The Library of Babel: Making Sense of Collection
Management in a Postmodern World
by Sonia Bodi and Katie Maier-O’Shea
Available online 1 February 2005
The postmodern world is characterized, in part,
by the blurring of boundaries, diminishing
hierarchy and control, and non-linear thinking.
These characteristics challenge and redefine
how collections are managed now and in the
future. This paper focuses on learning outcomes,
collection assessment, and holistic budgeting in
liberal arts college libraries.
Sonia Bodi is Professor of Bibliography,
Director of the Brandel Library,
North Park University, 3225 West Foster,
Chicago, IL 60625, USA
bsbodi@northpark.eduN;
Katie Maier-O’Shea is Assistant Professor of Bibliography,
Collection Management and Reference Librarian,
North Park University, 3225 West Foster,
Chicago, IL 60625, USA
bkmaier@northpark.eduN.
The Journal of Academic Librarianship, Volume 31, Number 2, pages 143–150
INTRODUCTION: THE PROBLEM
In his short story, ‘‘The Library of Babel,’’1 Jorges Luis Borges
compares the library to the universe: ‘‘The universe (which
others call the library) is composed of an indefinite, perhaps an
infinite, number of hexagonal galleries. . .’’ Complete order
exists in the structure of his library, but it is difficult to see
where a hexagon begins and another ends. The library is
interminable: ‘‘When it was proclaimed that the library
comprised all books, the first impression was one of
extravagant joy.’’ People believed they would find the solution
to all personal or universal problems and ‘‘the universe
expanded to the limitless dimensions of hope.’’ But after
searching in vain, they ‘‘strangled each other, flung deceitful
books to the bottom of the tunnels,’’ and ‘‘Some went mad. . .’’
Although originally published in 1941, Borges foreshadows
both the joys and the furies of the electronic environment. Like
the too frequent experience of contemporary students, the
searchers did not remember that ‘‘the calculable possibility of
man’s finding his own book, or some perfidious variation of his
own book, is close to zero.’’2 ‘‘The Library of Babel’’ is not
dissimilar to the promises and realities of the contemporary
library in a postmodern world.
How do we describe a contemporary library collection in a
postmodern world? Traditionally, collections were arranged by
format, locally owned, organized according to a classification
system, each (hopefully) in its proper place, with limited access
points. The collection is no longer limited to a physical
collection in one location, but is a mixture of local and remote,
paper and electronic. Robert Galbreath poses the question of
what is the best way to provide access: paper or electronic,
local or remote, owned, borrowed, licensed, or shared. He
writes that we should ‘‘view the collection as a fundamentally
intellectual construct rather than exclusively as an assembly of
physical objects.’’3
One characteristic of postmodernism is a resistance to
hierarchy and control. Librarians have a tradition of collecting,
naming, and organizing physical objects according to a
classification scheme with corresponding subject headings.
Little flexibility is provided for interdisciplinary resources.
When we no longer need a physical object we weed it and
follow the rules for deaccession. Alternately, an electronic
environment is ideally suited for providing multiple access
points to interdisciplinary materials. Unfortunately, these
March 2005 143
materials are also ephemeral, and they deaccess themselves
without warning. As well, we have no control over what
journals remain in full-text on electronic databases, or which
will suddenly appear. We have no control over all of the
journals included in a database for which we are paying: we
subscribe to a database for 10 journals in particular and pay for
another 50 we do not need. We no longer have a physical
collection over which we control what we purchase, what we
lend and to whom, and how we preserve it.
A second characteristic of postmodernism is nonlinear
thinking. The Western world has traditionally thought in a
linear fashion, hence our emphasis on logical thinking and the
importance of narrative. The online environment is nonlinear,
or even amorphous, with links that lead in unexpected
directions, find unanticipated ideas, discover unimagined
patterns, and like Borges’ man looking for his own book,
one sometimes comes up with zero. Hypertext depends on
nonlinear thinking, and unlike the categorical thinking of
classification systems, enables one to search, think, and
understand in an interdisciplinary manner. Marlene Manoff
argues that no longer is the text fixed; rather it is fluid, finding
patterns of connection. She also calls for a reconceptualization
of collection development and bibliographic access.’’4
In addition to diminishing hierarchy and control and
nonlinear thinking, postmodernism is characterized by the
blurring of boundaries. This blurring of boundaries is
expressed in interdisciplinary texts and in the morphing of
categories and formats in an electronic environment, making it
difficult to distinguish among e-journals, full-text databases,
indexes, catalogs, Web sites, and multimedia. We move
seamlessly among documents without knowing if we are
navigating within or between documents, one database or
several, scholarly journals, or popular magazines. Manoff
relates this reality to the Web and the building of collections:
‘‘Selectors creating subject Web pages are not so much
building collections as creating paths out of their collections
to resources provided elsewhere. This is a new way to think
about collection development.’’5 It is the blurring of boundaries
that will frame the conversation of this paper.
SOME COMPARISONS OF COLLECTION
MANAGEMENT IN RESEARCH AND IN LIBERAL ARTS
COLLEGE LIBRARIES
Research and comprehensive universities have relatively
clearly defined, workable collection management policies.
These libraries have bibliographers, frequently holding PhD’s,
who are themselves scholars in the discipline for which they
are responsible. Collections are comprehensive in scope;
while some selection may be necessary, it is primarily a
challenge of acquiring as much as possible to support the
research needs of scholars, whether faculty or students.6
These research libraries appear to have enormously large
budgets, at least compared to liberal arts college libraries.
Research libraries also appear to develop collections in a
thoughtful, thorough, and methodical manner; the reality may
be that some haphazard collecting goes on in these libraries
also.
The authors of this article are librarians at North Park
University, a liberal arts college located in Chicago, with an
enrollment of about 2500 full-time students. We have a strong
liberal arts undergraduate program and professional under-
144 The Journal of Academic Librarianship
graduate and graduate programs in nursing, education, busi-
ness and nonprofit management, music, and community
development. North Park University is owned and operated
by the Evangelical Covenant Church, and an integral part of
the university is the denomination’s graduate seminary. Based
on anecdotal evidence, small liberal arts college libraries
generally have more of a haphazard than methodical way of
building collections. The collections may be very strong in
some disciplines and scant in others, even with a collection
management policy in place. The historical guiding principle
for these libraries has been to build a collection that supports
the curriculum. Over time, though, the curriculum changes,
and with some frequency so do the courses. Consequently, a
collection built to support one or a series of courses or majors
may become an isolated collection as the courses are dropped.
Further, some faculty are heavy library users, and their
disciplines tend to be strongly represented in the collection
while other faculty never use the library. In the latter case,
librarians struggle with a limited budget yet acknowledge that
at least a core collection needs to be developed and
maintained for the future when new faculty may come with
high expectations for their discipline. Faculty come and go,
and it seems that collections in liberal arts libraries are
sometimes a reflection of the history of the faculty and
courses offered over the years. Librarians, too, have their
areas of interest and expertise, hence the observation that the
collections are sometimes haphazard and unbalanced. To add
to the dilemma, small colleges tend not to have subject
bibliographers or even one particular librarian responsible for
collection management. All of the librarians are responsible in
some way, whatever the organization in each library, and
faculty practice varying degrees of involvement. Because
everyone is responsible, it appears sometimes that no one is
responsible.
The question is, how can liberal arts college libraries build
stronger collections to meet the expectations of users,
particularly students, in a postmodern electronic world? This
paper will address this question, and attempt to answer it by
exploring the following three general areas:
! Is the guiding principle of collection management still
support of the curriculum and its discrete courses, or is the
postmodern library also to be more intentionally centered
on the learning outcomes of the student experience? In
what way do learning outcomes influence the collections
we develop and the access we provide, and what sort of
physical collection and electronic access are reasonable for
a liberal arts college library?
! How can we effectively assess our collections for each
major or discipline to guide further collection initiatives?
! How do we reasonably allocate funds, and how would a
holistic budget more meaningfully reflect our physical
collection, electronic access, and ‘‘things’’ to come?
CURRICULUM SUPPORT OR LEARNING OUTCOMES
How do the current (and future) emphasis in American higher
education on learning outcomes and the emphasis in libraries
on information literacy shape collection management policies?
We are moving from a tradition of developing a collection that
is curriculum centered to managing a collection that meets the
learning outcomes of the curriculum, of the student experience,
and of the mission of the university. Whether our collection
management policies reflect it or not, we are in a user-centered
rather than collection-centered world, and the library’s mission
is to customize information for its users.7 Ilene Rockman
argues ‘‘reconceptualizing the process around achievement-
based learning outcomes, with strong foundation skills of
information literacy serving as the dconnection’ between
courses, can provide useful information to curriculum planners
and educational policy makers.’’8 Others agree that it is
essential to relate the educational aims and goals of the college
to collection management.9
‘‘We are moving from a tradition of developing
a collection that is curriculum centered to
managing a collection that meets the learning
outcomes of the curriculum.’’
As curriculum planners for information literacy, how can we
organize and manage information literacy programs to make
the best use of our collection? For example, based on the
Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL)
Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Edu-
cation10 the learning outcomes of North Park University’s
information literacy program are for students to
! define a problem;
! ask questions as they investigate the nature of a particular
problem;
! find appropriate resources to analyze the problem;
! evaluate critically the credibility and value of resources;
and
! synthesize data and evidence in order to reach logical and
reasonable conclusions.
The mission of our information literacy program is to guide
students as they become self-confident and proficient users of
the library and experience the joy of learning to the end that
they will become life-long learners.
We are not recommending that the collection abandon the
curriculum and support only learning outcomes. What we are
suggesting is developing a collection, regardless of format, that
meets curricular needs but also addresses the interdisciplinary
nature of learning outcomes; recognizes the disparate intellec-
tual, cultural, and social needs of a diverse student body; and
supports the library’s outcomes for information literacy. The
postmodern blurring of boundaries inspires us to develop and
manage a coherent collection, one that makes sense and has
guiding principles.
Whether or not we agree that using learning outcomes is
a valid way to approach collection management, all colleges
and universities are accountable to regional and professional
accrediting bodies which are increasingly focusing on
learning outcomes. Robert Dugan and Peter Hernon observe,
‘‘Accrediting agencies are asking to what extent does the
institution provide an environment that is actively conducive
to study and learning where library, information resources,
and co-curricular programs actively support student learning?
Does the institution provide appropriate orientation and
training for use of the library’s resources?’’11 They go on
to suggest that our role now includes providing high-quality
services to address user information needs as well as to
measure what students learn.12 Beth McMurtrie opines that
accrediting bodies are focusing on ‘‘determining learning
results rather than counting library books.’’13 This is actually
good news for those of us who cannot possibly have a large
enough collection to be comprehensive, but who can offer
services and collections to support learning in meaningful
ways.
Improving student learning has been and is the goal of
library instruction programs and collections. Josephine Webb
argues, ‘‘In order to support student learning, the collection
should reflect back to students the range of learning outcomes
which have been specified in the courses they study.’’14 Small
liberal arts college libraries cannot hope to meet the
comprehensive needs of the information literate student nor
of the institution’s learning outcomes, but we need to collect
as much data as possible about our users and how well the
collection meets their expectations and needs.15 These data
may be gathered through marketing surveys and through
assessing circulation, interlibrary loan, and in-house use
statistics. What is important is focusing on the user and
relating the results to learning outcomes. Since no one
evaluation method is adequate, several approaches should
be combined. Despite the pervasive use of electronic
resources, our students (according to our 2002–2003 market-
ing survey16) continue to depend on print materials, partic-
ularly books, and expect them to be available on our shelves
in our library.
We have observed at North Park University that generally,
students in their third and fourth years of undergraduate work
are in their major, are familiar and confident enough using a
college library, and are willing (usually, sometimes) to wait
for delivery from another library. Their research papers are on
narrow and specific topics, and they understand we cannot
have everything they need. Collections for these students can
be supplemented by consortial agreements and interlibrary
loan. However, first and second year students are new to the
academic experience, do not yet have a major, and are
expecting to find everything they could possibly want in their
own library (for which they are paying tuition, as they
sometimes remind us). Perhaps the expectations of these first
and second year students are reasonable. If so, college
libraries need to develop strong collections with these students
in mind.
Some would argue that a core collection remains
undefined and would doubt it even exists because of little
overlap among libraries.17 However, our plan at North Park
University is to develop a core collection for first and second
year courses, which are primarily introductory, and to
purchase the core books and journals in each discipline
using Choice best books, and various other ‘‘best books’’
lists. Bart Harloe and John Budd argue that ‘‘core access’’
must also be defined as a body of information not held
locally but essential to users. Users may need to use
resources beyond local boundaries, but convenience will
continue to be a dominant factor since users want to easily
identify and locate what they need.18
March 2005 145
 Magazines for Libraries is a major source for determining
core journals in each discipline as are Serials Librarian and
Serials Review. Small libraries could have core journals in the
library and rely on full text databases and interlibrary loan
access for others. Based on Paul Mosher’s point about formats,
another aspect of the assessment of resources available in each
discipline is to determine which ones also need electronic
databases, software, nonprint, primary sources, languages
covered, audio, and video.19
‘‘At issue is not the expertise of faculty but the
narrowness of scope of the faculty...’’
Appropriately, faculty are given a strong voice in develop-
ing the core collections in their discipline with the under-
standing that student needs as perceived by faculty are different
from those observed by librarians.20 At issue is not the
expertise of faculty but the narrowness of scope of the faculty
and oversight of student needs.21 In fact, in a study done by
Debbi Dinkins, contrary to her hypothesis that circulation
would be higher for books selected by faculty than by
librarians, selections by librarians circulated as much or more
than those requested by faculty.22 Josephine Webb suggests
that reading lists form the critical connection between teaching
and learning strategies and the library. Because students
generally use the sources on a reading list before they look
independently, these resources should be available locally.23
Faculty tend to collaborate in collection management some-
what erratically. A suggestion for faculty who do not typically
order is to ask them to list authors they consider most
important for undergraduates to read. Librarians then can
acquire resources by each author, followed by critical and
biographical works about the same author.24
One of the many values of the electronic environment is
the availability of the holdings in other libraries. In many
ways this knowledge has transformed the way we build local
library collections. Until recently, few knew what other
libraries held. Speaking to this transformation, Barbara
McFadden Allen writes, ‘‘The great past challenge, then,
was reconciling the gap between what the library could
purchase and what was available for purchase. Our present
challenge is the gap between what can be made available to
users locally, and what they know to be available else-
where.’’25 Given the vast scope of all that is available in
multiple formats, resource sharing has taken on primary
importance from the largest of the research and comprehen-
sive universities to the smallest of liberal arts college libraries.
Resource sharing is no longer limited to specialized or
geographic consortia, but now includes the ability both to
view and to request online holdings of other libraries. Those
of us fortunate enough to be located in states with cooperative
cataloging systems such as Illinois’ Illinois Library Computer
Systems Organization (ILCSO) can provide statewide resour-
ces to meet students’ research needs.
Although resource sharing enriches resources accessible to
users, it does not excuse any library from building
collections to meet local needs. We now make decisions
about what resource in which format should be held locally
and what can be shared.26 Of all of the decisions made
146 The Journal of Academic Librarianship
regarding collection management, knowing which resources
should be available for use locally and which may be
accessible elsewhere are among the most significant and
difficult decisions to make.
ASSESSING THE COLLECTION: FROM TRADITIONAL
TO POSTMODERN
We know intuitively the subject strengths and weaknesses of
our collections. At the same time, our intuition may be based
on faulty premises and inadequately detailed understanding.
The Illinois Cooperative Collection Management Program
(ICCMP) received a grant to fund a collection analysis of a
number of academic libraries in Illinois. The analysis breaks
down each participating library’s collection by Library of
Congress or Dewey classification allowing North Park to
examine its own holdings and to compare them with other
Illinois libraries. This collection analysis affirmed our general
perception of strengths and weaknesses, but more importantly,
shows us where we are lacking in specific disciplines. While
the analysis tells us the quantity of holdings by classification, it
is not a qualitative analysis. Mosher makes another interesting
point, ‘‘the major question is not what specific titles are
lacking, but what kinds, types or formats of materials are
lacking.’’27
‘‘...it would be simplistic to assume that there is
one, set assessment formula that applies to all
disciplines and their print and electronic
resources equally.’’
With the deterioration of hierarchy of information in the
postmodern library, it would be simplistic to assume that there
is one, set assessment formula that applies to all disciplines and
their print and electronic resources equally. What we discov-
ered were three basic principles or steps for assessment that
were flexible enough for a variety of disciplines and
information formats:
! breaking down assessment by subject or smaller sub-topics
when necessary;
! blending of a variety of assessment tools appropriate to the
discipline; and
! matching print and electronic collections to departmental
learning outcomes through communication with faculty
members.
The increase in informational formats has created an
increase in styles of research methods. Therefore, the need
to assess a library’s collection by discipline rather than as a
whole, both quantitatively and qualitatively, is greater than
ever. In other words, in the postmodern library, it is more
important to assess the total amount of information available,
regardless of format, in a given subject than it is to tally the
total number of books, journals, and other formats in the
library as a whole.
As reference librarians, it is easy to see that the degree
to which students rely on books, journals, databases, and
Web sites often depends on the subject they are research-
ing. To simply compare the numbers of books or journals
in one discipline to another would not be an accurate
assessment. Based on advice from Mary Munroe, Associate
Dean, Collections and Technical Services at Northern
Illinois University,28 we decided that over the next several
years, we would analyze the collection of each department,
assess its strengths and weaknesses, and how it relates to
their mission.
We began with our art collection, and more specifically the
subtopic of photography, as our first case study for assess-
ment for a number of reasons. For some time, the art faculty
rarely submitted Choice review cards, made library purchase
requests, brought their students in for bibliographic instruc-
tion, or assigned papers requiring library use. With the arrival
of two new professors, one of whom specializes in
photography, this changed considerably in the past 3 years.
Although we always suspected that our art, and particularly
our photography, collection was not strong, these two new
professors with active interests in building the collection and
information literacy forced us to take a closer look at the
collection.
A quantitative analysis of the collection was performed
using the ICCMP analysis. Like most participating Illinois
librarians, we were enthusiastic about the arrival of the Web
version of the ICCMP analysis. That enthusiasm faded
somewhat as we poured over statistics and began wondering
about their qualitative implications. For example, the analysis
indicated that we had slightly more books in art than
psychology, which has far more students enrolled in its
courses. However, the reference librarians sensed the library
was meeting the needs of psychology students far better than
those of art students through our combined collection of
books, journals, and full-text databases. But when applied to
specific areas where weaknesses are more pronounced,
quantitative information can be a useful starting point for
assessment. The subtopic of photography within the art major
was a perfect case study for the ICCMP analysis. In the
context of this focused area, the low number of recent
publication dates was a clear indicator of the lack of works
about contemporary photographers that our students and
faculty were demanding.
In addition to the weak numbers in recent photography
acquisitions, the ICCMP analysis also showed extreme
quantitative highs and lows in subject matter. In qualitative
terms, we were concerned about the quality of individual titles,
but we were also concerned that these extremes indicated that
the photography collection was too technical or ‘‘how-to.’’ In
other words, a quick shelf-read suggested that it was more
suited to the amateur photographer rather than someone
studying photography in the context of an art department of
a university.
To assess the credibility of the individual titles, we turned
to a variety of assessment tools including Best Books for
Academic Libraries (BBfAL), which we purchased in CD
format, Choice Outstanding Titles Online, and Magazines for
Libraries. We own only about 13.5% of the titles listed in the
TR (photography) Library of Congress Classification in
BBfAL. Although there is no specific number that any library
must have, in a collection this small in an area that librarians,
art faculty, and students are eager to build, clearly this
number should be higher. Choice listed only a small number
of titles as ‘‘outstanding’’ in the area of photography;
approximately 27. Although it should be noted that Choice
Online begins in 1992, North Park library only had about a
third of these titles.
Next, we addressed our concern that the photography books
were not distributed in subjects reflective of an academic
collection. The ICCMP analysis indicated that the photography
collection is clustered in certain Library of Congress subject
areas. We charted BBfAL and Choice Outstanding Titles
according to the same subject areas. Although our numbers
are obviously lower, we were pleased to see that the high points
of our collection correlated with those of Best Books for
Academic Libraries. In other words, this dismissed some of our
concerns that the photography collection, although small, was
not sufficiently ‘‘academic’’ in focus.
According to Magazines for Libraries, our collection is
somewhat better in individual journal titles and in our article
databases. Although we had only a couple of the recommended
titles for academic libraries in photography, we currently
receive most of the recommended art journals and have back
issues of others. Of those art journals we receive, many are
very strong in contemporary photography as well.
Availability of Magazines for Libraries titles in print is
almost identical in our online databases. Three of the
recommended photography titles are available full-text online,
but only one includes images and most of the art titles are
available on the databases and in PDF format. According to
usage reports from Ebsco databases, the number of retrievals
from art and photography journals for the current academic
year was surprisingly low compared with those in other
disciplines. This seemed particularly unusual considering the
fact that many of the art journals available in PDF with images
include the kind of contemporary artists that the new art faculty
and students requested.
It was these discrepancies between perceived needs,
quantitative data, and use of the collection that brought us
to communicating with faculty members through assessment
interviews. In this process of speaking with the departmen-
tal faculty, the major’s learning outcomes were matched
with library resource needs. This final step helped prioritize
the results of the various assessment tools to create a
collection that is relevant to the curriculum of the individual
department.
‘‘It was these discrepancies between perceived
needs, quantitative data, and use of the
collection that brought us to communicating
with faculty members through assessment
interviews.’’
The art department summarizes their learning outcomes: to
express life and its meaning; to provide students with technical,
conceptual, and creative skills to build a career in the
profession; and to expose students to the world’s significant
artists. The chair of the art department felt that the first
outcome (of expressing life and its meaning) was being
fulfilled by requesting books in a variety of art and nonart
fields, many of which might not be categorized in art subject
March 2005 147
headings; aesthetics, philosophy, etc. She felt the second
outcome of technical artistic skills was also best fulfilled by
books. There, her concern was not adding too many more
resources, but weeding the collection we already had. She felt
that many of the books that were classified in the arts were
really there for elementary art education majors and not art
students, which could make the technical art book collection
appear larger than it is.
She repeatedly emphasized her struggle to fulfill the third
outcome of exposing students to the world’s significant artists
both through her syllabi and through the library’s collection.
The art students are required to familiarize themselves with
contemporary artists in their particular medium. They are also
asked to write ‘‘light research papers’’ in which they research
other artists’ work in the context of their own. When asked
about perceived strengths and weaknesses of the collection in
light of this final and most important outcome, she said she felt
the collection was very weak in books about contemporary
artists when she came to North Park, but that it had improved
greatly in the past 3 years. She attributed this to a close
relationship with the librarians and actively selecting books
that fit this outcome.
The chair of the art department also stressed the importance
of journals in print format. In this area, she felt that the
collection was very strong and important to the students’
current awareness of art. When asked about the two out of
seven Magazines for Libraries recommended art titles that the
North Park library does not receive, she felt they would be of
little or no importance to her students. Both were related to art
history, which is not a major or a minor at North Park. This was
also an important commentary on the considerable number of
theoretical art history titles in Best Books for Academic
Libraries and Choice Outstanding Titles that are not in our
collection.
When describing her assignments for art students, the
professor said that she never recommended databases, nor
was she aware that all of the journals she recommended to her
students were available in full-text with color images. She did
not think that this would be particularly helpful to her students
because many of them entered into the art program not
knowing the names of many artists and would have a hard
time performing effective database searches without this
information. Instead, she encourages them to familiarize
themselves with artists by flipping though journals and books
with color plates, a process that is not as compatible with
databases as it is with print materials. The need for the students
to take a book or journal off the shelf and flip through its pages
also meant that interlibrary loan would not be as useful to art
students as it was to others and these statistics need not be
analyzed for art.
The assessment interview also helped us go one step
further to assess our selection tools. Like many universities,
we distribute Choice review cards to faculty through library
liaisons. After seeing how few photography books were
listed as ‘‘outstanding’’ by Choice reviews, it is not
surprising that few requests for photography titles were
made. The art professor also said that although Choice cards
were helpful and interesting, they were not visual. Because
the ability to understand an artist’s work by flipping through
the books is so important to her discipline, she said that she
sometimes relies more on illustrated trade catalogs than
Choice reviews. After reviewing the results of the analysis
148 The Journal of Academic Librarianship
of our collection with her, she felt that BBfAL—a resource
that many librarians keep for themselves and assume would
be of no interest to others, would also be a more useful
selection tool in some areas of art, such as photography than
Choice cards.
Ultimately, it was this discussion with the chair of the art
department that brought meaning to the qualitative and
quantitative data about our existing art and photography
collection. It affirmed that low database usage and our
decision to cancel Art Index were not a concern. It also
confirmed that our journal collection was on target and that
our book collection, although still too small, was building in
the right directions and subject areas to match the
department’s learning outcomes. Finally, it helped reshape
our choice of selection tools that would be most useful for
the department to help this collection building process.
FROM BUDGETING BY FORMAT TO HOLISTIC
BUDGETING
How do we construct our budgets in the postmodern
blurring of boundaries of both print and electronic resour-
ces? Our traditional budgets are divided by format and then
by department. All of the annual statistical reports we
submit to professional and governmental agencies require
numeric and financial data by format. Format no longer
meaningfully informs departments or librarians about how
much is actually being acquired or spent in a discipline.
Further, as boundaries are blurred, our postmodern world is
becoming more interdisciplinary and less discipline specific.
Therefore, using North Park as an example, we attempted to
create a holistic budget which combined books, journals,
databases, and media for each department to give a
complete understanding of what each was spending on
library resources. Prior to this, we allocated the book budget
by dollar amount among departments. The journal and
media collections were developed more on the basis of need
with relatively little regard to departmental allocation.
Examining the budget holistically gave us and the faculty
a surprisingly different and comprehensive view of what
Figure 1
Undergraduate Budget
each was spending. For example, the English department
spends a large amount primarily because of standing orders
in literary criticism. Other departments, however, were
spending even less than we thought; as a result, we will
place more emphasis than previously on collecting for these
disciplines.
‘‘...we attempted to create a holistic budget
which combined books, journals, databases, and
media for each department to give a complete
understanding of what each was spending on
library resources.’’
We constructed three pie charts, each of which gave a
clear visual comparison. One pie chart compared spending
in each undergraduate liberal arts and sciences department
(Fig. 1). The second pie chart compared the adult
completion program (GOAL) and the graduate programs in
business and nonprofit management, nursing, education,
community development, music, and the seminary (Fig. 2).
The third pie chart compared the total undergraduate, total
graduate, and total seminary spending (Fig. 3).
When we started our research on collection management
in a postmodern world we hoped we would find a magic
formula for allocating the budget across disciplines, only to
discover rather quickly that no such formula exists,29 nor
will it. Ross Atkinson argues that allocation is flawed, and
even if such a formulaic system existed, it could not
possibly take into account all variable factors because
competing needs are so diverse. Further, he argues that
having a budget formula is political in the way it tries to
convince faculty that this is a fair system giving them their
fair share.30 Jane Tuten holds the view that formulas do not
in themselves guarantee a balanced collection, but will make
the budget process less adversarial and arbitrary.31
Figure 2
Graduate Budget
Figure 3
Total Budget Comparisons
Although variables in each library make a universal
budget allocation formula unlikely, general factors are
applicable to all libraries. For example, we looked at the
results of our collection assessment. These results provided
us with a solid basis to identify significant weak areas of
our collection needing immediate additional funding, and
strengths of the collection upon which to build within the
principle of relevance to learning outcomes and the
curriculum and to anticipated future needs.32
Protecting the future while meeting the needs of the
present as we build our collections requires the political
expertise of simultaneously thinking like a librarian and a
business person. As librarians we want to include everyone
and respond positively; as business people we want to look
at what we do and do not need.33 However, an allocation
process is accomplished, the object is to use a system
which provides for learning outcomes and curricular needs
but which allows for changes in a rapidly changing
postmodern environment. As Richard Hume Werking writes
about budget allocation approaches, ‘‘No matter what
approach or approaches are used – and certainly some are
better than others – our responsibility is to apportion the
materials budget in ways that will most benefit our
libraries.’’34
CONCLUSION
These ideas are clearly in the formative stage. Much
theoretical research and praxis are required over the next
few years. Edward Shreeves predicts one of the greatest
challenges facing collection management for the foreseeable
future is the rhetorical, political, and financial problem of
dealing with a hybrid and rapidly evolving digital and print
environment. Libraries have to invest in and prepare for a
digital future while maintaining collections and services
based on a predominately print world.35 Changing from the
long heritage of doing collection management in both
research and liberal arts college libraries is like trying to
fit the postmodern circle of thinking into Borges’ hexagon.
Lacking a clearly articulated vocabulary about how to build
collections in a postmodern electronic environment, our
conversation sounds, at times, like babbling.
March 2005 149
 NOTES AND REFERENCES
1. ‘‘The Library of Babel,’’ by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by
Anthony Kerrigan. From Ficciones. Grove Press, 1962 in In
the Stacks: Short Stories About Libraries and Librarians,
edited by Michael Cart, Woodstock: The Overlook Press, 2002,
pp. 256–263.
2. Ibid., pp. 256–263.
3. Robert Galbreath, ‘‘Nailing Jell-O to the Wall? Collection
Management in the Electronic Era,’’ North Carolina Libraries
55 (Spring 1997): 18 – 21.
4. Marlene Manoff, ‘‘Hybridity, Mutability, Multiplicity: Theorizing
Electronic Library Collections,’’ Library Trends 48 (Spring 2000):
857 – 876.
5. Ibid., p. 860.
6. Following are some examples of collection management policies
we have used as models: http://www.tpl.toronto.on.ca/abo_pol_
selection.jsp; http://www.niulib.niu.edu/colldevl.cfm; http://
msl.state.mt.us/slr/cmpola.html; and http://www.sc.edu/library/
techserv/cmgenpol.html.
7. Ann Okerson, ‘‘Are We There Yet?: Online E-Resources Ten Years
After,’’ Library Trends 48 (Spring 2000): 671 – 693.
8. Ilene F. Rockman, ‘‘Strengthening Connections between Informa-
tion Literacy, General Education, and Assessment Efforts,’’
Library Trends 51 (Fall 2002): 185 – 198.
9. Caroline M. Coughlin & Alice Gertzon, Lyle’s Administration of
the College Library. (Metuchen, NJ: The Scarecrow Press, 1992),
p. 178.
10. Association of College and Research Libraries, Information
Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education. Online.
American Library Association (2000). Available http://www.
ala.org/acrl/ilstandardlo.html (accessed October 28, 2003).
11. Robert E. Dugan & Peter Hernon, ‘‘Outcomes Assessment: Not
Synonymous with Inputs and Outputs,’’ Journal of Academic
Librarianship 28 (November 2002): 376 – 380.
12. Ibid., p. 377.
13. Beth McMurtrie, ‘‘Accreditors Revamp Policies to Stress Student
Learning,’’ Chronicle of Higher Education (July 7, 2000): A 29.
14. Josephine Webb, ‘‘Collection Management to Support Learn-
ing,’’ in Collection Management in Academic Libraries, edited
by Clare Jenkins & Mary Morley (Hampshire, England:
Gower, 1999), p. 136.
15. G. Edward Evans, with the assistance of Margaret R. Zarnosky,
Developing Library and Information Center Collections (Engle-
wood, CA: Libraries Unlimited, 2000), p. 32.
16. The 2002–2003 Marketing Survey was the first survey adminis-
tered after the 2001 opening of our new library. The Survey, sent to
all faculty, staff, and currently enrolled students, requested Likert
scale responses to questions about user expectations and levels of
satisfaction.
17. Coughlin, Lyle’s Administration of the College Library, p. 173.
150 The Journal of Academic Librarianship
18. Bart Harloe & John M. Budd, ‘‘Collection Management and
Scholarly Communication in the Era of Electronic Access,’’
Journal of Academic Librarianship 20 (May 1994): 83 – 87.
19. Paul H. Mosher, ‘‘Quality and Library Collections: New Direc-
tions in Research and Practice in Collection Evaluation,’’
Advances in Librarianship 13 (1984): 211 – 238.
20. Eveline L. Yang, ‘‘Psychology Collection Review: A Cooperative
Project Between Librarians and Departmental Faculty Members,’’
Collection Management 13 (1990): 53.
21. Kathleen E. Joswick & Jeanne Koek Stierman, ‘‘Perception vs.
Use: Comparing Faculty Evaluations of Journal Titles with Faculty
and Student Usage,’’ Journal of Academic Librarianship 21
(November 1995): 457 – 458.
22. Debbi Dinkins, ‘‘Circulation as Assessment: Collection Manage-
ment Policies Evaluated in Terms of Circulation at a Small
Academic Library,’’ College and Research Libraries 64 (January
2003): 46 – 53.
23. Webb, ‘‘Collection Management to Support Learning,’’ p. 153.
24. Robert Heville, James Williams III & Caroline C. Hunt, ‘‘Faculty–
Library Teamwork in Book Ordering,’’ College and Research
Libraries 59 (November 1998): 524 – 533.
25. Barbara McFadden Allen, ‘‘Consortia and Collections: Achiev-
ing a Balance Between Local Action and Collaborative Inte-
rest,’’ Journal of Academic Administration 28 (January 1999):
85 – 90.
26. Maureen Pastine, ed., Collection Management: Past and Future
(New York: Haworth Press, Inc., 1996), pp. 4, 7.
27. Mosher, ‘‘Quality and Library Collections,’’ p. 220.
28. Interview with Mary Munroe at Northern Illinois University,
DeKalb, Illinois on March 17, 2003.
29. Clare Jenkins, Collection Management in Academic Libraries
(Aldershot, Hampshire: Gower Publishing Col. Ltd., 1991),
pp. 18 – 19.
30. Ross Atkinson, ‘‘Old Forms, New Forms: The Challenge of
Collection Management,’’ College and Research Libraries 50
(September 1989): 507 – 520.
31. Jane H. Tuten & Beverly Jones, compilers, Allocation Formulas in
Academic Libraries (Chicago: American Library Association,
1995) p. 2.
32. Martin S. Murray, Collection Management and Finance: A Guide
to Strategic Library-Materials Budgeting (Chicago: American
Library Association, 1995), p. 68.
33. Interview with Mary Monroe at Northern Illinois University,
DeKalb, Illinois on March 17, 2003.
34. Richard Hume Werking, ‘‘Allocating the Academic Library’s
Book Budget: Historical Perspectives and Current Reflections,’’
Journal of Academic Librarianship 14 (1988): 140 – 144. Werking
gives a historical summary of the controversial issues surrounding
budget allocation and who makes decisions about the collection:
librarians or faculty.
35. Edward Shreeves, ‘‘The Acquisitions Culture Wars,’’ Library
Trends 48 (Spring 2000): 877 – 890.