Teaching students what we do: A collection management course

Abstract

In recent years, the landscape of collection management has been radically transformed by the explosion of digital content, the importance of collaborative initiatives for content acquisition and shared print management, new licensing and acquisition models, the dramatic shift in facilitating access versus ownership, and a crowded field of providers and platforms. The academic library itself has been utterly changed in the past two decades. What does this mean for the ways in which we teach the next generation of librarians about the activities, goals, and issues involved in collection management? I have taught a collection management course three times, from 2010 to 2012, at the School of Information Studies at the University of Ottawa-Canada. The Master of Information Studies program was established in 2007, and the school is very proud to have received full accreditation from ALA in 2014. A few challenges Expectations of collections work are rapidly changing. As Peggy Johnson has noted, “User expectations about the services, collections, and access that libraries should provide are profoundly affecting collection development and management.” 1 LIS students need to be aware of business practices around e-resources licensing, vendor relations, and consortial dynamics and goals. Moreover, they have to become attuned to the bewildering variety of acquisition models for ebooks and preservation strategies for both ebooks and print books (and other materials), and to understand why these issues are so visceral for libraries. It is also essential for students to understand the impact of networked resources, scholarly publishing and the ever-evolving ecosystem of players in the supply chain, and budget constraints that are becoming tighter each year. With all of this knowledge, however, they need to learn how to stay close to the pulse of their patrons’ needs and expectations. Therefore liaison work and partnership are central to success. The challenge for anyone teaching collection management to LIS students is to articulate the paradigm shift from local collections to a networked and collaborative model, 2