Collection Reflection

If you are responsible for collection development in just about any size or kind of library, the chances are good that there's been a recent push to reduce the size of your print reference collection.* Print reference materials are, to use a regional expression, wicked expensive. They are also being used less and less as librarians turn to databases and patrons turn to the immediate gratification of the internet. As budgets decline and libraries look to use their space in new and creative ways, physical reference collections are obvious targets for heavy weeding. Here at my library, we are reducing our reference collection by 50%. At our branches, reference collections will be cut by 75% . . . this time around. So where do you start when you are lucky enough to get the assignment to chop chop chop? Before You Begin Get a firm idea of how much the administration wants to reduce the reference collection. Survey the collection and determine how much you're going to have to weed...

A quick peek into some digital book numbers from Robin's ( @Tuphlos ) collection at  IMPCL : Some end of the year Overdrive statistics: Overall checkouts (audio and ebook) up 143% in 2011 over 2010. Ebook checkouts were up 470% in 2011 over 2010. Those numbers are without Simon & Schuster, without Macmillan, and without buying new HarperCollins items since March 2010. Audiobook checkouts were up 35% in 2011 over 2010. Overall holds on items went up 151% in 2011 over 2010. Ebook holds, specifically, were up 558%. Current Overdrive collection size: 41,084 titles (11,925 audio, 29,159 ebook).

I was denewing books in the 800s recently, which gives me the opportunity to see how books on the "New" shelf have circulated in the 10-12 months between when they're processed and when they're put in the general collection. These books are featured in a very public area and theoretically have a greater chance of being noticed by patrons and checked out. I've been aware for a while now that books of poetry, while dear to my heart, don't enjoy much popularity at my library, even though they are featured on displays (as for National Poetry Month) and given the same time as other books in the New section. Most of the poetry collections I denewed the other day had circulated, but sometimes as little as one time. Is one circulation a victory? If a book costs a certain amount (after a library discount), and then we add the cost of paying people to process and shelve it, does one circulation make its purchase worthwhile? At what point does the balance swing in fa...

As a follow-up to my post about statistics last week, I thought I would take a closer look at one of my nonfiction sections to demonstrate the kind of information that a report can yield. The Dewey range from 800 through 829 was my first assignment at this library; it covers American and English literature (poetry, essays, speeches, criticism, how-to, humor, drama). It's a grab-bag of exciting treasures, including Chaucer, guides to writing your first screenplay, the collected poems of Maya Angelou, collections of erotica, Dave Barry, Shakespeare, works about (but not by) Jane Austen, and Beowulf . At my library, this part of the collection includes nearly 12,000 items, and they are all under my jurisdiction. I was originally assigned collection development of this section because of my Master's degree in English literature, which at least provided me with some background in the area. Over the years, I've gotten familiar with the collection and what's popular. And, I c...

As usual, I need to weed my parts of the nonfiction collection. I could weed based on condition, which would allow me to clear a little space by pulling books off the shelf that clearly shouldn't be there because they're falling apart, or hideously ugly, or both. But what I really need is to make enough space on the shelves for the new books I've been buying over the past (cough) undisclosed period of time since I last really weeded, which means that I have to get serious. For that, I want a report. I suspect that I care about statistics more than a lot of my colleagues. We do use statistics regularly during the course of our jobs; as reference librarians, we keep a daily record of our interactions with patrons, rather than recording stats once a month or once a year and extrapolating. Even so, I don't think many of my co-workers run reports as regularly as I do or are as familiar with the reporting software. Does this make me a stat-crazed librarian? I'm ...

Good Morning, Collectors! Reflectors? Collectibles? Reflectibles? I'll work on that. Anyway, good morning! Let's talk reports today. We use a variety of reports here and it's interesting to see how they shake out among the selectors. Some people really use the Deleted Items report which tells when an item has been deleted. (we're so clever naming our reports here.) There is also the last item report, which tells you when the last item has been deleted from a bibliographic record in our catalog. Interesting information, but time is extremely limited for looking at a variety of reports. When choosing which reports to look at, it's often a choice between the reports about the living and the reports about the dead. While I would love to analyze the things that have been discarded (and I admit I do it from time to time) reports that tell me what people want are more important. Those are what I consider "the living." Holds no items A report bib rec...