Digital Collection Management
Annotated Bibliography: Michael Asmar
In this article, Casserly (2002) examines how the idea of the collection, particularly the print-based collection, has developed and changed in the digital age. The author ends by offering strategies for developing a print and digital collection. After reiterating normal collection policies, acquisitions, and practices, the article switches from analog strategies, to digital, and suggested practices and questions offered by the author. Proof of the importance that digital changes are having on collections, is through monetary expenditures of research libraries into their digital resources. This article is useful for exposing the effect digital library resources have had on collection management by viewing library collections through goals and conceptual thoughts that collections should strive for in creating a hybrid, print/digital collections, where digital resources are changing traditional thought.
This book focuses on the accelerating impact that digital technology has had on libraries and their collections. Fieldhouse and Marshall (2012) examine the changes to traditional collection acquisition and management by investigating key developments in collection development and their impact on policies, exploring the role of librarians in this new environment and what new skills they’ll need, and creating a strategy for the future of collection management. This resource is useful for research into technology and its effect on collections because it approaches the issue in a comprehensive manner, exploring how the concept is changing, how e-resources are affecting collections, and looking at the supply side of collections. When it comes to technology and its effect on library collections, publishers are highly influential, and their decisions regarding digital items heavily influences how collection management is practiced. By looking at both sides of collections, this resource provides an inclusive view of the issue.
With the drastic increase of e-books in library collections, it has been easy to overlook how these digital items have also affected library vendors, whose impact on collections is significant. In this article, Holley (2012) probes how e-material can affect collection management via its influence on book publishers and book jobbers. This article is useful because it delves into how changes in peripheral businesses can change library collection management. According to the author, e-material will have the ability to weed out smaller companies, and leave only the larger vendors with a near monopoly on material and services that libraries rely upon. With a lack of leverage, culling of book jobbers, and the inclusion of new players to the library arena, such as Amazon, library collections are evolving mainly due to the increase in e-material.
In this white paper, Evensen et al. (2012) are attempting to provide a comprehensive examination into key issues when developing a library collection with significant e-material, which they define as e-books, e-journals, databases, and e-audio/visual materials. The guide approaches the issue by looking at collection development, acquisitions, and licensing, with e-material. This paper is useful because it amplifies the differences between traditional library collection practices and newer digital practices. Obvious changes in collection practices include technological availability/hardware/platforms, functional usability, increased/different vendor support, and increased/different licensing issues. This paper definitively shows that library collections have been irrevocably changed by the proliferation of e-materials.
Kempf’s (2013) article on collection development argues that digital intrusion into library collections have switched from collection/media oriented to user based. Patron use has forced libraries into consortiums, which in turn are making libraries more homogeneous and leaving the collection as a less distinctive characteristic of libraries. The author does eventually conclude that libraries will remain collections, mainly due to the survival of libraries as an institution. This article is useful because it focuses on the external influences to library collections through the changing media market, mainly brought about by Google and Amazon. These external influences in turn, are important to examine because the changing technological paradigms in society, have a direct effect on how libraries operate.
This article encapsulates the initial issues that collection development faced when digital resources became a constant part of the library. Kerbel (2013) focuses on institutional priorities over publisher offerings when posing the path library collections need to take. Ultimately, Kerbel comes to the conclusion that the form of library collections are different with digital influence, but the development uses the same philosophical approach. Kerbel sees library patrons as a partner in collection development by engaging them in a form of early patron driven acquisitions. This article is useful because it examines the overall mentality needed for new digital collection practices and how acknowledging the new world of library collections is half of the battle.
As digital e-material has become a significant part of library’s collections, it has impacted most facets of the library. Lloret Romero (2011) researches the issues exposed from the changes to all parties involved in the collections process. This includes patrons, publishers, jobbers, and authors. The author explores the collection practice changes in depth starting with e-books and parsing any perceived advantages or disadvantages in the new process. The popularity of e-material is shown to have changed publisher and patron usage, and how this directly affects collection management policies. The conclusions show that libraries are creating more physical space, information is being consumed in different ways, and libraries are changing to adapt to these influences on management of the collection. This article is useful because it has a specific focus on the acquisition practices in collection management, and these concrete numbers and examples help prove that the changes are substantial and valid enough to be studied.
In Cottrell and Bell’s (2014) article, the authors focus on the financial side of library collections and how e-books affect the normal expenditures. The reasoning for this topic is a discrepancy in e-book purchasing versus patron’s desire to read e-books. The question of e-book versus print book is common and important because without an answer collections become unfocused and lead to mismanagement of funds. This article is useful because it exposes recent myths about e-book usage and how this is creating issues with library collection acquisitions. This examination is also important because it can help guide collection management decision making and create more exacting collection budget allocations.
Because of the intricacies of e-content acquisition, collection management has become one of the most challenging functions in the library. In their article, Sathyanarayana (2013) researches issues brought up by e-content changing how collections traditionally procure and provide access to library material. After briefly examining a new definition of collection development, which includes need-based acquisitions, the switch from content ownership to accessibility, and community education about new formats, the author focuses on various business models. This is an important category because e-content has changed how material is brought into the library, and then accessed. Library collections are not purchasing material or the rights, it is more often a temporary license of access to the content. This article is important because it explores the new type of acquisitions, which are more complex and intricate, as well as difficult for libraries. These new complexities have changed how traditional collection management operates and ultimately, how the rest of the library institution functions.
In this article, Taylor (2008) scrutinizes the impact of e-books on library collection acquisitions and management, specifically, formats, purchasing, function, terms, pricing, and trends. Often overlooked, technology is an important aspect of e-content, mainly because in order to access the content, you need specific technology hardware. Technology and format needs to match, and if a vendor doesn’t have formats you need, a switch is needed. The author also examines how pricing is different because the goal isn’t ownership, but access, and this impacts decisions made in management. Cataloging is also changed by e-content, and libraries are faced with decisions on how to show material in the collection, with shared records or separate. This article is useful because it provides an in depth focus on an important aspect of collection management, and acquisitions. Along with new ways to purchase, or rent material, other practical issues like functionality, as well as industry changing decisions from larger vendors like Overdrive, are explored, and expose how much more complicated collection management has become.
