3. 3
What is collection evaluation?
• Try this one:
– Collection assessment
• The systematic evaluation of the
quality of a library collection to determine the
extent to which it meets the library‟s service
goals and objectives and the information
needs of its clientele. Deficiencies are
addressed through collection development.
Synonymous with collection evaluation.
4. 4
Another definition?
• Collection assessment is
– “an organized process for systematically
analyzing and describing a library‟s
collection.”
• Collection Assessment & Mapping
Defining the Concepts
5. 5
Why assess the collection?
• Reasons for Doing
an Assessment
– Collection assessment or collection mapping provides library
administrators with a management tool for adapting the
collection, an internal analysis tool for planning, a tool to
respond systematically to budget changes, and a
communication tool and data for resource sharing with other
libraries. Library staff can also benefit by having a better
understanding of the collection, a basis for more selective
collection development, improved communication with
similar libraries, and enhanced professional skills in
collection development.
• Collection Assessment & Mapping
9. 9
Types of Collection Assessment?
1. Quantitative
– Another kind of quantitative measure looks at the
number of items added to the collection in a particular
subject area during the previous year.
– In academic or school libraries, another measure that
is sometimes used is a measure of the number of items
per student in a particular program or the number of
items that would support a particular course of study.
http://lili.org/forlibs/ce/able/course2/05measures1.htm
10. 10
Types of collection assessment?
2. Qualitative
http://education.ky.gov/curriculum/books/pages/beyond%20proficiency%20 @%20your%20library.aspx
12. 12
Newtonian physics
• Newton first used the word spectrum
(Latin for “appearance” or
“apparition”) in print in 1671 in
describing his experiments in optics.
• Newton observed that when a narrow
beam of sunlight strikes the face of a
glass prism at an angle, some is
reflected and some of the beam passes
into and through the glass, emerging as
different colored bands.
– Visible spectrum From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
12
13. 13
Spectrum requires a prism
• Estonian composer Arvo
Pärt:
– I could compare my music to
white light which contains all
colours. Only a prism can divide
the colours and make them
appear; this prism could be the
spirit of the listener.
• about his music: Alina
13
14. 14
Prism as a filter
• Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin:
– The biographer finds that the past is
not simply the past, but a prism
through which the subject filters his
own changing self-image.
• Goodwin, Doris Kearns (1979).
„„Angles of Vision‟‟, in:
Mark Pachter (Ed.), Telling Lives: the
biographer‟s art. Washington, DC: New Republic
Books. Cited in Debate and Reflection: How to
Write Journalism History
14
15. 15
The goal of collection building?
Amanda Credaro:
“. . . the ultimate goal of
collection development
must be to create a
„balanced‟ collection . . .”
• The Use of Reviewing Journals in School
Libraries
balanced
15
16. 16
What do you mean, balanced?
Credaro:
“. . . there is disagreement as to
what actually constitutes a
„balanced‟ collection.”
• equal numbers of print and non-print
resources?
• materials that present the arguments for
both sides on controversial issues?
• a combination of both “demand” items
and quality resources?
17. 17
How can we tell?
How do we know when we have “a
well-balanced collection that meets
the needs of our users”?
“To evaluate the results of any
particular intervention, we need to
be able to clearly identify and
define the desired state.”
• T. Scott Plutchak, “The art and science of
making choices,”
Journal of the Medical Library Association
2003 January; 91(1): 1–3.
18. 18
Define your desired state!
•What is your library‟s
mission?
•Where, then, will be your
point of balance?
–Popular or scientific?
–Print or online?
–What about controversial
subjects?
19. 19
A prism to view the full balanced spectrum
• Personal
•
•
•
19
Real
Invented
SMiley face
23. 23
Top Left Sector of Matrix
Up close and personal—and real!
Real
P
e
r
s
o
n
a
l
Folklore: Folklore (or lore) consists
of legends, music, oral
history, proverbs, jokes, popular
beliefs, fairy tales, stories, tall
tales, and customs that are the
traditions of a culture, subculture, or
group. It is also the set of practices
through which those expressive genres
are shared. (Wikipedia)
Invented
25. 25
Bottom Left Sector of Matrix
• Invented, but Personal
Real
P
e
r
s
o
n
a
l Invented
Quality literature, sometimes
adaptations, or else original
writing, with universal appeal
and meaning for everyman
and everywoman
26. 26An invented dragon who is
very personal (if not exactly loveable!)
26
http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Smaug
27. 27
A good invented dragon
• My Father‟s Dragon
– A Newbery Honor–winning title
and a favorite among
children, My Father‟s Dragon by
Ruth Stiles Gannett, is a
humorous adventure story about
a clever and resourceful boy
named Elmer Elevator, who runs
away to Wild Island to rescue a
baby dragon.
• My Father‟s Dragon
28. 28
Top Right of the Matrix
• Real Smileys!
28
Real
Recognizable
stories, but
unoriginal and
shallow
29. 29
Dragon stories that are real smileys?
• . . . The tone and style suggest
Saturday-morning animated
films and will appeal to the same
audience. For humorous
adventure fantasy that is better
crafted and more nourishing, try
Jon Scieszka‟s Knights of the
Kitchen Table (Viking, 1991) and
other works in the “Time Warp
Trio” series.
– Virginia Golodetz, Children's
Literature New
England, Burlington, VT (c)
Copyright 2010. Library Journals
LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of
Media Source, Inc.
– Review cited by Durham Public
Library
29
30. 30
Bottom Right of the Matrix
• Invented smileys [perhaps contrived?]
30
Invented
Generic, unoriginal, im
personal, shallow
31. 31
An invented “smiley” dragon?
• What about the Dazzling Dragon?
– When Princess Daisy hears that a real dragon is being
brought into the Princess Academy, she is terrified. What
will her friends think of her being such a scaredy cat? But
later Princess Daisy has a chance to show how
brave she really is...
• Blurb from The Tiara Club website
32. 32
How to use this PRISM?
• Evaluation instrument
– Part of inventory or selection/acquisition
• Create a scattergram
32
P
e
r
s
o
n
a
l
Real
Invented
36. 36
Results of Collection Assessment
• Selection of new materials
• Repair of existing materials
• Deselection of existing materials
37. 37
Repairing library materials
• Questions to ask:
– When to repair and when to remove the
item?
– How much to spend on repair?
– What techniques to use to repair?
– Who pays for the repair?
• The user or the library?
• Or does the user lose borrowing privileges or
receive some other form of punishment?
– Who decides?
38. 38
Deselection
• Definition?
– In book and nonprint
collections, the process of
identifying titles for
weeding, usually on the basis of
currency, usage, and condition.
The opposite of selection.
• Deselection, ODLIS
39. 39
What is weeding?
• Weeding Your Library by Perma-Bound
– Weeding is the periodic and continual evaluation
of your library‟s resources with the goal of
removing obsolete, damaged, and rarely used
books. Weeding ensures that your library‟s
materials are useful, attractive, and accessible to
your patrons. Every library‟s print collection is
limited by the space available,
and collections must
change over time to reflect
changes in the community
and in the library‟s goals.
41. 41
Advice from Doug Johnson
• Weed!
– Poorly weeded collections are not the sign of poor
budgets but of poor librarianship. Period. Only
two things can happen if library material
replacement budgets are inadequate. The
collection ages if the librarian does not weed. The
collection gets smaller if the librarian does weed.
That‟s it.
Small, but high quality collections are infinitely
better.
• Weed! Head for the Edge, Library Media Connection, Sept/Oct 2003
42. 42
Additional advice from Johnson
• Keep accurate records of what you weed
– This cover-your-butt tactic turned into a pretty fair
collection evaluation. I did a book count by Dewey
section and established an average age of each section
before weeding. . . . I also repeated the process after I
physically removed the weeded books from the
shelves. When all the numbers were in place at the
end, I threw them into a simple spreadsheet. I also
kept some “representative samples” of the materials I
weeded in case the school board or the ilk were to call
me on the carpet.
• Weeding the Neglected Collection , School Library
Journal, November 1990
