Managing physical library collections in a digital world
- 1. Managing Physical Library Collections in a Digital World Kijana Stringer
- 2. The Basics of Library Management • Library Management Functions: • Planning • Organizing • Leading • Controlling • Source: Dhawan,S. Managing a Library. Unesco http://www.unesco.org/education/aladin/paldin/ pdf/course02/unit_16.pdfch?v=p62AWSxAJVM
- 3. Planning • Planning is making decisions about the library’s goals.
- 4. Organizing • The library staff coordinates and assembles human, financial, physical and informational resources.
- 5. Leading • The library director must make efforts to motivate employees to create and maintain high performance standards.
- 6. Controlling • This entails monitoring various library operation services.
- 8. Selection Policy • Criteria that the Library Services Director uses include: • Patron interest in material • Quality of materials • Reviews in professional journals • Public Demand • Cost and budgetary limitations • Timeliness • Significance and Importance of a Subject • Diverse Opinions on a Subject • Reputation of author, publisher, editor or performer • Format, ease of use and durability • Accuracy of factual material • Relation to existing collection Source: Burbank Public Library http://www.burbank.lib.ca.us/about/library- policies/collection-development-policy
- 9. Collection Development in the Digital Age • Collection development and content acquisition is affected by trends in commercial and scholarly publishing. • An increase towards acquiring digital content such as e-journals and databases
- 10. Weeding Out Loud Striking a balance in collection management does not entail throwing the books out with the bathwater.
- 11. Evaluation Policy • Evaluation is tied into the goals and responsibilities of the library. • Evaluation is a valuable tool of collection development. • Remove physically deteriorated or obsolete materials in accordance with the library’s collection management policy. • Library Directors must not violate patrons’ intellectual freedoms by removing materials they deem inappropriate, controversial or disapprove of. • Preamble and Articles I and II of the Library Bill of Rights: • Books should be provided for the community the library serves and materials should not be excluded for arbitrary reasons such as the background or views of the author. • Libraries should provide materials on a variety of viewpoints and materials should not be proscribed or removed due to staff disapproval. • Source: ALA American Library Association http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=interpretations&Template=/ContentManagement/Cont entDisplay.cfm&ContentID=8537
- 12. Back On the Shelf We Go We Go! Back on the Shelf We Go! Maintaining an organized collection helps users find materials easier and staff perform more efficiently resulting in better service.
- 13. Organizing Print Library Materials • Librarians are seeking new ways to store and organize information in the digital age. • Re-arrange collections to make them more user-friendly. • Current trend among libraries is to organize materials in similar categories or neighborhoods rather than sorting items by the Dewey Decimal System. • Source: Hackbarth, P.(2011). Library considers new ways to organize collections. emissourian.com http://www.emissourian.com/news/washington_news/article _063265fd-46bc-588f-b51b-84ef7f5efaf5.html
- 14. Category or Neighborhood Organization Method • C3- Customer Centered Classification • C3 allows libraries to make their collections easier to browse. • A library director attending an ALA conference likened it to a “bookstore feel”. • Many libraries will combine the C3 and Dewey Decimal System method. • C3 is mostly used for non-fiction collections.
- 15. Adjustable Shelves • Adjustable Shelves allow staff flexibility to accommodate different forms of media from books, magazines and audio-visual materials.
- 16. Library Preserves are Sweet Preserving a fragile physical collection now keeps you out of a pickle later.
- 17. Preservation • IFLA definition: all the managerial and financial considerations including storage and accommodation provisions, staffing levels, policies, techniques and methods involved in preserving library and archive materials and the information contained in them. • Source: Association of Research Libraries http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/safeguarding- collections.pdf
- 18. I’M THE CHEESE! Unlike the ancient cheese and paper loving mice of old who have been here for millennia and will never go away , the mice of new are more “green” conscious and prefer paperless healthy meals( vegan cheese- thank you) in bits and bytes.
- 19. Preservation Strategies • Physical collections are mostly formatted in paper and audio-visual form. • Digitization poses opportunities and challenges to print materials. • Collaborative Strategies between preservation and acquisitions departments. • Use third-party preservation organizations (Portico) and multi- library programs like LOCKSS and CLOCKSS • In spite of mass move towards increased digital content, there are many reasons for maintaining print materials such as the Google Book Search Law Suit • Google Book Search Law Suit- Authors Guild et.al. vs. Google in 2005 Association of American Publishers vs. Google in 2005. • 2002 Google began digitizing books in libraries; accused of massive copyright infringement
- 20. Preservation Function • Make preservation decisions strategically throughout the lifecycle of the resources acquired or created by the library • Perform cost benefit and risk analysis of preservation issues such as cost of conservation of special collections. • Deacidification preserves printed works. • Disaster preparedness response plans • Environmental Conditions and Housing- keep materials in stabilized temperatures with low levels of humidity as a cost effective way to preserve materials.
- 21. Smooth Sailing Adhering to the collection development policy of a library in regards to selecting, evaluating, organizing and preserving materials can result in smooth sailing over turbulent waters in the high sea of digital change.