The original post can be found at this URL:
http://www.infomotions.com/serials/colldv-l/06/0077.shtml , and the
responses follow below:
From: Frank Moulton <fmoulton_at_will.state.wy.us>
Many thanks to all who responded on this topic. Apparently I was mistaken
in my belief that this was an unusual collection development model for
public libraries, but several respondents indicated that trends are
changing. At my library, we have yet to meet and discuss the suggestions,
so if anyone else is piqued by the responses and wishes to add something,
please feel free to send me more material. So far, we have already begun
to pare down slightly the total number of selectors by transferring
responsibility from a few who had only small budgets and many conflicting
duties to those who already manage larger budgets, but I doubt that the
numbers will change drastically as most of our staff enjoy their duties and
most of our patrons seem to appreciate our collective judgment - we get
compliments fairly often. I have removed names and places from the
following comments in case anyone wished to retain their anonymity, and
they are arranged in the order they were received. Thanks again!
Frank Moulton
Reference Librarian
Teton County Library
fmoulton_at_will.state.wy.us
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Our library does something similar and I think it stinks!! We have one
librarian for the 600's who orders every cookbook imaginable and also
orders books that are not appropriate for the public library. Then we
have an MLS who also went to a Bible school and he is in charge of the
200's. Again, we get things that are way too deep for our public. I
just have to watch it all go by.
I hope you get some positive responses. My suggestion is that these
people could request items but you should have the final say in what's
ordered since that is your "new" assignment - right?? While subject
specialists are nice, there is something to be said about a balanced
collection. Just my 2 cents!!
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We have a similar arrangement. Our total staff is about 58, so we're
a bit smaller, and we only have 11 selectors. Some of them are
paraprofessionals, and anyone who is not an exempt employee (i.e.
professionals), is a paid a 30 cents per hour premium for as long as
they are a selector.
Our collection development manager has recently begun to think about
pulling back on the number of selectors and relying more heavily on
standing order programs in the genre areas. She's concerned about lack
of timeliness in ordering (as many share one subscription to review
journals) and some overall unevenness in how well people spend out their
budget lines.
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I spent nearly ten years in the office of collection
development at [a big city library], and collection development is still my
main professional interest. May I say that your system sounds more than
unusual? Do you suppose it evolved piece by piece under a predecessor
who wasn't taking the reins? More than ways of making it work, you
should perhaps be looking for ways of changing it. How can you keep
budgets straight with that many people ordering? Don't you get a lot of
crossover? Don't you get duplicate orders?
I would suggest three divisions of responsibility: fiction,
non-fiction, media. One person is assigned to head up each area. No
matter how many people are selecting, the orders come through that
person, who deselects duplicates, trivia selected in response to
personal interests, etc. These three are the only ones actually entering
orders, unless you have an acquisitions department doing that, in which
case these three are the only ones authorized to pass orders to
acquisitions.
As coordinator, you communicate to these three people direction
of their area: time to weed and update travel books, time to purchase
new copies of classic literature, time to phase out books on tape, etc.
During staff disruptions, these head people take over ordering
responsibilities for whoever left, and maybe don't relinquish the
responsibility when replacements are found. In time, things draw back
into order.
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although I currently work for a state library agency and so no longer have
collection development responsibilities, I did work in public libraries for
18 years and have done materials selection in all sizes of systems. I also
teach collection development classes for the [major university] library school.
what you describe below is the typical method for delegating collection
development responsibilities in public libraries. in every public library
I ever worked, selection was shared by multiple people, usually by Dewey
range, format, and/or language, according to expertise and interests. in
larger systems, selection is also typically divvied up by location, so the
folks at a particular branch select materials directly for their
collection. librarians oversee the process, but clerks and
paraprofessionals--who, after all, often know the community's reading
interests more intimately than the librarians--also help out in some cases.
it sounds like you need help with controlling and regulating the
process. to do this, I recommend several things you may not already be
doing. first, you need a written collection development policy that spells
out what should and should not be collected and why. I highly recommend
imitating Skokie Public Library's collection development policy, which I
use as a textbook in my class. it was available thru ALA/PLA, but may be
out of print now. it is very detailed by every subject area, reading
level, format, language, etc.
next I recommend dividing up the collection development budget by selection
areas. if a person has only $2000 to spend on biographies, for instance,
that person will probably be very careful to spend the money in as
effective way as possible. when I worked for [a county library] we not
only divided the book budget by branch and subject, but also by month so
each selector knew how much to spend (and not over-spend!) each
month. selections can be regulated by the collection coordinator who can
review all selections for appropriateness and budget
accountability. budgets can also be regulated electronically thru an
automated acquisitions module that keeps track of all expenses.
finally, I suggest centralizing selection thru the use of a master
selection list, which can also be automated, depending on your vendor. at
[the county library] we had two lists a month from which we could order
materials. this helped coordinate orders and helped manage duplicative
selections.
I've never worked in a library where the staff weren't eager to participate
in the selection process. in fact, it's often their most favorite job,
sometimes to the detriment of other duties!
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The trend in public libraries is in the other direction. More and more
public libraries are centralizing the selection and ordering process. It
really is much more efficient and I think you get better control of the
budget that way.
I was head of collection development at a very large urban public library
system (64 locations) where selection was decentralized, and now I am head
of collection management at [a large city library] (we have 15 locations)
where selection is centralized. We have 6 selectors who do collection
development for all locations. Each selector covers specific subject areas
and/or formats or reading levels (example: one selector for Adult
Audiovisual, one selector who does Youth collections (all formats), one
selector who does Adult Humanities, etc.)
I attended a lot of programs at the most recent PLA in Boston a few weeks
ago and a majority of librarians stated that they had centralized
collection development. There is also a trend toward seeing multiple
location library systems as having “one collection”, not 15 separate
collections. This is due to the fact that new materials are rarely make it
to the shelf anyway, they go immediately into the “holds queue” and go from
one patron to the next via the holds system. And many patrons use multiple
locations, not just the one that is in their neighborhood. Many libraries
are also experimenting with Floating Collections (wherever the book is
returned, that’s where it stays until it is taken out again. The book has
no permanent holding location).
Of course, your library system may be quite different in many ways. Maybe
your locations are more geographically spread out than locations in an
urban setting.
My personal experience tells me that it’s more efficient to have a
dedicated team of selectors whose primary responsibility is to select (in
some libraries, the selectors also work the ref desk, but they have
dedicated hours off desk to do selection). When selection is spread out
among so many people as in your example, and especially when there is a lot
of turnover, the risk is that selection becomes a low priority and
sometimes does not get done. And there’s no quicker way to lose customers
than to not have current materials coming into the library.
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I can't tell from your description … whether or not the selection database
is something that was created in-house or by a vendor. if the latter, then
is there a chance that the vendor could train those folks who need
training? this certainly would relieve some of the pressure on you. if
it's not a vendor-provided database, then perhaps you should check with
your vendor about getting a new acquisitions system. obviously this
doesn't help you in the short term, but may make things better in the future.
otherwise I don't know what to tell you … you should probably suggest to
the director that the entire selection process be revisited. many
libraries are going with centralized selection to reduce staff hours and to
streamline the process. this may be the best ultimate solution for your
situation.
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Hmm--Years ago at another library we did something similar to this, but we
were all in the same building. Each of the professional librarians on
staff was assigned a range of Dewey (or fiction)--and given a budget! We
seldom (if ever) met together--the collection development librarian rode
herd on us to make sure we were a) doing the necessary selection, and b)
not going over budget. We (of course this was long before ordering
online, filling shopping carts, etc.) filled out order cards and turned
them in to the coll. dev. person. But with 20 to 25 folks to corral I can
see that it would be quite a job!
Received on Tue Apr 11 2006 - 01:17:22 EDT