Module 5 of ETL503 introduced a new idea to me – how to evaluate a library collection. In my head, I had always thought of a librarian’s role superficially with limited thoughts into the practicality of how to actually manage the collection.

Johnson (2018) spoke about the importance of evaluation and assessment of library collections and offered ways to analyse the collection in order to assist with the evaluation. There were two suggestions I found most useful and thought would be most successful: user-opinion surveys and in-house use statistics.

A library is nothing without its users, and if a TL is not taking their opinions into account when assessing and evaluating a collection, then the library will quickly fall. Having been an avid reader growing up, it was always frustrating to return to my local library to find they had culled a book that I wanted to re-read, and then even more hurtful, was that it was out of print, so I wouldn’t be able to get a copy again! While logically, I know that sometimes this is unavoidable, I always wished I had been given an option of saving those books from being donated to other places or sold off. This is why a TL must take into account the opinions of the students and staff at the school to determine the texts to retain or remove in a collection.

To assist with this, looking at the statistics of how frequently books and resources had been borrowed and used would also help. But when doing this, I believe a librarian needs to show patrons the texts that have not been used frequently as a way of reminding people that they are there, before making that final decision to cull or keep. Often, resources are swept under the rug and people forget they are there, so it is not for lack of wanting to use the resource that it doesn’t get used, but rather an uncertainty about its existence. This is especially the case in libraries where the TL or librarian has changed. A new librarian can’t know every item in the collection, nor can they know the usefulness of each item, so working with the patrons when evaluating is crucial.

I liked the term ‘Weeding’ to refer to removing unnecessary items from the collection. Not only does it bring to mind the peaceful image of gardening, but it helps to clarify the idea that it is not there just to ‘get rid’ of resources, but it is there to help the other, more useful resources be seen and thus used. Weeding helps to highlight what resources are available and makes them more accessible for patrons. In particular, teachers, who are already incredibly time poor, would appreciate the weeding process because it reduces the number of resources they need to evaluate when preparing lessons. Similarly, students conducting research will have access to a concise but relevant collection, rather than trying to sift through a huge number of resources for the few that are up to date, relevant and what they are actually looking for.

References

Johnson, P. (2014). Chapter 8: Collection analysis: Collection analysis, accountability and demonstrating value, in Fundamentals of collection development and management (4th ed.) [American Library Association version].