Collection Management: A public library perspective

1
Collection ManagementA public library
perspective
2
Collection Development Process
3

• NVCL Fact Sheet
• Population Served 48,500
• Number of Registered borrowers 46,000
• Number of City resident members
  32,000
• Hours open hours per week
  69
• Building Size in square feet 13,500
• Annual Circulation
  615,000
• Annual Reference Inquiries 47,000
• Annual Program Attendance
  28,000 (23,000
  children)

4

• Total Operating Budget 2,400,000
• How we spend our funds
• Salaries 1,600,000
• All Library materials 280,000
• Facility 143,000
• Other expenditures (Supplies, 177,000
• contracts, training, equipment
• Public relations etc)
• Expenditure per capita 49.10

5
Collections

• DVDs 3,600
• Videos 3,700
• CD ROMs 475
• Maps 367
• Magazine titles 227
• Electronic databases 14

• Books 95,000
• Audio books 1,250
• CD Books 400
• Books on Tape 1,730
• Audio music 1,000
• CD Music 2,500

6
Community Analysis
7
New facility in next 3 years

• 13,500 to 35,000 sq ft
• needs analysis completed
• conducted focus groups of library customers
• developed Vision
• developed roles
• rezoning application passed

8

• Vision Statement
• Your Library the Heart of the City
• The heart of the City, our library serves as the
  cornerstone of cultural, intellectual and
  community life. As an award-winning library, we
  are a recognized leader in the fields of service,
  technology and innovative practices. Our library
  will be a lasting architectural legacy that
  celebrates our city and inspires the human
  spirit.
• Our Mission
• As a community meeting place and gateway to
  knowledge, North Vancouver City Library provides
  high quality services emphasizing popular
  materials, life-long learning, literacy, and
  cultural diversity.

9
Library Service

• Primary roles
• Community meeting place
• Popular materials
• Life-long Learning
• Literacy
• Secondary roles
• Community Referral
• Formal Learning Support

10
Selection Policies
11

• Collection Development Policy
• embraces Vision and Roles
• upholds Intellectual Freedom
• outlines selection and deselection processes
• provides detailed scope notes for each collection
  developed

12
Responsibility for collections

• Collections Manager
• Information Services responsibilities
• selectors assigned
• Selection Committee

13
Selection

• shared responsibility
• rotate responsibilities
• weed and select
• concentrate on non repetitive tasks

14
Streamline Selection Process

• Automatic Release Plans
• Profiles
• Request customized lists
• Vendor services
• Balance streamlining and professional
  responsibilities

15
Acquisitions

• Purchase materials pre processed pre cataloged
• Acquire materials in a timely fashion
• 2 Day turn around from receipt to shelf
• Future goal is immediately shelf ready

16
Deselection

• As important as selection
• Clear guidelines
• Annual plan

17
Evaluation

• Are we selecting the right things?
• How do we measure?
• Traditional methods - circulation
• Customer Satisfaction Surveys
• Key performance indicators
• Title fill rate
• Browser fill rate
• Information fill rate
• Respond to findings

18
Resource sharing

• InterLINK One Library Card
• access to 4,000,000 items
• ILL - now customer initiated

19
Collection Management Issues

• space
• money
• electronic Vs paper
• just in case versus just in time reference
• new formats
• ARPs and professional ethics

• cost of electronic products
• complexity of electronic products
• public expectations
• teaching and training of staff and public

20
Recap

• Determine what business you are in
• Consult your community to discover needs and
  wants
• Select your roles carefully
• Develop a Collection Development Policy
• Establish scope notes for each area of the
  collection

21

• Assign overall collection manager for ongoing
  quality control
• Focus collections within the selected roles
• Negotiate ARPs where appropriate
• Conduct User Satisfaction surveys
• Analyze use statistics
• Determine Annual priorities for development

22

• Determine your base collection
• Spend as much time on deseletion as selection
• Use vendors for assistance (dont reinvent the
  wheel)
• Harness technology and the customer to assist
  with costly repetitive tasks
• Translate all budget savings into collections

23
Our Challenge

• What goes to the new library
• Weed out dead materials but maintain a viable
  collection for present
• Expand collection from 90,000 item to 157,000 in
  2 1/2 years