Collection Development Decisions Research Articles

Two Birds with One Stone? Using a Critical Digital Collection to Engage Students in Scholarly Communication Skill Development: Successes and Reflections for the Future

Collection development decisions at the library level often have the consequence of ignoring the histories of marginalized communities. This session focused on how the Indiana University Bloomington’s (IU) Scholarly Communication Department in the Herman B. Wells Library, the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center Library, and the Lilly Library collaboratively designed and launched a digital resource including the voice of student workers. This project, “Land, Wealth, Liberation: The Making & Unmaking of Black Wealth in the United States,” includes a timeline and toolkit for public access to marginalized histories. Focusing on the project planning and lived experiences of student workers, this session provides a roadmap for project planning and reflection.

An Assessment of the Extent to Which Public Libraries Use Statistical Data for Decision-Making

Statistical data contributes to strategic planning, creation and maintenance of a library. Such data is critical to the library’s collection development decisions. This study investigated the extent to which Rössing Foundation libraries use statistical data for decision-making. The objectives of the study were to establish how Rössing Foundation libraries analyse statistical data, to find out if the statistical data is used for the libraries’ management, to determine the extent to which the statistics relate to collection development, to find out if there are any challenges in the use of statistics at Rössing Foundation libraries, and to come up with solutions to the challenges. The study used a case study design and employed a qualitative research approach to collect data from library staff of two libraries within the Rössing Foundation. The target population consisted of 10 library staff and six librarians were selected through purposive sampling. The researchers collected data in two phases through face-to-face interviews. The first phase covered three librarians who were interviewed before the COVID-19 pandemic and the second phase covered the same number who were interviewed after the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of six librarians were interviewed. The findings revealed that the librarians at the two Rössing Foundation libraries in Swakopmund and Arandis were not qualified, and they lacked information and communication technology (ICT) skills. This posed a challenge in compiling reports. Moreover, some library patrons did not follow library procedures. The study was limited to two Rössing Foundation libraries in Arandis and Swakopmund, which are the only public libraries in Erongo region. Although the results from the study may not be generalised to other public libraries in the country, they draw attention to the need for public libraries to document accurate and reliable statistics for decision-making. The results will inform policy at national level. The major recommendation from this study was that Rössing Foundation should hire more librarians with skills and knowledge required to collect and analyse library statistics.

Print Book and e-Book Collections in Academic Libraries in Malawi

Arrival of e-books on the scene has had a significant effect on the collection development activities of many academic libraries. Whilst some libraries have made the radical decision to ditch print books in favor of e-books, others are cautiously navigating the new terrain by acquiring both. The current study used the survey research design to study the collection development trends of print books and e-books in academic libraries in Malawi. The study found that academic libraries in Malawi are acquiring both print books and e-books. The trend has resulted from collection development decisions, practices, and budgetary constraints.

More Inclusive Collection Development: Considering the Information Needs of Researchers from Outside the Subject Area of Communication

When conducting collection development, it can be assumed that librarians consider the research needs of scholars within their respective disciplines. How systematically librarians consider the needs of scholars outside the discipline, however, has not been established. This study investigates whether resources scholars from outside a discipline use differ from the resources that scholars within a specific discipline use and offers a model for evaluating engagement with core journals outside of the discipline. Focusing on the subject area of communication, the data provided in this study demonstrate the importance of assessing the information needs of researchers from outside the discipline to build a more useful and inclusive journal collection and provide communication librarians with data to guide their collection decisions. Up to twenty years of journal citation data from the Web of Science database were collected and analyzed for thirty-nine communication journals. The author identifies the most and least cited communication journals by researchers outside the discipline to support collection development decisions that meet the needs of all researchers.

Active learning: a consideration in collection development in health sciences libraries?

PurposeActive learning is an important component of medical education and information literacy instruction. The purpose of this study is to provide a preliminary investigation to determine whether health sciences librarians consider active learning when making decisions about the library collection.Design/methodology/approachAn online survey was conducted among health sciences librarians.FindingsNineteen librarians completed the survey and most are not considering active learning when making collection decisions.Originality/valueVery little literature has been published about active learning as a consideration in collection development decisions by health sciences librarians.

Arkansas Related Civil War Holdings at Public Institutions of Higher Education in the State

An examination of a library collection using an existing comprehensive bibliography on a particular subject allows librarians to make collection development decisions. In this study, the collections of each public university in Arkansas is examined for Civil War related titles, compiled from two historiographical articles which appeared in the Arkansas Historical Quarterly. The results indicate that collections in the state contain a wide range of items included in the search. The data gathered in this project may help librarians at these institutions and others in the state determine what items need to be added to their respective collections in order to more fully support the curriculum offered.

Open Access and the End of a Big Deal

After the California State University system canceled a large journal package in 2015, California State University Northridge analyzed usage and overlap data and proceeded with a subscription to a small number of single titles. This collection development decision was coupled with an attempt to improve discovery and linking for open access content. In the years since the cancelation, overall usage of the publishers journal content has remained comparable to pre-cancelation usage, while downloads of open access content have increased.

P and/or E: That Is (Still) the Question (Or Is It?)

While the question of whether to choose the print and/or electronic format of a given title is certainly not new, the circumstances in which we are making such decisions have changed, prompting many of us to reconsider collection development priorities. Three librarians share their observations in answering three interrelated questions: (1) How did limited access to print collections affect student research behavior and faculty expectations in the course of the pandemic? (2) What strategies have libraries adopted to provide access to print-exclusive content? and (3) What criteria do they use in determining whether print or digital format is more suitable for a given title? While electronic resources certainly offer advantages, those who make and/or inform collection development decisions would do well to consider potential pedagogical implications of format as well as the ways in which providing access to electronic format exclusively may affect our ability to serve library patrons beyond the seminary community, including alumni and local clergy.

Scattering of journals cited in legal theses and dissertations

The study employed bibliometrics methods to analyse the scattering of 596 journals cited in legal master’s theses and doctoral dissertations in three South African law schools from 2014 to 2018. In addition, the study included an analysis of the extent of citation of different sources and examined the effect of use of non-legal journals by law students. It was found that students used 449.2 documents on average in writing a doctoral dissertation and 110.9 references per master’s thesis. Journals received more citations than any other document formats although 16 master’s theses were completed without citing a single journal. Generally, the journals cited in legal theses and dissertations conform to Bradford’s Law but they differ in their level of conformity by law school. There was a high degree of overlaps between Zone 1 journals in the three law schools. All journals in the core lists were available in all the law schools which was attributed to the strength of collections in these schools. The results support the application of bibliometric analyses to legal master’s theses and doctoral dissertations to make collection development decisions. In making those decisions, however, law librarians would have to look beyond the Zone 1 journals of their own institution for wider access. These results also serve as a caution to law librarians to look beyond the traditional law journals in de/selecting journals, as some of the non-legal journals in this study made it to the core list of cited periodicals. Furthermore, this study points to the strength of library collections in the top law school libraries in the country.

Role of Information Professional for the Growth of Altmetrics in the Digital Era

Any librarian in this field will need to continue not only filling these roles, but also ensuring that they themselves are part of the conversation as it moves forward and staying up-to-date with developments within this area. The concept of library involvement pertaining to metrics did not originate with altmetrics. Impact Factor was originally created primarily for use by librarians in making collection development and retention decisions. Libraries continue to bear primary responsibility for the acquisition of bibliometrics tools, most notably Web of Science, Journal Citation Reports, and Scopus, as well as the training of people in their use. As a result, librarians are already familiar with providing support for these tools, so it makes sense that librarians have expanded to support the variety of altmetrics sources and tools. Additionally, librarians serve as natural leaders when it comes to altmetrics, not only due to familiarity with resources, but also because of the relationships they maintain with several disparate groups. The article detailed about the various tools, section, evaluation methods in which libraries and librarians are supporting and interacting with altmetrics.

Mapping the Literature of Guillain–Barre Syndrome to Support Current Awareness among Neurologists

ABSTRACT This mapping study is the first bibliometric analysis of literature on Guillain–Barre Syndrome (GBS). By identifying core journals, analyzing cited references, categorizing journals into Zones, and estimating database coverage, the results of this study inform neurology specialists of the most relevant journals related to GBS to assist in current awareness efforts; it also assists librarians who make collection development decisions in the field of neurology. This study examined references during a three-year period (2016–2018) from a sample core of neurology journals using the mapping protocol from the Nursing and Allied Health Resources Section (NAHRS) of the Medical Library Association (MLA).

Survey Applies Public Collection Development Librarians' Support for Intellectual Freedom to Collection Process

A Review of:
 Oltmann, S. M. (2019). Important factors in Midwestern public librarians’ views on intellectual freedom and collection development: Part 2. The Library Quarterly, 89(2), 156-172. https://doi.org/10.1086/702203
 Abstract
 Objective – To explore how librarian attitudes regarding intellectual freedom and demographic factors influence collection development decisions. 
 Design – Online survey.
 Setting – Public libraries in the Midwestern United States.
 Subjects – 645 collection development library professionals employed in public libraries.
 Methods – An electronic survey was distributed to 3,018 public library directors in nine Midwestern states and completed by the library professional primarily responsible for collection development (Oltmann, 2019, p. 6). The survey had a 21.37% response rate. The survey focused on intellectual freedom in the management of collections and probed the participants for their experiences and influences in making collection development decisions. The survey also asked participants to make hypothetical purchasing and holdings decisions for library materials based on a short description of the material.
 Main Results – Participants indicated that they used a variety of different tools for the selection of materials including patron requests. Of the participants, 45.7% indicated that their library had a policy, practice, or metric to assess the balance of their collections, while 54.3% indicated that their libraries did not have policy or method in place for ensuring that their collection was balanced. Of the respondents, 73.4% felt that local community values should be considered in collection development decision, but 62.3% said that this should not be the most important factor in decisions. Overall, the political leaning of the community did not have an impact on participants’ alignment with the ALA's stances on intellectual freedom. Most respondents (73.4%) felt that government library funding bodies should have an influence over collection development decisions. Some respondents indicated they felt internal pressure from other library staff or the library board to purchase particular materials (28.1%) or relocate materials (14.1%). Respondents also indicated that they felt external pressure from their communities to purchase (32%) or restrict or withdraw (19.1%) materials. In the hypothetical purchasing scenario, most librarians indicated that they would purchase the majority of items. Some participants (39.8%) felt tension between their personal and professional views on intellectual freedom.
 Conclusion – The first part of this article found that holding an MLS degree had a significant impact on participants' stance on intellectual freedom and alignment with the American Library Association (ALA) principles. This part indicated that they also felt greater pressure to withdraw, acquire, and manage particular materials in their collections and felt more tension between their personal and professional stances on intellectual freedom. Age, gender, duration of work, and community political affiliations significantly impacted only some of the participants' responses. Overall, there was general support for intellectual freedom and alignment with the ALA principles; however, 40% of respondents indicated tension between their personal and professional beliefs about intellectual freedom.

Assessment of journal usage based on the cited journals in the published documents of an institute: a collection development perspective

Journal collection in special libraries plays a vital role in imparting the R&D programmes of any research institute. Building a good journal collection which suits the research needs and within the available fund needs evaluation of subscribed and to be subscribed journals in terms of usage and cost-benefit. There are many ways to assess the usage of journals for taking collection development decisions and they are mainly categorized as ‘User-centred approaches’ and ‘Materials centred-approaches’. Many journals are well used in terms of citing, publishing by the library users but they may not be subscribed by the library and the journals subscribed by the library may not be much used by the users. The present study assumes that the journals referred to in the publications of an institute may be of relevance to the user community and treated as one type of usage. The study has analysed the publications of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai, India published during 2015-2019 and identified 753 journals which are cited more than 40 times. Among them, 463 journals are not being subscribed by BARC Library. The 753 journals are categorised in three zones based on the number of times cited: Zone 1 of 26 journals which are cited by BARC scientists and engineers heavily (minimum 2193 times and a maximum of 6882 times); Zone 2 of 99 journals which are moderately cited (minimum 402 times and a maximum of 1446 times); and Zone 3 of 628 journals which are less used. The journals in the first zone are of greater importance to the user community which are all there in the list of subscribed journals except two as they are open access journals. Moderately used Zone 2 journals which are not being subscribed by BARC Library may be considered for the next year subscription by replacing the subscribed journals which are less used subject to funding availability.

Where’s the EASY Button? Uncovering E-Book Usability

E-book platforms have multiplied among vendors and publishers, complicating not only acquisitions and collection development decisions, but also the user experience. Using a methodology of task-based user testing, the researchers sought to measure and compare user performance of eight common tasks on nine e-book platforms: EBSCO eBooks, ProQuest Ebook Central, Gale Virtual Reference Library (GVRL), Oxford Reference, Safari Books Online, IGI Global, CRCnetBASE, Springer Link, and JSTOR. Success and failure rates per task, average time spent per task, and user comments were evaluated to gauge the usability of each platform. Findings indicate that platforms vary widely in terms of users’ ability and speed in completing known-item searches, navigation tasks, and identification of specialized tools, with implications for library acquisition and user instruction decisions. Results also suggest several key vendor design recommendations for an optimal user experience. The study did not aim to declare a “winning” platform, and all the platforms tested demonstrated both strengths and weaknesses in different aspects, but overall performance and user preference favored ProQuest’s Ebook Central platform.

A Decision Support System for Managing Demand-Driven Collection Development in University Digital Libraries

In recent years, academic digital libraries have become a very important source of information. Academic digital libraries provide a rich collection in order to satisfy user need for information. The augmentation of user population and the volume of new publications causes many challenges to librarians in the collection development process and determining user needs of information is the fundamental challenge that librarians face. This article presents a demand-driven collection development decision support system based on the PROMETHEE II method. The DSS supports the librarians to make decisions in the collection development process to provide a rich collection that meets the users' needs. The DSS evaluates and determines a set of electronic resources for purchase, subscription, contract reviewing or cancelation. The decision support system extracts users' queries from log files to determine user preferences. Then, the revised Simos' procedure is used to derive the criteria weights. Finally, the authors applied the PROMETHEE II method to evaluate and rank the electronic resources.

A Promising Partnership

Though library science internships for undergraduates are not as well documented as those for MLIS students, internships for undergraduates can be impactful for both the intern and the library. Undergraduate students have firsthand, immersive experience with their major curriculum and this expertise can benefit science librarians making collection development decisions and creating content for research guides. This article discusses two such projects undertaken by an undergraduate mathematics major as part of a science librarianship internship.

An open source solution to a common collection problem: the Africa image and map portal

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the Africa image and map portal (AIMP) project’s origins and development, along with its applications to date. This paper includes methods and a step-by-step appendix so that the project can be reproduced at other institutions. Design/methodology/approach AIMP was created with a suite of free and open source software, including QGIS, Mapbox.js and GitHub. Built around the concept of an interactive index map, AIMP allows for geographic searching of maps, posters and images from Indiana University’s (IU) African Studies collections. This paper presents a case study for the use of this geographic discovery tool at an academic library. Findings AIMP has allowed comparison of collection strengths with research interests of IU African Studies affiliates and to make strategic collection development decisions that will best serve the authors’ patrons. The instruction applications of AIMP are also full of potential. To date, the Librarian for African Studies has used the portal to familiarize faculty, as well as undergraduate and graduate students, with the range of image and map resources available to them, in a variety of settings. Social implications AIMP allows researchers around the world to discover materials through a geographic search, dramatically connecting and increasing access to and discoverability of these important collections. The use of free and open source geospatial software (foss4g) means that the interface does not rely on an institution’s proprietary software-licensing agreements, making it replicable for other institutions. This use of foss4g widens access to maps, spatial data, images and posters of Africa held by IUL to a global audience. Originality/value While interactive index maps are popular among map libraries, AIMP uniquely acts as a discovery portal for a variety of media, including images and posters. In this way, AIMP works to overcome institutional silos and increase discoverability of these important collections to a global audience.

Recent Research in Religion

This paper reports the results of a study of the citations accompanying research published over ten years in the fields of theology, religious studies, and biblical studies. The purpose of the citation analysis project was to determine patterns of material usage by scholars in the discipline of Religion. The project proposed to seek answers to questions that frequently cross the minds of theological librarians, including, among others, the types of sources used by researchers in our fields, the prominence of primary sources, the currency of sources cited, dominant languages of publication and research, and most frequently used journals. 
 A sample of peer-reviewed articles from these fields, chosen from journals indexed by the ATLA Religion Database, was examined from a variety of angles. 4107 cited references from 96 articles were analyzed for source type, publication language, dating, and authorship; articles were further examined for the peer review status of the publishing journal and the subject area covered. 
 The cited references of the 96 articles analyzed were primarily monographs, published in English, published and created within the decades before the publication of the citing articles, and most had a single author. The 14 most frequently cited journals covered topics in religion and the social sciences.
 The results reported here are expected to be informative to theological librarians in making collection development decisions and building subject liaison relationships. Librarians may choose monograph acquisitions over other types, or consider promoting other types of resources differently to encourage use. Theological librarians might consider subscribing to journal titles which overlap in subject coverage with the social sciences. Librarians and discipline faculty will likely find many conversation points among the data presented here.

Clinical Pharmacology: A Comprehensive Drug Reference

This column discusses the point-of-care tool Clinical Pharmacology. This review is primarily intended for newer health sciences librarians who are learning about drug references and clinical decision-making support systems or health sciences librarians making collection development decisions, although any librarian will find this review useful. A sample search will be provided to highlight the database’s unique features as well as a comparison to other resources.

Using Scopus to Evaluate the Citation Habits of a "Real World" Academic Department (An Update to Prior Research)

In 2012, this author published a paper describing a method for using the raw data from Web of Science to examine the journals cited by any given group of researchers and then compare that list to lists of 'top journals' of similar disciplines. It was not a straightforward method to use and required a great deal of effort and spreadsheet work by a user in order to properly deploy. Since that time, the Scopus database has made available a workflow that vastly simplifies -- and, indeed, improves -- this process. In this paper, a method of using Scopus to generate expanded lists of highly cited journals within specific research communities and the comparison of those with published lists of journals for similar disciplines is described. The value of finding these top-cited journals in research communities may be useful to librarians making collection development decisions.