Citation
Cassell, K.A. (2013), "Our changing collections", Collection Building, Vol. 32 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/CB-07-2013-0023
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Our changing collections
Article Type: Editorial From: Collection Building, Volume 32, Issue 4
Librarians have often asked “What is a collection?, and it is certainly a good time to ask that question again. Sometimes I think that we are moving in so many directions almost simultaneously that we forget to stand back and see where we have come from and where we are going. Collection development is a perfect case in point. We are moving away from all-print collections. But are we completely giving up print? Well, the answer is probably neither yes nor no. The answer is probably “It depends. Some communities of users are happy to have only electronic resources, but that is not always the case. What about the print materials which are not yet available in electronic format and may or may not be in the future? Are we going to discard them in an effort to not have to deal with print? In many libraries around the USA efforts to do that have or move in that direction have brought protests and even threatened the library directors job. A weeding of the non-fiction collection at the Urbana (IL) Public Library cost the director her job. At the New York Public Library a plan to move a large part of the collection to off-site storage met with protests and caused the Library to change its mind and decide to house most of the collection on site.
So maybe we want to go more slowly. It is no doubt a wonderful thing that so many reference materials and a large percentage of periodicals are now available in electronic format. They can be used from the library and from home, providing users with a great deal of access and flexibility. The only problem is that it may cost more over a period of time since for most materials there is an annual fee. So although libraries can subscribe to reference materials and periodicals online, they cant always afford to do it.
Books represent a different issue. Yes, many books have been digitized. But many have not. Even current titles are not all digitized immediately and even if available, libraries may have to make purchase decisions based on cost and the platform they are on. Certainly older titles are often only in print, so that particularly research libraries will want to hang onto their print collection.
But these are only part of our collections. We also have media collections, collections in digital repositories, archives and so much more. They all require careful attention to how we handle them and house them. Over time we will digitize most of them. But this is a slow and sometimes costly process.
So we must continue to think carefully about all parts of our collections and realize that they will continue to change. Our collections require a great deal of planning. It requires us to be in touch with our user community and meet their needs while keeping pace with changing formats.
Kay Ann Cassell