From: Marlene Manoff <mmanoff_at_MIT.EDU>
Summary of ALCTS/CMDS Collection Development Librarians in Academic
Libraries Discussion Group. ALA June 1998.
Topic: Bias in Academic Library Collections
Byron Anderson (Northern Illinois University) began by describing the
role of the alternative press. Its importance lies, in part, in its
coverage of topics and issues spurned by mainstream
publishers. Anderson reminded the audience that, as twelve large
conglomerates now publish about 80% of U.S. trade titles, small and
alternative presses have become more important than ever. He urged
librarians to seek out small and alternative press materials and to
that end distributed three handouts, including lists of distributors
and wholesalers for small presses, bibliographic tools for the
alternative press and an alternative press bibliography.
Mev Miller, of the Women's Presses Library Project (WPLP), described
the project as a coalition of over thirty small women's presses. They
publish books of concern to women and girls, and have a tradition of
publishing cutting edge material. Miller said that the WPLP had
participated in the last four ALA conferences. She noted that,
although librarians pride themselves on their commitment to buying a
wide range of material, the presses involved in WPLP had been
disappointed by their inability to significantly increase sales to
libraries. She explained the importance of the material published by
these presses in light of the feminist backlash and its impact on what
gets published by commercial presses.
Women's presses, like other small presses, have been hurt by the
growth of bookstore chains and the loss of independent
booksellers. Small presses often cannot afford to send out large
numbers of publishers catalogs. They have difficulty getting picked up
by wholesalers and jobbers and find it even more difficult to get
their titles included in approval plans. Miller, like Anderson,
descibed the problem of major review sources covering mostly
mainstream presses. She said that, of the 396 titles in the WPLP
database, only 15% were reviewed in Library Journal, 13% in Publishers
Weekly, 3% in Choice and 2% in the New York Times Book Review. Miller
urged librarians to make the extra effort to collect small press
titles and to encourage jobbers to include them in their approval
plans.
Milton Wolf, of the Center for Research Libraries, acknowledged that
librarians' hearts are often in the right place. The problem is that,
despite their belief in the value of collecting broadly, many librarians
simply do not take the time to identify and order small and
alternative press material. Wolf noted that, because of the economic
climate, ARL libraries are spending more money than ever to buy fewer
titles. This has significant impact on the diversity of materials
represented in our national collections.
Wolf suggested that librarians look to the Center for Research
Libraries to collect material that they are unable to provide
locally. Currently, The Center has large collections of third world
publications and foreign dissertations and newspapers. Wolf proposed
that we must develop new ways of thinking about collection building
and argued for the need to get over our provincial attitude about
ownership. He declared that in today's economic environment, large
self-sufficient collections are becoming dinosaurs. He argued that
libraries need to stop competing and instead leverage their collective
strength in order to build and maintain strong national collections.
Received on Tue Jan 19 1999 - 09:21:56 EST