collection development

[LibrariAnn]

I am curious about collection development for someone who is new to high school librarianship [not neccessarily new to the profession].

Where do you start? What tools and resources do you use?

I realize this is a broad question! ;) But let's see what we come up with.

[Renee Rowcliffe]

Hi, LibrariAnn,

It is a broad subject, but I'll get the ball rolling. I'd like to see what others say, too.

I assume your district has some sort of board-approved collection development policy, so you need to make sure you know about any restrictions or expectations that will guide your decisions. Some districts have very long and very specific collection development policies that are essentially procedures manuals. The district I work in has a very short one—barely a page long—that has stood the test of time and has carried us through a few challenges. Short or long, there needs to be a collection development policy in place somewhere.

The next thing I would suggest is to familiarize yourself with your collection. One of the fastest ways to do that is to use one of the free collection analysis tools available from a variety of jobbers. You can upload your collection information, and the report that is returned will give you a snapshot of your library, with the number of resources in each section as well as the average age of the materials in each. It will also tell you the number of resources they recommend libraries have for a balanced collection, but I pay only little attention to that. In some sections we have many more and in others we have a lot fewer because of the emphasis (or lack of emphasis) we have in some curricular areas. I'm satisfied that the collection is fairly well balanced for our curriculum.

Early on, when I was new to librarianship, I found Wilson’s Senior High School Library Catalog very helpful. The name has been changed to Senior High Core Collection: A Selection Guide. If I were new to the profession, that is one of the first places I would look. Even now, twenty-eight years later, I take a look at it every two or three years just to compare my collection with their suggestions. It still influences my selections occasionally.

Listening to your patrons is the most important thing you can do to keep your collection highly relevant and useful. I use student preferences and teacher requests to guide many of my choices. I read Booklist and School Library Journal. I read catalogs and pass some of them along to teachers who often request materials from them. I often use the excellent interlibrary loan system we have in Colorado to preview many books I am considering. I keep an eye on ALA’s Best Books for Young Adults as well as other award lists. Some librarians have student and teacher committees to help them select materials, but that has never worked out well for me. The students and teachers don’t seem to have any problem asking me for what they want, so I go with that.

Every year I select a curriculum area for more intense focus and involve teachers a lot more—route more catalogs, order more from interlibrary loan for them to preview, attend their departmental meetings to make sure I am up to date on the curriculum, and generally spend more in the focus area than I do in other areas.

Collection development is such an integral part of my job that it's hard for me to stop and think about how I do it. It seems it's something I do all the time. I hope this helps, though, and maybe someone else will jump in.

Best wishes,
Renee

[Alan Jacques]

hi renee
Can you explain what these are..."free collection analysis tools available from a variety of jobbers."
Thanks - Alan

[Gay Pernau]

I use the Follet system ATHENA. I go to the web at www.titlewave.com and set up an account (free) and up load my collection and it will annualize the collection and you can see the weaknesses. If you have Follet you can call them and the local rep will visit your school and help you do this. My rep visits once a year and we reanalyze the collection at that time.

[Renee Rowcliffe]

As Gay has pointed out, Follett's book sales site, Titlewave, has really good free collection analysis and collection management/development tools. It helps a bit to have the help of a Follett representative or someone who has uploaded a collection before.

I also use Mackin (mackin.com) for collection analysis and management. I really like working with them. Selling books to libraries is a highly competitive business, and companies who do it offer some very good incentives in order to get and keep your business, so I'm sure there are lots more out there. Follett and Mackin are just the two I use.

Other people in this group might be able to make recommendations for services that aren't based in the United States and that might be better for you to use in Viet Nam. I suggest you use the analysis tools that are probably available from the book sellers you use most often. If they are available to you, they can be invaluable for helping you to balance and develop your collection.

[Michael Dodes]

I am finishing my first year of HS librarianship in the Bronx, and I will be happy to share with you what I learned in the imposing but amazing first year with regard to collection development (you'll want to examine your computer usage policy and circulation policies too).

First of all - is your library automated - if so download the records and submit it to several "jobbers" such as Baker & Taylor, Mackin, or Follett Titlewave who will analyze them for free - they will tell you where the weak spots in your collection are and then try to sell you books to fill them - do not take what they offer you at face value - you will want to develop your own lists to meet your population's unique needs though some of those books may fall into that category.

Talk to their salespeople - they usually have area representatives that will be willing to sit down with you and showcase their wares and you can request particular areas be highlighted at that meeting - they want to sell you what you need.

Some districts and schools have different collection policies - if you don't have one, design one and have your administration sign off on it. You need it in writing something that will cover you if someone disagrees with what you're buying that you can justify your purchases.

Subscribe to Booklist and School Library Journal - they are essential reads for book reviews so you can see what's hot. Also look up hotlists through YALSA and the big public libraries (in my case New York Public Library) to see what the YA departments are buying - make contacts with those people.

Many vendors in their online catalogues will also supply reviews with their books, others don't, others just give an annotation saying it was reviewed without any background on whether that review was good or bad. If you have a good review for a book, no matter how controversial, you'll have some good firepower to back up purchasing it if you are basing your decision on professional literature.

Be familiar with the school's curriculum and goals with regards to research, what the subject area teachers are doing, and examine whether the areas of your collection are meeting their needs and if not what they will need to be satisfied (multimedia, professional development, picture books, ELL materials etc.). Also be familiar with your school's reading level and literacy goals - those will guide the reading level of materials you buy and always aim for things with bright colorful pictures when possible - those materials are very attractive to teenagers over plain text or black and white photos.

Know what resources are available to you online via databases and how those may support different areas of your collection - what information will students and teachers need to support their teaching and learning and what will they be able to obtain easily from online sources or databases you have - some forms of information are just better accessed online nowadays.

Have an encyclopedia set not more than 3-5 years old (5 at the absolute maximum) or a subscription to an online encyclopedia.

Is your community impoverished? Will they benefit from playaways, what formats of audiobooks can they use, will e-books be accessible to them if you choose to buy them.

Involve your community in the collection development process - make teachers aware you will buy materials for them and their students - some will come forward. Target the newer teachers they are eager to make allies especially with you and they need the resources the most as they are still developing their teaching style.

I taught students how to search for books online and they got a charge out of being told they could spend money through the library. I had them develop wishlists from online retailers based on reviews they found - some just searched their favorite authors - but others will go for topics like I learned some students want to learn japanese language, others really liked R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike, others really wanted to know more about cars, sports, graffiti, drawing manga, poetry, and more. They will be empowered, they will make your job easier, and you almost have a guaranteed audience for whatever they choose - you hold final veto power over all decisions anyway - you can give them other reasons why their books didn't come if you choose not to purchase them.

Finally, see the value in having a large collection of magazines, newspapers, and graphic novels. These are reading materials many non-reader boys especially find attractive and can be a springboard into other things - some won't read anything if it isn't a graphic novel (so they think). Some I showed them a novelization of halo and several students went bonkers over them - students who would have sworn they'd never pick up a book beforehand!

Keep up with pop culture - get biographies on popular figures not just historical - you'll also want books on the latest technology etc. because those will be used but also go out of date really quick.

Go light on award winners - don't order more than 1 copy (some would chastise me over that). In all honesty, they hardly ever go out (Higher Power of Lucky!) and you can promote them but in the end, the award winning fiction is usually on the bottom of students "I want to fit that into my busy schedule" reading list.

It is overwhelming but if you pace yourself, allow yourself to make mistakes and realize in the end, so long as you're making decisions based on the interests of your students and teachers, even if they turn out to not be good ones, they are justified - you can never be 100% sure what a book will do for your collection.

Good luck!

[edi campbell]

I selected one area of my collection to focus on at a time. First, I weeded. Then, I tried to match what I have to the standards. There should be something to support every aspect of the curriculum. In trying to find new books to match, it's best to work with teachers. Ideally, I'd like to match online resources as well and I hoped to use students to help with this. I took a year's leave of absence and will return to my school in the fall. I hope to get back to this project, however my library will only have one media director rather than a director and a specialist. I won't be able to do everything!

[Elizabeth Hollinger]

I returned to high school librarianship last year after 11 years in an elem. school library. I had no trouble getting back up to speed with non-fiction and reference. But YA fiction... it had been a long time. Students have given me the best suggestions and they love having input into collection development. In addition to all the usual sources and journals, I like these websites: teenreads.com and genrefluent.com/teentalk.htm. Also visit the YALSA site at ala.org/yalsa and look for the Teens' Top 10. Teens choose the books on these annual lists, which date back to 2003.

[Ray Maseman]

I do a combination of reviews and student interest for fiction, and then I have a little spreadsheet I use for non-fiction/reference. The spread sheet starts with data on current holdings by dewey categories. I get that from either my OPAC or something like Follett's Titlecheck thingie. Along with that I plug in the desired percents for various deweys (I either got these from my school district, or maybe Assoc. School Librarians). I also include subsections for areas I need to particularly focus on to tie into curriculum (e.g. several teachers at a school I used to work at did a lot with biographies, so I made sure I had a wide variety of those).
The I plug in how much money I have, and the spread sheet calculates how much money I should spend in each area, based on the percents.

Usually there are one or two areas I'm focusing on in an area, so I'll focus on filling them first, or even adjust the percents to favor those areas. I have a two year collection deveopment plan (required by the district) that informs all this.

I'll try to upload the spreadsheet, if anyone wants to play with it.