Collection Development Strategies Research Articles

EVALUATION OF ACADEMIC LIBRARY SERVICES AND PROGRAMS IN GHANA: INSIGHT FROM THE SD DOMBO UNIVERSITY OF BUSINESS AND INTEGRATED DEVELOPMENT STUDIES

This study evaluated the academic library services and programs at the University of Business and Integrated Development Studies (UBIDS) in Ghana using an exploratory case study design and qualitative research methods. The findings indicated overall satisfaction among participants with the library services and programs at UBIDS, with students valuing the diverse range of resources and faculty members recognizing the library's role in supporting their teaching and research activities. The study emphasized the importance of information literacy skills, technology integration, collaborative partnerships, and user support services. Recommendations were made to strengthen information literacy initiatives, invest in technological infrastructure, foster collaborations, expand outreach efforts, enhance collection development strategies, improve user support services, and conduct regular evaluations. The study provides valuable insights to enhance academic library services and support academic excellence at UBIDS and similar institutions.
 Keywords: Evaluation, Academic Library, Services, Programs, Ghana, Insight.

A retrospective look at a DDA-centered collection strategy: Planning for the future of monograph acquisitions

The demand-driven acquisitions (DDA) model has been established as a standard component of collection development strategies for academic libraries. The University of Alabama's collection development strategy revolves around the large DDA program for acquiring electronic monographs and is supplemented by other methods of monographic acquisitions such as firm ordering, bulk eBook purchases, and more. While previous studies have confirmed the advantages of The University of Alabama's DDA plan early in its implementation, this study explores the long-term effectiveness of the DDA-centered collection strategy, seven years after it was first put into place, and examines the validity of the strategy as one bringing efficiency and high return on investment. Finally, this longitudinal study hopes to substantiate the DDA-centered collection strategy as one that could be a foundational model for other academic libraries to follow.

Faculty Publishing Practices: Insights and Benefits for Liaison Librarianship

This study reports on the publishing preferences of engineering faculty at a research institution. Faculty publications indexed in Scopus database over a ten-year period (2012-2021) were analyzed to identify publication types, publisher preference, and changes in publisher preferences observed over the period of this study. The findings expand the liaison librarians' knowledge of the liaison area, offer ideas for future outreach and engagement activities, and provide additional data for collection development strategies.

Collection Development Strategies for Electronic Resources in Two Selected University Libraries in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Purpose: Electronic resources have become critical and instrumental for academic work in the technological era and, as such, useful for students and researchers. This study reports on collection development as a strategy for electronic resources. Design/methodology/approach: An interpretivist research paradigm was adopted, followed by a qualitative research approach. A case study research design was deemed appropriate for the study. The target population comprised librarians from two academic libraries in KwaZulu-Natal. The study employed purposive sampling and used semi-structured interviews to collect data from the participants. Due to Covid-19 regulations, these interviews were conducted online using Google Teams. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data collected. Findings: The findings revealed that both universities provide different types of electronic resources to support teaching, learning, and research activities. The electronic resources provided in the two selected academic libraries included online databases, e-books, e-journals, e-references, e-magazines, and videos from the JoVE databases and packages. The findings showed that these academic libraries encounter major challenges with limited library budgets and high subscription costs of e-resources. The study recommends that adequate funding to acquire more e-resources should be allocated, and that the consortium must become more involved in the process of purchasing electronic resources so that cost could be shared. Research limitations/implications: This study focused on librarians in two institutions, excluding the management and executive management of these institutions, which are planners and decision-makers influencing finance and some processes. Practical implications: Electronic resources subscribed to by academic libraries play an important part in addressing different user information needs. With the emergence of information and communication technology (ICT), academic libraries strive to remain relevant in their collection development through the provision of electronic resources. The research offered librarians additional collection development strategies through electronic resources that they can adopt in order to provide sound collections to their users, regardless of financial constraints. Originality/value: The study investigated enhancing collection development through electronic resources as a strategy in the selected academic libraries in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It may serve as a valuable resource for academic librarians in carrying out the effective collection development of electronic resources, as currently, world development is driven by technology. It also adds to the body of knowledge in the field of electronic resources, academic librarianship, and information science.

Climate Change Considerations in Public Library Collection Development

Climate change is one of the biggest threats to our continued existence. While resources and research about climate change are readily available, what do public libraries need to be doing, as one of the last free public spaces, to bridge the gap between complex information and community action? This extended abstract, based on a larger research paper, explores the various ways public libraries can be active members of their communities and promote conversations about climate change with the specific actions of their collection development. Through an in-depth literature search, several challenges are identified that act as barriers to creating cohesive, inclusive, and informative climate change-oriented collections. These barriers include eco-anxiety, particularly among children and young adults, environmental literacy, and climate change denial materials. Considering these challenges, recommendations are provided to overcome these obstacles. As the need for understanding and action becomes more dire, library policies and collection development strategies need to reflect those needs.

A Study of Public University Libraries in Bangladesh in the Context of Collection Development through Open Access Resources

Libraries and librarians will benefit by acquiring a collection of open access information resources. The OA movement in Bangladesh is being developed to reduce the huge pressure on the library budget for subscriptions to journals. In most developed countries, university libraries view open-access materials as an important part of their collection development strategy. In this study, we examine the current state of OA resources in public university libraries in Bangladesh, collection development policies, the library authority's perspectives, the challenges libraries face in including OA resources in their collection development, and how to overcome those obstacles. Methodology: A survey and a stratified random sample technique were used in this study. A total of 276 students and 268 faculty members were surveyed. The first six public universities (in order of date of establishment) were selected. We sent out questionnaires directly to students, library personnel, librarians, and other library officials. Using library websites, journals, official records, and Google Scholar was another step. Findings: This study indicates that although open access materials may be quite useful in the growth of collections, most academic library authorities seem unconcerned about this. The utilization of open access materials in the overall collection is visible, but it is insignificant.

STRATEGI PENGEMBANGAN KOLEKSI PEPRUSTAKAAN SMP NEGERI 45 BANDUNG

This study aims to find out in depth the collection development strategy of SMP Negeri 45 Bandung Library. This research is qualitative research, using observations, interviews, and literature as data collecting. The results show that the SMP Negeri 45 Bandung library carries out collection development activities in the form of; 1) library collection analysis, 2) selection, 3) library collection acquisition, 4) collection evaluation and collection weeding, of the six components of the collection development process. Libraries should develop policies regarding collection selection and collection evaluation.

An Exploration of Journals Requested by Health Sciences Libraries Through DOCLINE Interlibrary Loan During the Early COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19 challenged information exchange globally, including interlibrary loan (ILL). This project explored DOCLINE ILL borrowing data from 15 academic, hospital, and association health sciences libraries before and during the pandemic to understand gaps in ILL coverage. We reviewed aggregate filled and unfilled borrowing data from March to August in 2019 and 2020. We compared these time periods to each other and to system-wide fill rates. We normalized journal titles, added journal price and language, calculated descriptive statistics and odds ratios, and conducted 2-proportion z-tests of differences. In our sample of 14,891 requests, the odds of requests being unfilled were 2.7 times higher in 2020 than in 2019. While the proportion of non-English language content requested did not change, a significantly higher proportion went unfilled in 2020. The rate of unfilled requests for older items also rose significantly between 2019 and 2020. Our findings support the conclusion that the COVID-19 pandemic significantly influenced ILL article request fulfillment in health sciences libraries. Libraries should consider collection development strategies to increase the accessibility of articles held only in print, and those with specialized print collections may want to prioritize digitization of older materials. Future research on the availability, utility, and expense of the materials more likely to remain unfilled should inform publisher backfile prioritization as well as consortial and individual library collection development practices.

Repurposed collection marketing and visibility: using LibGuide gallery boxes as virtual library bookshelves

Purpose This paper aims to provide a reflection on innovating and repurposing collection development and marketing strategy, particularly for eBooks in libraries. Design/methodology/approach This paper provides a general review where previous research papers on the phenomenon of the study have been consulted. Findings The findings indicate that there is a lack of awareness of eBooks and marketing, and virtual bookshelves in the form of LibGuide gallery boxes are identified as a solution in promoting these resources. Originality/value This is a valuable contribution that sheds insight on the usage of LibGuide gallery boxes as virtual bookshelves in marketing library resources, particularly eBooks.

PROGRESS TOWARDS AN A‐SYNUCLEIN PET TRACER

AbstractBackgroundThe high value for Parkinson’s disease and related disorders of the availability of a potent, selective, brain penetrant α‐synuclein (α‐Syn) PET tracer is widely acknowledged. We aimed to develop such an agent by applying an established radiotracer development strategy that has been successfully used with another misfolded CNS protein target.MethodWe used a proprietary collection of CNS‐focused aggregated protein binding agents that APRINOIA had previously created to map the structure‐activity relationship of its tau PET tracer programs, including [18F]APN‐1607. This tracer has a unique binding site on aggregated tau and has recently been characterized by cryo‐EM.The collection was first screened for selective binding of α‐Syn aggregates vs. tau aggregates using recombinant fibrils. This was followed by fluorescence‐based binding to DLB and MSA tissues. These assays identified 16 promising compounds for progression into autoradiography and homogenate binding assays.ResultTritiation was successful for 13 of the hits. Self‐blocking studies confirmed specific binding in human brain tissue sections and homogenates. A lead compound was selected, and preliminary PK experiments in wild type mice indicated that brain uptake and clearance properties were compatible with a desirable PET tracer profile in a non‐diseased state. Further studies to evaluate the binding properties in the diseased state and optimize the lead are ongoing.ConclusionThe compound collection and tracer development strategy have led to the development of an advanced lead or potentially a viable α‐synuclein PET tracer.

How Much of Biodiversity is Represented in Collections: A big data workflow of aggregated occurrence data

Natural history collections play a pivotal role in taxonomy, which in turn supports all of biology, but particularly conservation and biodiversity policy. However, to provide this role, it is necessary to know what specimens are stored where, and how complete the collection is. The biodiversity held within collections globally remains uncertain, with an estimated 1.2 to 2.1 billion (109) specimens (Ariño 2010), of which around 200 million are represented on the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). Here we estimate the total biodiversity in collections worldwide by extrapolating from those specimens we know about. Data aggregators such as GBIF provide an ever-changing window into the contents of collections. We use non-parametric estimators that allow for the approximation of the number of classes in an incomplete set, such as the number of species within a collection, but also the proportion of biodiversity preserved on a national or continental level (for example within a taxonomic group, compared to the world or to a continent). Because the contents of data aggregators such as GBIF, are in constant flux, our workflow is made to be repeatable on the monthly snapshots that GBIF provides. The results of the workflow expose data gaps in GBIF, namely that collections from some large geographical regions, such as Asia, are poorly represented, but also taxonomic gaps exist, such as several Coleoptera families where many more species are accepted in the backbone than are represented on GBIF. As more data are published to GBIF the estimates for these taxon groups and geographical regions will improve. The detection of data gaps within data aggregators such as GBIF, and the subsequent mobilisation of missing information remains a priority for both aggregators and researchers (GBIF Secretariat 2022, Collen et al. 2008, Hochkirch et al. 2020). Our workflow will allow for continuous monitoring of collections and groups of collections of their coverage of global biodiversity, and the results can inform their collection development strategy.

From the horse’s mouth: BookTok as a collection development strategy in academic libraries

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) advancements have reimagined library book acquisitions, where platforms such as social media can be incorporated and embraced by libraries expanding their collections to meet the changing needs of their users. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine using a platform such as TikTok for both personal and professional purposes, especially for collection development. Despite this, the platform for short videos has been increasingly popular in various contexts. Several academic libraries have implemented this platform to improve their visibility and increase user interaction. I have witnessed innovative challenges librarians embarked on to reach larger audiences, particularly during the COVID-19 lockdown period, which increased use and popularity of TikTok for leisure purposes and advocacy of virtual library services and resources and reading to keep users engaged.

Can differences in publisher size account for the relatively low prices of the journals available to master\u2019s universities through commercial publishers\u2019 databases? The importance of price discrimination and substitution effects

Using price quotes and invoices for thousands of full-text databases and single-journal subscriptions, this study confirms that for a typical master’s university, the journals acquired through commercial publishers’ databases cost substantially less than those acquired through the databases of scholarly societies, universities, and other nonprofits. Moreover, the lower prices of commercial publishers’ journals cannot be readily attributed to publisher size (number of journals published) or to any of several other explanatory variables. There is a weak, direct association between publisher size and price among the for-profit journals but a stronger, inverse relationship between publisher size and price among the nonprofit journals. These findings, along with the results of previous research, suggest that resource providers may have incentives to keep prices low due to the collection development strategies adopted by many teaching-oriented colleges and universities. If the library’s goal is to hold a sufficient number of high-quality journals rather than to provide immediate access to every wanted journal, particular journals and databases may be regarded as substitutes even when each product provides unique content. Many U.S. bachelor’s and master’s institutions have goals different from those of the major research universities, and commercial publishers (along with some of the larger nonprofits) seem to recognize this when setting and negotiating prices.

Developing Mindful Collection Decision Making: A Case Study on Analyzing Acquisition E-book Projects Using Financial Concepts

ABSTRACT Traditionally, the College of Staten Island (CSI) library has employed cost per use in determining its collection development strategies but is attempting to broaden these assessments by using cost-benefit financial concepts. Due to significant budgetary cuts, the library has begun reviewing different assessment strategies that could maximize the development of its collections with the least amount of cost incurred. At the core of the financial mindful evaluations chosen, the CSI library intends to mindfully demonstrate fiduciary responsibility and accountability for e-book project expenditures, while determining some potential beneficial outcomes in monetary terms. The projects that are analyzed using financial concepts are two long-standing Demand-Driven Acquisition (DDA) e-book projects and the CSI library Open Educational Resources (OER) project involving the utilization of Open Access (OA) textbooks in comparison with its print textbook reserve collection. The strengths and weaknesses of using quantitative financial analysis to document the success of these projects are reviewed within the context of the historical usage of financial valuations in academic libraries.

Managing Open Content Resources from Discovery to Delivery

ABSTRACT Presenting Open Access (OA) resources alongside licensed content provides many benefits to librarians, vendors, publishers, and library patrons. However, the tools and collection development practices designed to work with traditionally acquired materials often pose challenges for freely available resources. This paper will address managing open content library collections, and offer an assessment of current delivery models and opportunities for upgrading delivery in the future, including: How to integrate open content into collection development strategies; How to improve the data around open content; How MARC record changes will impact the way users find and access open content; and How library service providers are improving the OA user experience. This paper conveys valuable, up-to-date knowledge of today’s OA landscape, and outlines best practices for integrating OA content into library collection development strategies. Related needs, like configuring metadata to maximize visibility of OA content and partnering with publishers and library service providers, are also addressed.

Implementing a just-in-time collection development model in an academic library

This article describes the development of a system for changing a university library's collection development strategy from the traditional “just in case” model to a “just in time” approach. The reasons for such a change included a desire to be more responsive to user requirements, a need to be more flexible in acquiring interdisciplinary resources and new formats, and a substantial cut in the library's budget. The Collection Development librarians envisioned the collections as a service, using a simpler and more versatile accounting structure. The Access-Based Collection Development (ABCD) model emphasizes making materials available at the point of need rather than having them on hand in anticipation of use. ABCD has four overarching themes: to be sustainable, to be holistic and inclusive, to be flexible and scalable, and to use evidence for decision-making. The authors provide details of the implementation, outcomes, evaluation, and future of the model.

Sustaining WEEE collection business in China: The case of online to offline (O2O) development strategies

WEEE has become a global focus because of its environmental pollution and human health risk and the valuable resources contained. China’s ban on solid waste imports reconstructs the global WEEE flow, leading to a more complicated situation for global WEEE recycling that asks for innovative development. The advanced development of the Internet opens new doors to WEEE collection-the first step of recycling, O2O (integrating online platform and offline collection) development strategies are adopted by many companies in China. The exploration of the new model and experiences of WEEE collection in China can provide lessons for other countries. In this study, we decode the business model of three typical cases in China using Business Model Canvas, and discuss and summarize the types, structure characteristics, operating mechanisms and effects of O2O WEEE collection model. The results show that: there are three typical types of O2O WEEE collection model in China, first one derived from internet corporate, second one derived from recycling corporate and third one served as a third-party platform. To ensure the fluency and sustaining of information flow, material flow, and fund flow, O2O WEEE collection model builds information support platforms with user-friendly interfaces, various distribution channels, and accurate pricing systems. To operate the business smoothly, attractive participation mechanism, cooperation mechanism, and multi-level profit mechanism have been constructed. The O2O WEEE collection model enjoys popularity in the capital market and customers for reducing the transaction costs, expanding the collection scope and scale and contributing to efficient and effective WEEE recycling.

Describing the German Research Infrastructure DCOLL Based on the Criteria Defined by the One World Collection Group - a test case

The standardized description of collections is an important means for prioritizing collection digitization on a supra-institutional level. Different organizational and systematic structures prevent easy comparison of collections sizes and foci, in order to make informed decisions on setting priorities and efficiently distributing tasks. In autumn 2018, the consortium of German Natural Sciences Collections (DCOLL), consisting of seven natural history collections holding institutions integrated as a National Research Infrastructure*1 performed a top-level description of the consortium's collections based on a subset of the criteria defined by the One World Collection Working Group (OWC). OWC is based on an initiative of the directors of the world's largest Natural Science Collections and aims at making collections and ressource allocations comparable. Categories relating to the staff structure of institutions were omitted, as those were considered sensitive and of little use for the purpose. The survey focused on collection size and geographical distribution only. Since some partners already had previously assembled the necessary data and since the OWC criteria are based on a reasonably high level, allowing the integration of heterogenous collections, the OWC dashboard presented an opportunity to achieve quick standardized results. However, as one purpose of the survey was to support decisions on the consortium's digitization strategy, arguably not the objective of OWC, a field to describe the digitization rate had to be added. Another shortcoming of the OWC dashboard for this purpose was the difficulty in subsuming some important sub-collections into the given criteria, namely digital collections (like animal sound archives) and non-biological or non-geological collections (e.g. historical objects and archives). On the positive side, the survey proved to be very helpful to indicate the consortium's collection focus in comparison with other institutions on an international level. This can provide valuable information for establishing an integrated collection development and digitization strategy on a supra-institutional level. It can be shown for example that 41% of the objects with origin from Europe in Natural Science Collections are held by DCOLL. While it may be possible to derive meaningful strategic goals from this information, it is a big challenge to implement practical objectives based on the same criteria. From a bottom-up perspective the OWC dashboard aggregates data, which were collected in a non-standardized form within institutions across organizational structures. Increasing the granularity from this level will result in an unreasonable effort. This presentation discusses the process of collecting information based on the OWC criteria and will present the collection structure of DCOLL.

Join the Dots: Adding collection assessment to collection descriptions

The natural science collections community has identified an increasing need for shared, structured and interoperable data standards that can be used to describe the totality of institutional collection holdings, whether digitised or not. Major international initiatives - including the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), the Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCo) and the Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities (CETAF) - consider the current lack of standards to be a major barrier, which must be overcome to further their strategic aims and contribute to an open, discoverable catalogue of global collections. The Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) Collection Descriptions (CD) group is looking to address this issue with a new data standard for collection descriptions. At an institutional level, this concept of collection descriptions aligns strongly with the need to use a structured and more data-driven approach to assessing and working with collections, both to identify and prioritise investment and effort, and to monitor the impact of the work. Use cases include planning conservation and collection moves, prioritising specimen digitisation activities, and informing collection development strategy. The data can be integrated with the collection description framework for ongoing assessments of the state of the collection. This approach was pioneered with the ‘Move the Dots’ methodology by the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, started in 2009 and run annually since. The collection is broken down into several hundred discrete subcollections, for each of which the number of objects was estimated and a numeric rank allocated according to a range of assessment criteria. This method has since been adopted by several other institutions, including Naturalis Biodiversity Centre, Museum für Naturkunde and Natural History Museum, London (NHM). First piloted in 2016, and now implemented as a core framework, the NHM’s adaptation, ‘Join the Dots’, divides the collection into approximately 2,600 ‘collection units’. The breakdown uses formal controlled lists and hierarchies, primarily taxonomy, type of object, storage location and (where relevant) stratigraphy, which are mapped to external authorities such as the Catalogue of Life and Paleobiology Database. The collection breakdown is enhanced with estimations of number of items, and ranks from 1 to 5 for each collection unit against 17 different criteria. These are grouped into four categories of ‘Condition’, ‘Information’ (including digital records), ‘Importance and Significance’ and ‘Outreach’. Although requiring significant time investment from collections staff to provide the estimates and assessments, this methodology has yielded a rich dataset that supports both discoverability (collection descriptions) and management (collection assessment). Links to further datasets about the building infrastructure and environmental conditions also make it into a powerful resource for planning activities such as collections moves, pest monitoring and building work. We have developed dynamic dashboards to provide rich visualisations for exploring, analysing and communicating the data. As an ongoing, embedded activity for collections staff, there will also be a build-up of historical data going forward, enabling us to see trends, track changes to the collection, and measure the impact of projects and events. The concept of Join the Dots also offers a generic, institution-agnostic model for enhancing the collection description framework with additional metrics that add value for strategic management and resourcing of the collection. In the design and implementation, we’ve faced challenges that should be highly relevant to the TDWG CD group, such as managing the dynamic breakdown of collections across multiple dimensions. We also face some that are yet to be resolved, such as a robust model for managing the evolving dataset over time. We intend to contribute these use cases into the development of the new TDWG data standard and be an early adopter and reference case. We envisage that this could constitute a common model that, where resources are available, provides the ability to add greater depth and utility to the world catalogue of collections.

A New Digital Method for Assessing the Diversity of Creator Identities in the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library Media Services DVD Collection

ABSTRACTPopular discussions of representation within the media industry often focus on the sexual orientation, racial, or gender-identities of the production staff and performers. Although this gives a clearer picture of who is “allowed” to create media, it doesn’t address a media item’s accessibility to viewers postcreation. The collection development strategies of libraries and other cultural heritage institutions can strengthen or impede inclusion efforts. In order to analyze the collection of the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, using #52FilmsByWomen as an inspiration, the authors created a customizable tool set and workflow which can be adapted to be used at other organizations.