First published in 1992, this volume recognises that it is not unusual, when practising librarianship, to come across small to medium collections within the library, which, because they are different from the main collection, are outside the librarian’s experience or are a new type of material not properly managed or exploited. Therefore this volume contains chapters on a range of materials which are united by a certain rarity in the experience of most librarians. It is aimed at those who need to know how to progress from scratch with a collection, but not necessarily to take it into complete specialization. There is information about characteristics of each type of material as well as guidance for their management. Lists of further reading are provided and a note of some important collections.

Technical standards are a vital source of information for providing guidelines during the design, manufacture, testing, and use of whole products, materials, and components. To prepare students—especially engineering students—for the workforce, universities are increasing the use of standards within the curriculum. Employers believe it is important for recent university graduates to be familiar with standards. Despite the critical role standards play within academia and the workforce, little information is available on the development of standards information literacy, which includes the ability to understand the standardization process; identify types of standards; and locate, evaluate, and use standards effectively. Libraries and librarians are a critical part of standards education, and much of the discussion has been focused on the curation of standards within libraries. However, librarians also have substantial experience in developing and teaching standards information literacy curriculum. With the need for universities to develop a workforce that is well-educated on the use of standards, librarians and course instructors can apply their experiences in information literacy toward teaching students the knowledge and skills regarding standards that they will need to be successful in their field. This title provides background information for librarians on technical standards as well as collection development best practices. It also creates a model for librarians and course instructors to use when building a standards information literacy curriculum.

There is a common misconception that collections management in museums is a set of rote procedures or technical practices that follow universal standards of best practice. This volume recognises collections management as a political, critical and social project, involving considerable intellectual labour that often goes unacknowledged within institutions and in the fields of museum and heritage studies. Collections Management as Critical Museum Practice brings into focus the knowledges, value systems, ethics and workplace pragmatics that are foundational for this work. Rather than engaging solely with cultural modifications, such as Indigenous care practices, the book presents local knowledge of place and material which is relevant to how collections are managed and cared for worldwide. Through discussion of varied collection types, management activities and professional roles, contributors develop a contextualised reflexive practice for how core collections management standards are conceptualised, negotiated and enacted. Chapters span national museums in Brazil and Uganda to community-led heritage work in Malaysia and Canada; they explore complexities of numbering, digitisation and description alongside the realities of climate change, global pandemics and natural disasters. The book offers a new definition of collections management, travelling from what is done to care for collections, to what is done to care for collections and their users. Rather than ‘use’ being an end goal, it emerges as a starting point to rethink collections work.

With the prolific changes in the electronic environment, do you sometimes feel overwhelmed by the multiplying of electronic information resources, the different methods of access, and their combined impact on collection development? If so, Collection Development is the book to help you get a handle on what’s out there! In no time at all, you’ll be able to select and integrate electronic resources into collection development programs at even the most traditional of libraries! In the process, you will learn alternative approaches for dealing with electronic databases, on-line access, and fiscal planning for the integration of the new information technologies into collection development. Collection Development offers useful strategies for dealing with electronic resources in terms of selection and evaluation, collection development policies, organizational structure, and budgeting. You also acquire important information on: Internet information resources accessible through Gophers and World Wide Web sites access vs. ownership issues serving the remote user at an extended campus site the relationship of selection to acquisitions managing a CD-Rom collection development process planning issues of cooperation, collaboration, and change pricing and planning issues and their impact on library budgets negotiating site licenses Librarians in collection development, academic librarians, and personnel in technology/authomation development will find Collection Development an indispensable tool for grappling with the demands and pressures of screening and choosing the most suitable information resources from the dynamic, even saturated, world of technology. The book’s insights and practical methodologies will help you integrate new on-line and electronic information resources into your program with relative ease.

Times have changed and library institutions struggle to maintain relevancy in the Information Age. With the inescapable presence of harnessing technologies for information management and access, the role of the library has increased in importance within academic institutions and public communities. Information Technology and Collection Management for Library User Environments brings into focus the new responsibility libraries have in meeting patron needs, specifically with the use of emerging technologies. Highlighting the concepts of collection management, library space planning, and information technologies; this book is a critical guide for library professionals, para-professionals, as well as researchers who wish to meet the diverse needs of patrons in ever-changing societies.

Collections Management brings together leading papers exploring some of the major issues affecting collections management. Providing information about initiatives and issues for anyone involved in collections management, Fahy identifies the main issues relating to collecting and disposal of collections and discusses why museums should develop appropriate documentation systems. Examining the status of research within museums, the various sources of advice relating to security and addresses the basics of insurance and indemnity, Collections Management is an invaluable and very practical introduction to this topic for students of museum studies and museum professionals.

This invaluable new book contains timely information about the assessment of academic library collections and the relationship of collection assessment to acquisition budgets. The rising cost of information significantly influences academic libraries’abilities to acquire the necessary materials for students and faculty, and public libraries’abilities to acquire material for their clientele. Collection Assessment and Acquisitions Budgets examines different aspects of the relationship between the assessment of academic library collections and the management of library acquisition budgets. Librarians, researchers, and representatives from major library vendors present studies and opinions on collection assessment and acquisition budgets. Collection Assessment and Acquisitions Budgets explores the issues and tools related to collection assessment and also presents insight into the relationships between libraries and vendors. Some of the topics covered by this volume include: current factors influencing libraries’abilities to acquire information an examination of trends affecting libraries and information vendors use studies and collection development management of acquisition funds criteria to evaluate information vendors relationships between libraries and vendors These informative chapters discuss current issues and present the latest research findings relating to collection assessment and acquisition budgets. Practicing librarians, students in the field, and librarians involved in administration and especially acquisitions and collection development will gain a better understanding of the complexities of collection and the factors affecting acquisitions budgets. Librarians will find practical information, including product reviews and opportunities to use automated tools in the assessment process, the benefits and problems of serial review projects, types of assistance vendors can provide libraries in the collection assessment process, the importance of collection assessment in the competition for funding, and ideas for the use of circulation data in the collection assessment process.

Libraries have incorporated multimedia resources into their collections and make them accessible to users. This book provides practical guidelines for librarians and educators for developing, organising and managing a multimedia collection. Chapters cover collection development, bibliographic organisation, storage, user access, hardware and copyright. The book also examines specific media, including new technologies of the past decade. Practical advice is given on selecting and organising multimedia collections.

Strategic planning, collaboration, continual stewardship, best practices, and re-engineering can provide librarians with a toolkit of innovative strategies that meets the worst of economic times with bold, persistent experimentation. This book covers the implications for libraries of a broad range of technological and economic challenges. These challenges include the fallout from the global economic crisis, the positioning of usage statistics, the advent of open access scholarship, database management, responding to budgetary constrictions and general access to serials. Taken as a whole, this collection provides practitioners in the library sector and in higher education with a wide variety of insights on the strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities involved with serials collection management in recessionary times, written by academic librarians, vendors, publishers, fundraisers, and higher education professionals. This book was published as a special issue of The Serials Librarian.

The rapidly increasing reliance on digital rather than print-based resources has not diminished the importance of library collection management, but it has required significant modification in the thinking and the practice of collection managers, who today usually have to consider their clients' need for both print-based and digital materials. This updated edition aims to provide a concise overview of the major elements of contemporary collection management of print and digital resources - including policy formulation, selection, acquisition, evaluation, preservation, deselection, and cooperative collecting - in a way which aims to be of interest to the student and to any other reader seeking an understanding of a particularly dynamic area of librarianship.Much that has been previously published on collection management focuses on academic libraries, particularly those in North America. This book places greater emphasis on the experiences of smaller public and special libraries, and attempts to view its subject from the perspective of libraries in Australia and other countries geographically remote from North America and Western Europe. Dr John Kennedy has taught collection management at Charles Sturt University for over a decade and has produced several previous publications on the subject.