Collection Development in the Digital Age

by Maggie Fieldhouse (Editor), Audrey Marshall

Chronicling the recent rapid changes in library collection development and management, editors Audrey Marshall and Maggie Fieldhouse present a topical collection, international in scope, which draws together the perspectives of practitioners and academics at the forefront of contemporary collection development in all types of settings. The contributors explore how practitioners can take an active role influencing strategy in this new environment, draw on case studies that illustrate the key changes in context, and consider how collection development might evolve in the future. In the book’s four sections, the authors look at key themes such as:

Historical background on the subject, with an overview of the literature
Trends in library supply, including outsourcing and managing suppliers
The open access movement, e-books, and other electronic resources
Creating and maintaining electronic collections effectively, including engaging with users and developing commercial skills

This will appeal to all LIS professionals but is essential reading for library and information students and all practitioners involved in collection development and management in academic, school and public libraries. It’s also indispensable for those working in commercial and other special libraries.

Table of contents

Foreword (Liz Chapman)
Contributors
Introduction (Audrey Marshall and Maggie Fieldhouse)

Part 1: The concept and practice of collection development

1 The concept of collection development in the digital world (Sheila Corrall)

2 The processes of collection management (Maggie Fieldhouse)

Part 2: Trends in the development of e-resources

3 An overview of e-resources in UK further and higher education (David House)

4 Supporting online collections: the role of online journals in a university collection (Jane Harvell)

5 Electronic books in academic libraries: a case study in Liverpool, UK. (Terry Bucknell)

6 E-book collection development in public libraries: a case study of the Essex experience (Martin Palmer)

7 Stewardship and curation in a digital world (Bradley Daigle)

Part 3: Trends in library supply

8 Managing suppliers for collection development: the UK higher education perspective (David Ball)
9 Outsourcing in public libraries: placing collection management in the hands of a stranger? (Diana Edmonds)

10 Open access (David Brown)

11 Collection development and institutional repositories (Josh Brown)

Part 4: Making and keeping your collection effective

12 Collection development policies for the digital age (Wendy Shaw)

13 Information literacy for the academic librarian in the digital information age: supporting users to make effective use of the collection (Tracy Mitrano and Karrie Peterson)

14 Supporting users to make effective use of the collection (Ruth Stubbings)

15 Engaging with the user community to make your collection work effectively: A case study of a partnership-based, multi-campus UK medical school (Jil Fairclough)

Index

Genres: Nonfiction

233 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[Alejandro Teruel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a 2010 book somewhat though not exclusively slanted towards academic libraries written on a key subject from a UK perspective. Living in a different country and having read it in 2017 it was nice to find most of it surprisingly relevant and fresh. It's true that, in hindsight and judged by the book's goals:

1. To investigate the key developments in collection development and their impact on policy and practice. 

2. To explore the role of  information professionals in this changing environment and the new skills set they need.

3. To chart a path for the future.

it is most successful in (1), middling in (2) and weak in (3) -the chart mainly consists of key issues or questions set out at the end of (almost) every chapter and of quite variable quality -a little more editing would have helped tighten this up.

The two chapters in the first part of the book purport to provide an overview of key concepts and practices in collection development; the first chapter is a somewhat dry but adequate introduction to the key concepts of collection development in a digital, rather than a physical world, while the second chapter provides an overview of processes/activities such as:

- selection  and  acquisition, 
- budget  allocation  and  management,
- serials  and  electronic resource  management  and  access  control, 
- stock  evaluation, 
- weeding,  storage  and preservation

Questions included for further reflection cover:

- Is the concept of  collection development relevant in the digital world?
- Do we need to adopt new terminology for the new information universe?
- Should libraries shift their focus from local to global collections?
- Should libraries give higher priority to locally generated content?
- How should libraries deal with freely available internet resources?
- How well do the processes of  collection management meet the demands of  the digital environment?
- Will maintaining hard copy collections and dealing with gifts and donations continue to be core activities for collection managers?
- What impact will digital preservation have on the management of  library collections?

Chapters which struck me as particularly interesting and insightful include:

- Terry Bucknell's Electronic books in academic libraries: a case study in Liverpool, UK
- Bradley Daigle's Stewardship and curation in a digital world,
- Diana Edmond's Outsourcing in public libraries: placing collection management in the hands of a stranger?
- Wendy Shaw's Collection development policies for the digital age.

The chapters on open access and the review of e-resources are, understandably, the most dated.

Perhaps the most surprising chapters to find in a book on collection development are the two chapters on information literacy. The most endearing, and possibly the most idealistic chapter is, hands down, Jil Fairclough's Engaging with the user community to make your collection work effectively: a case study of a partnership-based, multi-campus UK medical school. It would be very interesting to find out whether the close relationship it reports and postulates between the librarians and the library users has stood the test of time and the institute's (presumed) scale-up.

Unfortunately, what has not withstood the passage of time are the links to web material -at least judging from the proportion of link rot I found in the admitted small proportion I tried to follow.

This review does not do justice to the book – a fairer indication is that I must have highlighted and annotated at least a third of the book to come back to and think more deeply about.

[Matthew Noe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unfortunately the 8 years since publication has made bits of this dated - sometimes in small ways, other times in huge ones. Originally read for my Collection Development course in grad school (2015), I revisited in anticipation of rewriting our collection development policy. Chapter 1 and Chapter 12 are still valuable for this, and other chapters in between might have interest to those following trends in collection management.

[Margot Note]

Read for a book review in Library Management

[Joyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well done; good coverage of the issues with helpful recommendations.

[Tayler K · Rating 2 out of 5]

LIS 659

This book: 173 pages (without notes)
Other book: 295 pages (without notes)
Other material: 155 pages

Course total: 623 pages