THE "HOW" AND "WHO" OF COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT IN ACADEMIC LIBRARIES A RESEARCH PAPER SUBMITTED TO PROFESSOR JAMES V. CARMICHAEL, JR. OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT GREENSBORO IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE COURSE REQUIREMENTS OF LIS 656 - THE ACADEMIC LIBRARY DEPARTMENT OF LIBRARY AND INFORMATION STUDIES BY PHILIP F. McELDOWNEY CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA MAY 1994 In response to a recent survey question of "What are the advantages and disadvantages of organizing or structuring Collection Development at Academic Libraries through geographic Area or Subject selectors/bibliographers (or a mix)?," one bibliographer wrote "The short answer is that most large universities, including UVa, do both, depending on the material." "Who" does Collection Development at academic libraries, and "how" do they do it? Where are selectors located in academic library organizations, and what are their roles and functions within those structures, and their relationship with the rest of the library, with the rest of the university, and with vendors and publishers? This is not a manual on how, who does what in collection development, or what and how much is acquired, but rather an examination of practices and policies, organizational structures, and the trends and issues surrounding the practice of collection development in academic libraries. Collection development at the University of Virginia library and collection of South Asian materials are used as specific examples. An examination of the location of collection development departments and of the selectors of materials within academic library organizations indicates a great variety with few enduring, common models or patterns. There are certain advantages and disadvantages in libraries which are dominated by geographic area selectors versus those dominated by subject selectors. Consistently, collection development bibliographers, no matter in which type of setting, have sought to make their work as productive and efficient as possible in a time of shrinking or stagnant materials budgets. Two types of activities have continued to predominate collection development organizational issues - 1) cooperative acquisitions and the value of approval plans, and 2) the use of liaisons between the library and the university. Collection Development departments and full-time bibliographers are fairly recent developments in the history of academic libraries in the United States. A century ago, universities, even "large" academic institutions, were quite different than today - smaller, with smaller libraries, departmental book budgets, less volume of published material, and selection of materials often by teaching faculty. Even by the mid-1920s most collection development policies were determined by faculty committees. These types of arrangements still exist, but almost only in small colleges and mid-sized universities, and there continues to be a close faculty relationship with the library in cooperating for collection building. During the twentieth century there has been a gradual, but clear, shift from faculty to library selection, and funds and budgets have followed accordingly. This was partly simply a reflection of the enormous growth in size of universities, in their complexity, and in the expansion of research scholarship and publishing, especially after World War II and in the 1960s. Even periodic economic crisis from the 1970s onward has not reversed this growth, though it reduced its pace. By the 1970s Collection Development departments were emerging in academic libraries, partly in order to rationalize selection in the face of budget cutbacks. Changes in library scholarship partly reflect some of these developments. Though the Library Journal has existed since 1876, College and Research Libraries began in 1939, Libraries and Technical Services in 1957, while the 1970s saw the emergence of the Journal of Academic Librarianship (1975), Library Acquisitions (1977), and Collection Management (1976). [Actually, the last began with two issues in 1976 under the delicious title, De-Acquisitions Librarian.] The role and function of collection development was changing also. Some would emphasize the difference between collection development and collection management as it emerged in the late 1970s. Paul Mosher, in a presentation in 1981, talked about moving away from a traditional "collection development" perspective, with its emphasis on acquisitions, selection and collection building, to a new vision of "collection management," which encompassed a much broader range of policy, planning, analysis, and cooperative activities. Certainly, many collection development units and officers since the 1970s have added functions and staff to handle matters of preservation, de-selection and storage, dealing with the non-print and electronic formats, etc. The collection officer or collection manager of the 1990s has emerged as a complex "animal," often with multi-roles, performing multiple functions, working under pressures for different directions within and outside the library, and trying to integrate and coordinate them in the daily tasks. A picture of Collection Development today might emerge something like this - - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ties to Library Mission Budget Type of Institution Reference/ and Goals (shrinking/ (Private/State) Acquisitions static) Formats Cooperative C O L L E C T I O N D E V E L O P M E N T Plans Branches Serials/ Approval Plans Prices Relationships/Liaison Circulation/ Staff- A. Customers/faculty/students Preservation/ Professional/ B. Publishers/vendors Storage Para-Professional -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Depending on the academic library, collection development staff and selections are more closely tied to Public Services or Reference, while others are closely identified and structurally located with Technical Services and Acquisitions. Many feel the recent trends are away from acquisitions to reference, and that this will continue. With this increasing complexity of collection development functions, William Wortman, even as late as 1989, asked Is collection management education provided? The easy answer is, No. Library schools have not offered courses in collection management. They have taught related subjects and activities . . . . Since then, many library schools offer courses and education in collection development and management. Collection development at the University of Virginia library is closely tied to acquisitions. It has been that same way, at least since it was described by its director in 1977. In that same year, selection and acquisitions was also handled mainly by 4.5 area (rather than subject) bibliographers; by 1987 it had increased to 7.5 area bibliographers. Their main geographic area and language responsibilities covered North America, North Europe, Ibero-America, Slavic, East Asia, South Asia with Tibet and the Middle East, and Africa. While they were centralized in the main library at the University of Virginia and concentrated individually in the subject areas of the humanities and social sciences, they were responsible for the acquisition of materials selected by bibliographers at other sections, locations, and branches of the library. These included Science and Engineering, Music, Fine Arts, Education, undergraduate Commerce, the undergraduate library, government documents, the reference department, Rare Books and Manuscript Departments, or a total of 18 selectors. It should also be noted that there are independent libraries at the University of Virginia for medicine, law, and graduate business. The Director of the Collection Development Group at the University of Virginia, Kenneth Jensen, extolled the benefits and advantages of collection development organized around area bibliographers. With his experience in Harvard's libraries, based primarily on area collections, Mr. Jensen established the collection development organization when he arrived at the University of Virginia in the early 1970s. Here are some of the advantages and disadvantages of area collecting, as discussed by Mr. Jensen. First, the organization is relatively simple, with clear lines of responsibility, which tend to avoid overlap or duplication. National bibliographic tools do not need to be passed around to several different subject bibliographers which could cause delays in ordering items. There is less duplication of tasks in the pre-order searching. Second, a geographic bibliographer can develop an in-depth knowledge of the book trade in his area. His or her knowledge (outside English-speaking areas) of one or more languages of the area facilitates communication with publishers and vendors, and perhaps often avoids costly mistakes. It also allows him or her to determine the quality of published materials, based on years of experience. Third, area collecting allows acquisition of interdisciplinary materials, without the blinders of narrow subject interest and specialty. As such, area bibliographers experience few problems, which might otherwise crop up between subject bibliographies in turf and fund wars. Fourth, a generalists, perhaps with a subject Master's degree, is the best type of person for an area bibliographer. She or he will have sufficient knowledge and understanding of the research process, but will not need to get closely involved with departmental or disciplinary activities. Fifth, a disadvantage is that a faculty member may have to consult more than one area bibliographer about his subject specialty and its publications. Sixth, area bibliographers with acquisitions responsibilities tend to have more knowledge about their geographic areas and its book trade, whereas subject bibliographers face in the other direction and have an interest in academic disciplines and their faculty members. This can make for strong liaison relationships between subject bibliographers and the university customers, and weak relations between area bibliographers and university customers. Overall, Mr. Jensen felt the organization of collection development through area bibliographers is simpler, more efficient, and yet serves the large university well. The one advantage of subject bibliographers is their close relationship with their faculty or customers. It is difficult to learn how widespread the organizational pattern of collection development using area bibliographers, as exemplified at the University of Virginia, is among other large academic libraries. Even the definition of "area" or "subject" bibliographers is often unclear and arbitrary. In the example of the University of Virginia, it is clear that the "area" bibliographers are mainly humanities and social science "subject' bibliographers with acquisitions responsibility in certain geographic areas of the world. The bibliographers at branch libraries (Science and Engineering, Music, Fine Arts, Education, and Commerce) are clearly subject bibliographers, while those for Manuscripts, Rare Books, Reference, Government Documents, and Clemons (undergraduate) library are not "subject" bibliographers as much as "format" or "customer- centered" bibliographers. At the University of Virginia, there is a mix of bibliographer types, not just "area" bibliographers. As a survey respondent remarks in answering about "area or subject collecting?," "most large universities, including UVa, do both, depending on the material." At present there is no resolution to a question of what might be the best way to organize collect development, by area or subject bibliographers. Partly this is because there is no agreement on the definition and designation of bibliographers as "area" or "subject" selectors, and partly it is because large academic libraries, in practice, continue to collect "what" they acquire, no matter "how" it is structurally organized and "who" does it. Libraries structure their "staff based on local collection priorities, the existing library organization, preferences of the staff, the amount of available funds, and other institutional governing factors. An examination for three sets of organizational charts of research libraries in the United States from 1973 to 1991 confirms the impression that few generalizations can be made about the organization structures and task assignments libraries apply to selection tasks. If there is an ideal way to organize the enterprise, then surely only one library has found it, for every library goes about it differently. . . . One over-all approach is to appoint full-time selectors. . . . The division of labor among such selectors often reflects a mixture of geographic and subject assignments. For the SPEC (Systems and Procedures Exchange Center) Kit #1 (1973), there are 15 library organization charts; whereas SPEC Kit #129 (1986) includes 61 organizational charts, and SPEC kit #170 (1991) compiles 29 organizational charts of libraries and their universities. Only three academic libraries are covered in all of the three studies. If there is any shift in these three listings over time, it is noticeable in the last (1991) collection of charts. It often includes university organizational charts along with library charts, perhaps emphasizing the renewed interest of how high up in universities' organizations library directors are located. On the other hand, there is even less detail of collection departments and their bibliographers in the latest collection of library organizational charts. As with the example of the University of Virginia, many libraries list "area" bibliographers, such as African, Slavic, and East Asian, under the category of "subject bibliographers." So too, as with the Virginia example, most universities libraries have some "subject" or departmental libraries with their own selectors. All this can be confusing, even to librarians within a university library system. One dual-appointment (75% cataloger and 25% bibliographer) librarian, after a lengthy attempt at describing actual collection development activity at her university, remarked Confusing? You bet! . . . Why, you may be asking, clutching your head, do they do it this way? Well, she says, shaking her old gray head, Sonny, it's just turned out to be the way we do it. Any questions? While each academic library organizes its collection activity in its own particular way, three issues continue to crop up in library literature which often times closely affect collection activity at academic libraries. They are Approval Plans, Cooperative Acquisitions, and librarian Liaison relationships. Vendor-provided approval plans for monographs and subscription lists of serials are often viewed as one way to efficiently reduce the over-burdened selection demands on bibliographers. Instead of a bibliographer having to select monographs title-by-title from individual publishers or contact serials publishers individually, most academic libraries utilize some approval plans for some monographic acquisitions and contract with a vendor for providing serials from their selected list of publications. At the University of Virginia, the American Bibliographer uses Yankee Book Peddler to acquire university press titles. At least in this area of his selection over the last 13 years, he finds this "has worked very well, and saves my staff an incredible amount of time." He finds "Patron reaction to the plan is highly favorable," and that "Yankee Book Peddler is excellent and bends over backwards in the customer service area." He emphasizes, however, that the "approval plan does not run itself, . . . and [approval plans] require monitoring and occasional readjustment of parameters from time to time if they are to work properly." Other approval plans are available through such companies as Blackwell North America, and academic libraries use them in a variety of settings. The overall goal of academic libraries of 'getting the right book into the right customer's hands at exactly the right time' affects selectors and their valuation of approval plans. Other departments, such as cataloging, are sometimes integrated into the process of achieving this goal. Outsourcing of foreign language materials for cataloging (as is presently done by the University of Virginia for some of its Chinese items), and development of new services (such as providing electronic cataloging copy and even marking books) by distributors are changing the traditional processes and functions of both cataloging and collection development departments in academic libraries. One section of collection development at the University of Virginia, as well as at almost 30 other academic libraries in the United States, provides a model and example of both approval plans and cooperative acquisitions. It is the section of South Asia acquisitions. Since 1986 the Library of Congress has developed a detailed approval plan for the acquisition of library materials in five South Asian countries, through its Cooperative Acquisitions Program, with an on-site office in Delhi. Participant members develop their own Profile to correspond to the programs and research interests of their individual university. The approval plans code in detail each of the 14 non-Western languages as divided by 42 subjects. Most of the 85 English subject codes or categories are further subdivided by region or state. This allows each participant university to acquire materials which closely match their particular needs. The profiles may be revised annually, and any item which slips through the cracks of a profile may be special ordered. The cooperative acquisitions aspect of this program is further enhanced by agreements and participation with the Center for Research Libraries, especially in the collection and microfilming of research-level materials, such as serials, newspapers, and government documents. The South Asia Microfilm Project or SAMP is part of this cooperative effort. Various other cooperative acquisitions programs have been developed. The most outstanding example of the failure of such a program is the Farmington Plan for shared acquisition of foreign materials. Perhaps the most outstanding example of a very successful program is the cooperative collection development program at the Research Triangle University Libraries of Duke University, North Carolina State University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Starting in the 1930s, with continuous strong commitments from librarians and university presidents of energy and funds, and dealing with a variety of issues and problems as they arose over the decades, the Research Triangle now has one of the strongest collections in the country. In foreign acquisitions, they "based their cooperative responsibility on academic and collection strengths." Duke acquired materials from English-speaking areas of Africa, while UNC collected from non-Anglophone countries. UNC acquired Chinese materials, while Duke collected Japanese. This is indeed a successful model, which other academic libraries in other regions might copy. The University of Virginia continues to work with the other universities in the Commonwealth to develop or enhance cooperative efforts. Recently there appears to be a renewed interest in the relationship of the academic library with the university community. This revival is particularly relevant to collection development as selectors as well as reference persons are often the most visible library personnel. In some ways, historically, this relationship is almost coming full circle. As academic libraries grew over this last century, more and more funds and selection responsibilities were transferred from departments and faculty to libraries, until for the last two decades faculty and selectors worked almost independently from each other. This effort to 're-connect' libraries with their universities already has seen many efforts in the past years and proposals for guidelines for liaison work. The University of Virginia has just established an Academic Liaison Committee with a goal "to strengthen the library's ties to academic departments . . . . [and] to develop a more systematic program of library liaisons . . . ." Collection development and management in academic libraries has matured especially in the last three decades. There does not appear to be any agreement on one model or pattern or the best way to position selectors and bibliographers in the structure of large academic libraries. There are various advantages and disadvantages for most of the selectors to be "area" or "subject" bibliographers. Most libraries have a mix, which is appropriate to their institutions' traditions, its programs, and its budgets. Three issues and challenges for collections managers in the future, as in the past, are how to utilize approval plans, how successful they might be in cooperative acquisitions programs, and how effectively they will enhance and develop their liaison relationships with the university community outside the library. BIBLIOGRAPHY Association of Research Libraries, Office of Management Studies. Approval Plans. SPEC Kit 141. Washington, D. C.: Systems and Procedures Exchange Center, 1988. --------. Approval Plans in ARL Libraries. SPEC Kit 83. Washington, D. 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