From: "June Pinnell-Stephens" <june.pinnell.stephens_at_fnsb.lib.ak.us>
I've been using the Conspectus for more than 13 years now, both as the basis
for collection management for my own collection and as the basis for
multi-type cooperative collection development agreements locally and
statewide. Although I use the Conspectus software for assessment and
management, the fully automated reports are also very powerful tools.
I've had OCLC/WLN run a collection analysis, which reports holdings by
Conspectus division separated by individually-determined ranges of copyright
dates, every other year since 1993 to track the changes in the collection
over time. I then measure these changes against our collection development
goals and acquisitions/management activities to see how we've done. The
analysis can also be run for a group of libraries, and I know several
libraries have participated in such projects.
Some day I plan to run a title overlap/gap with the other major libraries in
Alaska, but I don't anticipate any problem with permission or sharing data -
you might check with OCLC/WLN to see, because I did not have the same
impression about severe restrictions that another person mentioned. I would
also love to have enough of a budget to warrant running my collection
against the 10-year Booklist file to see what we've missed.
I have used my assessment, management, and analysis reports for a wide
variety of projects, such as grant applications, facility planning, and
dealing with budget shortfalls, and I know my academic colleagues have used
the data for accreditation reports. The greatest strength of these projects
I see is in budget preparation and justification and in program
accountability.
June Pinnell-Stephens
Collection Services Manager
Fairbanks North Star Borough Public Library
1215 Cowles St.
Fairbanks AK 99701
907-459-1020
907-459-1024 fax
Received on Fri Feb 23 2001 - 06:01:38 EST