Meris Mandernach

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Collection Management 101 developing and
implementing a workshop series

• Meris Mandernach
• Charleston Conference 2009

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Landscape at JMU

• 18,000 FTE
• Comprehensive university with undergrad focus
  part of statewide system
• Collection budget
• State vs. local
• VIVA
• Strengths in areas of Business, Audiology/Speech
  Pathology, Assessment (Psychology), Education,
  Music, Nursing
• In FY2009 41 of budget was spent on materials

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Collection Management at JMU

• Created in April 2008
• Staff
• Statistics
• Year End Stats
• Usage Stats
• Overlap Analyses
• Liaison Requests
• Gifts
• Approval Plans
• Collection Maintenance
• Replacements
• Weeding
• Research Databases
• Separate Collection Development Committee

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Collections Training

• Library School?
• On the job training?
• How do you assess success?
• Balance between art and science
• Project for summer research
• Inconsistencies of expectations for liaisons
• Experienced librarians felt out of touch

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Summer Leave Program at JMU

• Professional Development opportunities for tenure
  track librarians
• Eligibility
• 3 month paid leave typically from May 1 to
  August 1
• Develop an area of research
• Competitive
• Present back to the faculty

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Summer Leave Project

• Assessment of collections was identified as a
  priority through the LET Strategic plan
  (Objective 3.1.)
• The goal of this summer leave was to visit other
  institutions, in-state and out-of-state, to
  examine how they train subject specialists/bibliog
  raphers in the areas of collection management and
  gather ideas for training liaisons at JMU.
• Miami University of Ohio
• Indiana University
• Virginia Tech
• The College of Charleston
• University of Virginia
• Longwood University
• OhioLINK Statewide Library Depository
• Appalachian State (phone)

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Findings from the visits

• Differences

• Similarities

• Institution-specific
• size of collection, size of school, number of
  selectors, number of staff, mission of the
  library, and mission of the school.
• Definition of Collections
• Public Services/Technical Services
• Committee/Individual Decisions
• Training of selectors varies

• Communication
• Budget decisions
• How decisions are made
• More training is needed for selectors
• Everyone's invested in collections

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Workshops

• Fall 2009 Spring 2010
• 4 workshops ranging from 1 hour to 1.5 hours
• Schedule publicized
• New workshop every other week
• Optional attendance
• Out of class homework

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Example Handouts
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Homework before the workshops
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Workshop Topics Week One

• Policies
• Why do we need collection policies?
• What type of collection policies are necessary?
  Reference? Gifts?
• What role does the subject policy play in the
  collection development process?
• How often are policies revised?
• Role of the collection development committee
• Who decides things?
• Who recommends action?
• What are the basic processes?

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Workshop Topics Week 2

• Approval plan
• Function of an approval plan
• Understanding the selector responsibility
• Procedures for adjusting the plan
• Gifts
• Procedures for handling Gifts
• Why are the selectors being asked to make
  decisions?
• Statistics
• What do we gather?
• How can you use them?

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Workshop Topics Week 3

• Collection Maintenance
• Preservation
• Replacements Lost/Missing
• Weeding
• Establishing a regular weeding calendar
• Role of the selector in responsibility for their
  area of the collection
• New resources
• Process for recommending new items
• One-time vs. Ongoing costs
• Keeping your finger on the pulse of whats new

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Workshop Topics Week 4

• Collection Development Strategies
• Getting to know your departments research
  interests
• Staying on top of publishing trends
• Working with the faculty to develop the
  collection together
• Future trends in collections
• Implications of Google Project
• E-books
• What to do in times of tight budgets

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Generating ideas for improvement

• Wouldnt it be nice if
• In what ways could we

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Ideas for Implementing at your school

• Break the topics into reasonably sized chunks.
• Provide lots of hands on activities.
• Make it relevant to each selector.
• Ask your selectors to put some thought into their
  collections ahead of time.
• Provide current situation of collections and
  vision for the future
• Workshops should be a good mix of information
  that provides common background fundamentals,
  applicable exercises to allow them to understand
  their collections, and time for shared
  brainstorming about future directions of
  collections.

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Questions??

• Meris Mandernach
• manderma_at_jmu.edu