The Changing Reference Collection - from a Collection Development Point of View

ALA Annual 2002RUSA CODES

Margaret Landesman

Head, Collection Development

Marriott Library

University of Utah

Collections are changing:

• In ways libraries choose

• In ways libraries don’t choose

Collections adding:

• Fewer books

• Fewer foreign titles

• Less retrospective purchasing

• Less microform

Make choices conscious ones

• Clearly choose directions.

• Add the best of the new good stuff and save the best of the old good stuff.

Danger of creating collections which are:

• Aging and marginally useful.

• Still absorbing money and space.

Collection Development’s view:

• Collection Development observes:

• Who are we buying for?

• What do we buy?

• Reasons for buying.

Books

• Who?

• Everybody.

• Requests often urgent.

• Libraries creating new procedures to get books into hands of user faster.

Serials

• Who?

• Faculty.

• Considerable urgency.

• Requestors follow through.

• Serials cancellations make it evident how badly our users want serials.

Databases, electronic resources

• Who?

• Faculty, librarians, users, salespeople.

• Requestor follow through far beyond that for other materials, frequently daily.

Reference works

• Who?

• Reference Librarians.

• Urgency - not high.

• Can it wait? Yes.

Why don’t more users ask for reference titles?

• Users look for books and journals.

• The connection between a reference work and a user is a reference librarian.

• What happens when users don’t come to the desk?

Will users find reference titles?

• ‘Name brand’ titles - OED, Groves, CRC - users will find.

• Others - those titled, “Encyclopedia of…”, maybe not

Do Reference Librarians use reference collections?

• Reference librarians ask to be close to their reference collections.

• Fewer sightings of them actually in the reference stacks.

• Chat reference - work from offices, even when far from Reference Collections.

In tight budget times:

• Titles on want lists, on ‘waiting for end of the year’ pools, are at risk of not getting purchased.

Other forces• Growing prices of bundled products.

• Conversion of one-time to on-going costs.

• Growing technical infrastructure costs.

Growing prices of bundled products

• Bundles getting more and more expensive, eating up more of total available.

• Bundles - number of titles up, cost per title down, total cost up.

One-time to on-going costs

• Inevitable corollary:• If expenditure does not rise, the

number of titles purchased will fall.• Reference works put on serials budget

have newfound security, the rest are at risk.

Growing technical infrastructure costs

• Library expenses for technology are rising.

• Electronic collections are of no use unless the infrastructure is working.

• Funding technology infrastructure now top priority.

An analogy, the mortgage

• First pay the mortgage.

• Then pay utility bills. When they get too high, can conserve to lower them.

• Then buy food and clothes. Food is a necessity, but quality and quantity can vary with inhabitants starving.

For libraries...• The mortgage was the serials bill.

Now it’s technology infrastructure.

• Utilities, impossible to do without, but can cut back. That's serials.

• Food budget. Not a lot left. Looks like eating at McDonalds. That’s the book and reference budget.

Lower the mortgage?

• In theory, a library could move to a smaller house.

• Are any considering this?

• Libraries are refinancing mortgages to build Information Commons, electronic classrooms, and coffee shops.

What follows for reference?

• Plan to create a small but vital, attractive, useful, print reference collection.

• Create a similar larger online collection.

• Find ways to move the collections into the mainstream of student/faculty life.

• Use vision and ingenuity to do it, because there’s not a lot of money.

Conclusion• If there is going to be a rosy

future for reference collections, reference librarians will need to create it.