Introduction To Collection Development By Dr.

Grace Kamau

TOPIC 1 – INTRODUCTION TO COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT

The concept of Collection Development

Collection development is a process of building information collections that satisfy the

information needs of library users in a timely and economic manner using resources held locally
as well as from other organizations.

Collections are developed by librarians by acquiring materials over a period, based on

assessment of the information needs of the users. A distinct element of the collection
development policy is the consideration of the needs of users. In addition to ongoing acquisition,
library collection development includes:

 Creation of policies to guide material selection

 Replacement of worn or lost materials
 Removal (weeding) of materials no longer needed in the collection
 Planning for new collections or collection areas
 Cooperative decision-making with other libraries or within library consortia.

Collection development vs Collection Management

Though “Collection development” and “Collection Management” are used interchangeably, they
imply different concepts.

Collection development relates to selection and acquisition of materials for an expanding

collection and decisions on the material to be included in that collection while

Collection Management is broad based activity encompassing all aspects of collection

development, as well as other issues related to the collection such as preservation, legal
concerns, access and resource sharing. So Collection management will subsume Collection
development but also include:

 The allocation of the book fund and the balance between books, journals and
conservation.

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 The distribution of stock between open and closed access.

 The decision to acquire access to electronic resources and other media through purchase
or lease.
 Location decisions as between branches of the library and stores.
 The monitoring and encouragement of collection use.

It is an ongoing process that changes as the community changes.

Collection development became popular in the decade of the 1970s in the university libraries of
Anglo-Saxon countries. This change was due to the following factors, international and external:

 .The economic crisis on a world scale. It is in this period that inflation began directly
affecting the publishing world. This produced the rise in the cost of paper, printing and
composition. Librarians were obliged to ration the use of money to develop their
collections.

 The increase in the number of publications. Scientific research increased,

and periodicals became the support for excellence to mould these studies.

 . The advances in community technology. It is attributed to the explosion of new

information technologies and communication that have penetrated into the large sectors
of the social life including universities, firms, publishing houses.

 . The variety in the format of the presentation of information. As a result of the new
technologies, information does not only appear written on paper, but in electronic
formats such as: CD-ROM, online databases, DVDs and for the universities constitutes a
new challenge to establish such collections.
Nature and Scope of Collections

The scope of a library’s collection should depend on who it is serving e.g. University library –
collection be geared to the needs of experts in subject field or should cater for the subjects
covered in the university and include expert level materials.

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School library – will not need expert level materials.

Public libraries - must try to determine the expertise level of likely users of the collection. The
scope of the collection may vary from subject area to subject area. Some libraries may have
especially strong collections in some subjects, while they have more basic collections for other
subject areas. These differences will depend on the needs of the community and they should be
explained in the collection development policy.

Collection Development Process

A collection development process comprises the following elements:

Diagram - See Figure 1

1. Community – a group of people (readers, library users) to which one ought to give
service, either this group is a political unit (a country, a state, municipality) or an entity
more specialised (a university, a school, a research centre, or a firm.

2. Analysis of the community – supply data for the planning of the library that allows them
to establish a mechanism for participation in the collection development process.

3. Collection policies – they cover such aspects as donations, de-selection or discarding and
cooperation.

4. Selection policies – should be more concrete as to facilitate the decisions about what
materials to buy, to accept or to include in the collection if they are donations.

5. The business operation in which the community has little or no participation except
donating money, but the library does purchase orders, the selection of the vendor, the
reception and revision of the materials required.

6. Discarding policies – It is necessary to reflect throughout a policy.

7. Evaluation of the collection – It determines the quality of the work that is carried out in
the library, having accounted for the needs of the community.

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Need for User Studies

User studies are investigations of the use and users (including non-users and potential uses and
users) of information.

Library services and collections should be based on an understanding of the service community’s
information wants and needs. There is need to know about user’s work roles, general interests,
education, information communication behaviour, values and related characteristics.

Effective collection development can only be possible when it is based on firm knowledge of the
users that are being served. User needs analysis is the process of determining the information
needs of the users.

Further, as no library has the luxury of resources and funds, user studies are required to check
whether intended goals are met, and if not, to alter the priorities so as to ensure judicious
allocation of limited resources. Therefore a solid database of client information is required in
order to prepare an effective collection development plan.

In this era of ICTs, it is imperative to know about end-user technology capabilities, or lack of
access in some cases in order to make sound acquisitions decisions especially considering the
cost of e-resources.

The data collected will establish selection parameters.

User Needs Assessment

The assessment can be done through various ways which include observation, records of service
use, focus groups and questionnaires. User surveys are also an accepted part of the evaluation
process of libraries and provide a framework and foundation for all other approaches. User
surveys:

1. Provide detailed information about users’ opinion of the service.

2. Help to clarify the librarians’ concept of the service as well as their assumption about the
users’ needs.
3. Indicate problems.
4. Suggest solutions

Data may be collected using the following techniques:

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- Questionnaire
- Observation
- Interview
- Focus groups
- Documentary evidence e.g. studying the syllabus, curriculum vitae of researchers and
academics, current research projects, and minutes of academic meetings etc.
- Systems use analysis e.g. – evaluate circulation statistics, interlibrary loans requests,
system transactional logs e.g. how many times users access a particular database etc. and
analyze the size, depth, breadth and growth of the library’s collection in order to know
the information needs of the users.