Planning and Staffing for Collection Development

LIBR 580

LIBR 580 - Collection Development and Management

Planning Planning is a tool for dealing with rapid change:• Short-term strategic plans more common• Follows planning of parent organization• CM policy and budget important components • Environmental scans very useful – OCLC, Horizon Report, ARL,

Pew Institute etc• Conferences, professional activities important for staying in

touch with trends• Hint: when applying for a job, read the strategic planning

material both for the library and parent org

LIBR 580 - Collection Development and Management

Planning• Types of planning models (Johnson 67 - 69)

• master planning• contingency planning• democratic planning• strategic planning• scenario planning• entrepreneurial planning• incentive planning

• Type of approach depends on size of library and style of administration

• Most libraries use more than one type of planning approach to make decisions and allocate funds

LIBR 580 - Collection Development and Management

PlanningGood planning• Reflects goals and objectives of parent org• Allows the library to focus on key initiatives• Defines goals and objectives by priority• Includes enough flexibility to allow for change (eg budget

cuts)• Represents input from the entire library and not just

management• Includes clear direction on collection management and fiscal

objectives• Includes clearly defined mechanisms for evaluation and

assessment

LIBR 580 - Collection Development and Management

UBC Library example Place and Promise: The UBC Plan

UBC Library Operations Plan 2007/2008 (includes Services and Collections Plans)

New UBC Library Strategic Plan (started September 2009 – completed for January 2010)

LIBR 580 - Collection Development and Management

VPL examplePublic Library Services Branch – Provincial Funding for Libraries

City of Vancouver budget and planning

Vancouver Public Library:VPL Annual BudgetVPL Vision and Plan 2015VPL Annual Reports

IKBLC example Statement of Purpose and Charter of Principles (guides activities)

Learning Centre Advisory Committee

UBC Strategic Plan

UBC Library Strategic Plan

• No strategic plan, but a set of priorities

• Values and guiding principles

• Collaborative development

Collection management planning

• Factors that influence CM planning:– Budget– Foreign exchange rates, economy– New formats, programs– New skills/retraining for staff– Collaborative collection development activities– Outsourcing activities – Preservation and disaster planning

LIBR 580 - Collection Development and Management

Early Academic Libraries• Librarians were not

involved in collection development

• Professors often did selection

• Many library collections were started though donations

LIBR 580 - Collection Development and Management

Early Public Libraries

LIBR 580 - Collection Development and Management

• Most early public libraries were private “social” club libraries

• Members paid a fee to join, which paid for the books

• Focus on popular reading materials• The more learned members were

responsible for ordering the books

Staffing trends

• ACADEMIC LIBRARIES– Subject bibliographers less common– Subject or area specialists– Collection management part of larger set of

duties, including reference and teaching– Reorganization around collection coordination

and scholarly communications activities– Digitization support– Technical services – print to electronic

LIBR 580 - Collection Development and Management

Staffing trends• PUBLIC LIBRARIES

– Centralized CM• Faster response to collection requests• Good over-all picture of entire collection

– De-centralized CM• Involvement of more librarians in collection

building• Closer connection to community

– Outsourcing selection, acquisition activities– Staff reallocation, retraining

LIBR 580 - Collection Development and Management

Staffing trends

• New positions connected to – e-resources– scholarly communications – licensing and copyright (rights management)– digital collection management– preservation (all formats)– some recent UBC examples – digital initiatives

librarian, cIRcle coordinator, licensing & digital scholarship librarian, Director: digital initiatives

Resources

Herzog, Susan. “Collection Development Challenges for the 21st Century Academic Librarian”. The Acquisitions Librarian No. 31/32, 2004, pp. 149-162.

Class notes: http://blogs.ubc.ca/libr580