Reference Collection Evaluation

I decided to begin my evaluation of the reference collection with a visual assessment. In the beginning I did not check any reference sources because I wanted to view the reference collection through the eyes of a student. It was easy to find the reference sections of the media center because they were all clearly marked. When I inspected some of the items they seemed outdated in my opinion. There was a World Book Encyclopedia collection from 1998 on a shelf. I then thought back about my time in the media center during my practicum and I realized that I never saw any students using any encyclopedias in the media center. The Internet was their primary source for information found in encyclopedias. Students did use other reference books that focused on the subject that they were looking for information about (ex. Abraham Lincoln). After my visual assessment I determined that the reference collection needed to be updated. However, I did think that it was an adequate size for the needs of the school. My evaluation task for my practicum calls for me to evaluate the reference collection for currency and coverage. I did not want to base my evaluation solely on visual assessment so I decided to use what I learned in my FRIT 7134 class. In my FRIT 7134 class I learned about the Titlewave website. The Titlewave website provides a tool called the TitleWise Collection Analysis that allows for the evaluation of an entire media centers collection. The Titlewave website also allows you to order materials for the media center. The school already uses Titlewave so this was the perfect tool to use for my evaluation. Currency I performed a TitleWise collection analysis of the media center and the data integrity of the analysis was determined to be good with 98.99% of the holdings of the media center recognized. I believed that this percentage was good enough for an accurate collection analysis. The analysis determined the average age of the reference items in the media center to be the year 2000. It is clear that many of the reference items are outdated. The most updated encyclopedia collection that I noticed was The New Book Of Knowledge Encyclopedia collection dated 2006. I also noticed a World Almanac from 2008. I checked the Destiny database and this is the up-to-date item that appears. If I had an unlimited budget I would update the entire reference collection with items no older than 2010. Since this would probably not be the case, I would keep the World Almanac and focus on encyclopedias, thesauruses, and dictionaries. Coverage It is imperative that a media center has tools available for all patrons. The TitleWise collection analysis showed a record of 38 reference items in the media center of my primary site. This is about 0.28% of the media centers collection. The Balanced Dewey Comparison performed by the collection analysis recommends that the reference collection be 5.00% of a media centers collection. I believed that there were more than 38 reference items in the media center. I knew that the collection analysis did not include 100% of the records so I ran a report of the reference items using the Destiny database. Destiny showed 167 reference items on record for the media center. This is about 1.20%

of the media centers collection. This is still inadequate according to the Balanced Dewey comparison. It is important to remember that the collection analysis is just a tool to be used as a guide to enhance the media centers collection. A media specialist must still decide how to enhance his or her own media center. The collection analysis called the media center reference collection inadequate but it is adequate for the needs of school. Destiny circulation reports show that reference items are rarely used in the school. This shows that there are enough items for students according to circulation reports but the items could be updated. I think that my plan of focusing on encyclopedias, thesauruses, and dictionaries is valid. I will add other items but if the cost gets to high, they will be the first to go.