LIBR 520 Collection Management

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LIBR 520Collection Management

• Historical Overview

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Definition of CM

• Simply put, collection management is the
  systemic, efficient and economical stewardship of
  library resources.
• Paul Mosher. Collection dev Collection
  Management 4(4) 45

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The Alexandrian Library c. 280 B.C. 350 A.D.

• Very unusual acquisitions policy

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The Alexandrian Library

• It was only the cultural pretensions of tyrants,
  kings and emperors which could conceive
  anything like a universal collection of books.
  
• Roy Macleod. The Library of Alexandria, (p.76)
  

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Monastery Libraries

• Knowledge throughout the Dark Ages was kept
  alive in the books painstakingly copied by hand
  in monasteries

A monastery without a library is like a castle
without an armoury. Anonymous monk 1170 A.D.
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Monastery Libraries

• Famous medieval libraries in the 9th to 12th
  centuries had collections of approximately 200
  manuscripts. Very famous libraries had over 500.

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Printing

• Invention of printing press (by hand, later
  mechanical)
• Distribution of knowledge
• Rise in literacy rates
• Books in vernacular languages - local identities
• Sharing of scientific knowledge
• Notion of authorship more important

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Early University CM

• Selection not important part of librarians job
• Most books came as donations
• Money was donated to buy specific books
• Professors often selected all library books

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Early University CM

• In his 1650 book, British University Librarian
  Durie recommended one yearly meeting with faculty
  members to show the books he had purchased last
  year and to get a wish list of books approved
  for the following year.

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Early Public Library CM

• Most early public libraries were social club
  libraries
• Members paid a fee to join, which paid for the
  books
• The more learned members ordered the books

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Early Public Library CM

• In early community, tax-supported public
  libraries, selection was done by the library
  trustees

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Early Public Library CM

• Edward Edwards, who fought for the first public
  library legislation in Britain, described the
  public library selection process as chaotic. -
  Libraries and Founders of Libraries, 1865

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Early Public Library CM

• By the late 1800s, the shift to selection by
  librarians in public libraries had begun
• Shift to librarians in NA universities occurred
  in 1920s, 1930s
• In early 1900s, Librarian John Cotton Dana was
  advising public librarians on selection, but he
  was considered irresponsible for saying that one
  should fit the library to its owners, and,
  the worth of a book is in its use.

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Early Public Library CM

• John Cotton Dana felt that the purpose of a
  tax-supported public library was to
• 1. help people to be happy 2. help them to
  become wise, and 3. encourage them to be
  good Library Primer 1899, (p.39).

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Theories of Selection

• 1800s, first half of 1900s
• Librarians as arbiters of quality
• Should censor anything that is not Good, True,
  and Beautiful. (Arthur Bostwick, ALA Pres. 1908)
• Debates over provision of popular material
• William Poole, first head of Chicago Public
  Library, in favour of popular materials

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Printing

• Invention of the rotary press greatly increases
  the number of books published (1843)
• Book prices drop
• Universities begin to focus on scholarship,
  research - increase in scholarly publishing
• Public library funding grows
• Recognition of role of professional librarians
• Evolution of collection development/selection
  theory

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Theories of Selection

• In his 1907 book Manual of Library Economy,
  James Duff Brown proposed that selection be
  statistically controlled with a
• percentage system for the entire collection,
  e.g. 8 of the books should be social
  sciences 6 of the books should be
  religion

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Early Censorship Issues

• A librarian of the Liverpool Public Library in
  1877 criticized people who were tolerant in the
  matter of novel reading. Library Journal
  (Nov/Dec 1877)153

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Early Censorship Issues

• Another librarian wrote in The Library
  Association Record that the novelists of France
  have wasted their genius on producing lurid and
  enticing pictures of illicit love and diseased
  erotics.-
• Library Association Record
• (August, 1900) 453.

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Early Censorship Issues

• In the first half of the 20th century, Canadian
  and American librarians regularly failed to
  select books with immoral ideas.
• Leon Carnovsky, Baltimore County Public Library,
  argued that the library is acting democratically
  when it sets up the authority of reason as the
  censor.

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Evolution of Selection Theory

• Theory emerged in the 1930s
• Gurus were Francis Drury, Helen Haines, S.R.
  Ranganathan

• Ranganathans Five Laws of Library Science
  (1931)
• BOOKS ARE FOR USE
• EVERY READER HIS BOOK
• EVERY BOOK ITS READER
• SAVE THE TIME OF THE READER
• A LIBRARY IS A GROWING ORGANISM

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Evolution of Selection Theory

• The size of a librarys service community has a
  definite bearing on collection development.
  Three facts of collection development are
  universal
• 1. As the size of the service community
  increases, the degree of divergence in individual
  information needs increases.

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Selection Theory
2. As the degree of divergence in individual
information needs increases, the need for
cooperative programs of information materials
sharing increases
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Selection Theory

• 3. It will never be possible to satisfy all of
  the information needs of any individual or class
  of clientele in the service community.

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Selection Practice

• Selection is the CM element that varies the most
  among types of libraries
• 1. Public libraries often use a combination of
  title-by-title selection and approval plans.
• 2. School libraries often emphasize
  title-by-title selection. Although the media
  specialist may make the final decision, a
  committee composed of librarians, teachers,
  administrators, and parents may have a strong
  voice in the process.

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Selection continued ...

• 3. Special and corporate libraries select
  materials in rather narrow subject fields for
  specific research and business purposes. Often
  the client is the primary selector.
• 4. Academic libraries select materials in subject
  areas for educational and research purposes, with
  selection done by several different methods
  faculty only, joint faculty/library committees,
  librarians only, or subject specialists. Approval
  plans appear most often in academic libraries

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Other themes

• Collection development
• moving closer to acquisitions
• more closely aligned with public service
• new formats/changing definitions of collections
  Pratt-Lougee Diffuse Library
• unique collections
• preservation

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In Conclusion ..

• It is here, in collection management, that we
  exert, however indirectly, our greatest influence
  on the public we serve and the total society of
  which the public is part. Lester Asheim