility enhanced, etc. – in order to guarantee that differently abled patrons can access the same information that other patrons can, and that other clients can find items in their preferred media. The enfranchisement of all user communities as manifested in a library’s collection and selection policies should be an overarching goal on a longer-term horizon.
The organization of library collections generally follows, first of all, different types of materials facilities, and secondly, according to classification systems that impose bibliographic and cataloging standards. For example, documents stored in an archival special collection will be kept in a separate area within the library where access rules, environmental controls and related practices that support preservation and conservation can be enforced. This is very distinct from the organizational principles and choices that determine placement of materials in the stacks, near reference desks and in other areas earmarked for special purposes (map rooms, computer terminals, newspaper archives on microfiche, etc.). There are a great variety of approaches to organizing public materials, from user age-based plans (sections for adults, YAs, children) to genre-based, language-based or media-based plans, among others. Cornwall provides an example of the advantages of a “genrefied library”: “a young reader standing near a favorite book need only stick out a hand to find more like it” (2018). It’s also common to see displays set up at the ends of stacks or even in the main lobby to exhibit, “merchandize” and encourage exploration of the most popular items. Within these broad categories and spatial domains, material is then arranged according to a classification system: for school and public libraries, typically the Dewey Decimal System, for academic libraries, the Library of Congress Classification System. There are many other classification standards and both established (MARC, BIBFRAME, Dublin Core) and emerging metadata formats in use in the practice of library cataloging, which now often entails sharing bibliographic data with WorldCat and other online databases and library consortia.
Organization of digital collections has become more urgent thanks to explosive growth in the number of digital files and objects that libraries are either acquiring or facilitating access to for patrons. Providing access to proprietary digital content (electronic academic journals, for example) is often enabled through a “discovery” tool like Ex Libris’ Primo. Many contemporary library websites present a portal with links to information about an ever-increasing, kaleidoscopic variety of content: the library catalog itself, electronic books, government information and related reference resources, library programming, events and outreach, ILL and other consortia-based services, DDA / PDA programs, and more. Another area of development seen in academic libraries – particularly at large research universities – is the field of digital curation. Through applying a complex mix of metadata schemas to data generated from the onset of an e-Science research project, and then preserving that data and other digital assets in a networked computer archive using an ISO-defined archival repository model like the Open Archival Information System or Digital Curation Centre, digital curation organizes, stores and preserves data so that it can accessed, published and reused by its “designated community” indefinitely. Preservation of digital files and technologies may also occur outside of digital curation systems, though the end results will be less secure. Assigning detailed metadata – often EAD (“Encoded Archival Description”) or PREMIS (“PREservation Metadata: Implementation Strategies”) – to digital files helps keep them more controllable, authentic, findable, readable, and renderable – but is also just one factor in achieving these objectives. Storage for these assets is often backed up locally and on the cloud, though these strategies are not as robust as a digital curation archive. Preservation of digital objects can be more difficult and costly than preserving books and other media. As with at risk analog items, migration or re-formatting of digital content to preservation quality formats should be done along triage principles. The Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC) has published an excellent “Handbook for Digital Projects” which offers a deep dive into important issues like planning and executing Digital Imaging Projects, selecting materials for scanning, copyright issues, reformatting objects and much more. Technological obsolescence – of both hardware and software – often leads to digital objects being unreadable or unrenderable (as with computer games, for example) and impossible to view or reformat without the original systems with which they were created. A well-executed storage plan may not be able to overcome this problem, which should lend urgency to efforts to migrate files as quickly as possible.
Preservation of analog materials is a long-standing discipline within the field of librarianship, both as an integrated set of collection management practices and as a semi-autonomous science of its own. The NEDCC (1999) recommends using a Needs Assessment Survey for analog collections (though it could also apply to digital collections as well) that encompasses the following steps:
- A survey must evaluate the policies, practices, and conditions in an institution that affect the preservation of all the collections.
- It must address the general state of all the collections, what is needed to improve that state, and how to preserve the collections long-term.
- It must identify specific preservation needs, recommend actions to meet those needs, and prioritize the recommended actions.
Disaster preparedness – plans and systems created to protect collections against larger scale calamities like flood and fire – is also a central component of any comprehensive preservation effort. Preservation as a policy and daily regimen consists of guidelines for keeping books and other materials intact for as long as possible while being handled by the public. On a long enough timeline, every item will eventually need to be repaired or replaced; with excellent care, that timeline may be centuries long. Some simple rules that reinforce the longevity of objects found in library collections – whether in the stacks, behind reference desks or in special areas – are prohibiting food and drink in reading areas, offering bookmarks so patrons don’t use their own, and checking returned books for any damages before they re-enter circulation. There are many other issues, however, that are unrelated to mishandling. Environmental issues are chief among them: heat, light, and humidity (and the molds and insects it can bring) as well as “inherent vice,” which is the tendency for certain materials to catalyze their own deterioration or embrittlement thanks to their chemical makeup. The acids found in many types of paper, particularly those made from wood pulp with high lignin content, and storage paraphernalia (envelopes, folders, etc.) are notorious for shortening the lifespan of books and other texts. Huge quantities of archival paper-based items of various types disintegrate before they can be migrated to a digital surrogate or otherwise saved by conservation methods. Though the chemical processes may be different, similar challenges and risks for decomposition exist with many of other kinds of media that may be found in a library collection: photographs, film, audio recordings, microfilm, etc. Materials that have been identified as particularly valuable and at elevated risk of environmental decay should be migrated to an archival space if available, or another area of the library where tight environmental controls can be realized. For items that are particularly expensive or popular, or in an advanced state of decay, a conservation intervention may be in order. Some libraries have skilled conservationists and tools to perform this kind of work on site, but most will need to establish relationships with third party conservationists. That said, in many cases it will be much cheaper to simply buy new replacement copies of books. Robust policies along with careful assessment of existing digital and analog collections and user needs and preferences should underpin an action-based roadmap for long term preservation.
References
Cornwall, G. (2018, July 22). How Genrefication Makes School Libraries More Like Bookstores. Retrieved April 6, 2021 from https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/51336/how-genrefication-makes-school-libraries-more-like-bookstores
Disher, W. (2017). Crash Course in Collection Development. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.
Evans, G.E, & Saponaro, M.Z. (2005). Developing library and information center collections. New York, NY: Neal-Schuman Publishers.
Ogden, S. (1999). The Needs Assessment Survey in NEDCC Preservation Leaflets. Retrieved April 6, 2021 from https://www.nedcc.org/free-resources/preservation-leaflets/1.-planning-and-prioritizing/1.3-the-needs-assessment-survey
Rubin, Richard E. (2010). Foundations of Library and Information Science. (3rd ed). New York, NY: Neal-Schuman.
Evidence for Competency F
Evidence 1
I wrote a white paper for course titled “Issues in Academic Libraries” on trends in Demand Driven Acquisition / Patron Driven Acquisition (DDA / PDA) in an academic library context. DDA is a tool for building a “just in time” collection paradigm which aims to limit library purchases to what patrons want now. This user-centric as opposed to collection-centric approach stands in contrast to a “just in case” paradigm in which acquisitions are made as broadly and deeply as the budget allows to eliminate the chance that the library will not have a particular resource on hand when a user needs it. The twin promises of “just in time” are that it is a more efficient way to fine-tune the collection budget and that it can better accommodate changes in faculty and students’ content preferences, research methods and real time needs. The experience of many library collection managers has proven, however, that DDA is not a fix for all the limits and tradeoffs that come with collection development. Nevertheless, DDA continues to be an area of innovation for multiple vendors like GOBI and a valuable collection building tool for librarians alongside approval plans and firm orders and other more traditional approaches. The collection management field appears to be shifting to layering DDA (and, increasingly, Evidence Based Acquisition) with subscription bundles, purchases of high-use titles, publisher-direct packages and firm orders.
INFO-230-Josh-Simpson-White-Paper-2Evidence 2
For a course on “Digital Curation” I participated in an in-depth team-based project in which we proposed creating an archival collection of postcards, photos and letters related to the Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire. I wrote three of the eight chapters in our report – each dedicated to a stage in the archival process (Ingest, Preservation Actions and Store) – and pitched in with collective editing the entire text.
The goal for the collection was to use primary sources to present the immense toll of the disaster in terms of loss of life, property destruction, and mass displacement of people from their homes. We imagined an “memory institution” co-funded by the San Francisco Public Library and the San Francisco Parks and Recreation and housed in the SFPL, with digital objects saved on SFPL web servers. Our repository of digital surrogates of primary sources would be used to create an exhibition and an online portal to explore our content. The “designated community” for our archival project were patrons of the San Francisco Public Library, researchers of San Francisco history, California school districts, and the general public interested in the study of natural disasters and their repercussions on society.
The purpose of the assignment was to have our three person team walk through the “life-cycle” of curating a collection of digital objects (and to a much smaller extent, analog materials) using a blended repository model that generally conforms to ISO standard models like the OAIS and DCC. After researching different solutions including self-hosting a repository on an office computer or using one of several open-source archival platforms, I came to the conclusion that DSpaceDirect was the best fit for various reasons. Among these are the relative ease of creating online galleries of our image collection, and automated backup to “cloud of clouds” DuraCloud. I look forward to gaining hands-on experience with DSpace in my library career.
INFO-284-Digital-Curation-Final-Group-Proposal