The Delicious Burden

Collection assessment session

Collection Analysis and Assessment: finding the best and worst in the library collection
Jennifer Arnold
Director, Central Piedmont Community College Library
cpcc.edu/library -- Look for Policies information

First of all, we are in a tiny, tiny room in the Francis Marion Hotel; whomever did the room assignments really got this mixed up!  More likely, though, its just a reflection of the overall high conference attendance.  Every session I has been overcrowded, people sitting on the floor, people standing, people standing in the doorway, people standing out in the hall...

On to Jennifer's presentation
Overview:
Project Scope/planning
Data
Tool selection
Staffing
Outcomes
Tips

Snapshot of CPCC
-largest CC in NC
-curriculum FTE ~11,000
-6 campuses in Mecklenburg Cty
-7 libraries
-RAPID enrollment growth and online environment

Origins of Project
-SACS recommending eliminated older materials in its collection
-bulk weeding, but wasn't appreciated by some academic departments

A New Approach
"The Big Picture"
-collection strengths and weaknesses
-support for programs and subject areas
-improving perceptions about the collection
-telling the story of the collection
-embracing change

Getting started
Planning:
-what did we need/want to assess about the collection?
-What did we mean by 'collection'?

What did we want to know?
What did we need & want to know about the collection?
-age
-circ, usage
-relative strengths & weaknesses

What data?
-circ stats, ILS
-usage stats, ILS & journal finder
-age of the collection, ILS
user perception, surveys
relative strengths & weaknesses, ?
overall quality, ?

Tools
-Bowker Book Analysis
-WorldCat Collection Analysis

Chose to use Bowker's Book Analysis
-lower-division undergraduates
-initial concerns about comparing our collection with other libraries
-look at overall quality by how many RCL items were held
-ability to compare against the core RCL collection

Staffing issues
-Tech Services
-Reference
-Circulation
-Systems

Action Plans
What to do with this data?
-weed based on the data
-change our CD focus
-update policies & procedures
-change/improve services
-communicate!
  *tell the story of the collection
  *involve the college community
  *make the funding arguments

The Assessment: collection age
ILS data
0-5 yrs 6%
6-10yrs 10%
11-20 yrs 22%
21+ yrs 58%

Subject area details

The Assessment: Circ States
What wasn't circulating?
-in past decade
-problems with new materials
  *lower circ than wanted to see
  *relationship b/tw the two?

The Assessment: Quality
-used Bowker
-only had 6% of RCL core titles
-subject areas varied widely
-highest % were in subjects with accredited programs (allied health & paralegal)

The Assessment: Core titles
core title subject detail

The Assessment: User perception
-students need more resources-
-lots of outdated books
-below-average materials
-not enough up-to-date books

The Print Collection
What did we learn?
-its outdated
-some subjects better shape than others
-titles for weedings
-way to frame the story of the collection

Serials
Primary Concerns:
-Accreditation
-Support for programs
-Appropriateness
-Cost

Serials: procedures
-consultation with faculty
-physical examination
  *appropriateness
-determine database availablity
-look for lower-cost alternatives

Serials results
-cut 23 titles and saved $7800
-added 8 titles at a total cost of $1100
-savings of $6700
-beyond savings, a better collection
  *cut titles; changed focus, programs eliminated, etc.
  *again, more than just weeding!

Databases
primary concern:
-usage vs. cost-database we purchase (vs. receive through NC Live)
-looked at usage statistics

Databases: the results
-lowest usage & highest usage were both high enough that no databases were cut

Overall findings:
Electronic resources
-high usage, no weeding necessary
Serials
-needed minor adjustments
Print
-needed weeding
-needed collection development focus changed

General outcomes
-could quantify what we knew anecdotally
-begin telling the story
-knew now the areas where we needed improvement

Specific outcomes
-RCL titles held percentages increased
-removed/weeded 2500 books from oldest collection

What did we do?
-revised collection development and weeding policies to
include references to RCL, percentages to weed, etc.
Established a communication plan
-admin support
-faculty support
-student support

What did we do?
-developed a new procedure for weeding
-changed collection development focus
  *Adding RCL titles
  *Identifying weak areas to focus on

Weeding our process
-develop a collection evaluation slip
  *outdated
  *usage (lack of circ)
  *physical condition
  *duplicate copy
  *curriculum changes
  *no longer under accreditation requirements
  *superseded

Weeding:
Librarians assigned call number ranges
flagged materials with slips
faculty review
flagged materials pulled to TS
checked/withdrawn/replaced

What did we do???
Wrote a grant
-LSTA Grant : strengthening academic library collections
-focused on math and science
-weakness in collection
-received $10,000

Collection Assessment Tips:
Planning/scope
-What can you do in a reasonable timeframe
TheTools
-automate the tools
-find the tools that works for your collection or library
Staffing
-if possible, hire par-time help
-re-assign existing staff time

Get the DATA!!!!!!
always Assess in Context
expect the unexpected
 -- found preview records?!
prepare for the impact on services
 --reserves
Be willing to change accepted practices
 -- got rid of oversize
Communication
--upfront
--consistent
Find project management tools
--software, timelines, deadlines, etc.
Assess regularly and consistently

Great presentation -- Jennifer knew her stuff and did a fantastic job talking about the steps her library took to plan and conduct the assessment and weeding project.

What people don't get about public library funding

These annoying editorials really get my blood boiling.My poor in-laws had to hear a five-minute rant from me about this inane letter written to the Ann Arbor News. The writer is responding to a talk at an Ann Arbor, MI Kiwanis event, where a former University of Michigan president was fielding questions from the audience about how important the computer revolution was in the context of human history. The letter writer was an audience member that day and shared this revelatory observation:

"...in the past decade, in which the computer has become part of nearly everyone's home and business. I confess I have not entered a local library this year because my inquisitiveness and reading enjoyment are satisfied online.

And, friends, I shudder in this context when I think about the millions of dollars consumed by our public library system, especially locally in building new, large neighborhood libraries and with plans going forward to expand the main library downtown."

Wow, I am stunned by your brilliant insights, Mr. Letter Writer. I can't believe no one else has thought of this idea to save millions of taxpayer dollars for the Ann Arbor community. If only the people-in-charge would listen to you.

But seriously, this 'insight' is shared by lots of people in communities all over the country and is disturbing, because it means there is still a part of each community who are not using and don't understand the fundamental premise of public libraries. And I take back the facetious comment that the people-in-charge should listen to this writer. I think library directors and library boards already hear enough of this kind of thinking.

My problem with this writer is the idea that since he enjoys reading online, everyone else should or does, too. This is a wrongheaded and seriously, elitist, idea. There is something called the digital divide, and it is a huge impediment to millions of people who don't have access to, or money for, computers and technology.Public libraries fill that void.They are created for the public good, to improve the intellectual and educational needs of people who normally wouldn't have access to all the ideas and books which people like Mr. Letter Writer takes for granted.In his blithe dismissal of millions of people, he really shows what ignorance looks like.

Libpunk

A new twist on an already familiar concept has hit LibraryLand and Kathryn Greenhill writes about it on her blog, Librarians Matter.  Greenhill has coined the term "libpunk" to refer to technologies which libraries have taken upon themselves to create and implement, using non-proprietary or open-source software and without the traditional institutional alliances.  These tools are usually created to help connect users and expand knowledge about a subject, not to make money.  She gives examples:

• Grassroots-organised library unconferences
• Casey Bisson’s Scriblio, which is a library catalogue based on blogging software Wordpress
• John Blyberg’s work on the SOPAC , a social OPAC layer over the top of a proprietary Library Management System
• The “ Five Weeks to a Social Library ” free grassroots course
• ...and many more

The idea of libpunk comes from the term "edupunk" coined recently by education blogger, Jim Groom and posted in a controversial article on Wikipedia; (yes they do have standards):

Edupunk is an ideology referring to educators and education strategies with a do it yourselfmashups, and podcasting (DIY) spirit. Most instructional uses of blogs, wikis, various among many other uses of emerging technologies might be described as DIY education or Edupunk. The term was first used on May 25, 2008 by Jim Groom in his blog, ^[1] and covered less than a week later in the Chronicle of Higher Education^[2].

Examples of Edupunk are Legos, Edusim, chalk, Hypercard, Moodle, use of the Bliki (blog and wiki mashups), students' art work on the outside wall of the classroom, and students teaching their teachers how to use technology.

Edupunk is also a rejection of efforts by government and corporate interests in using emerging technologies to exercise control over education, its processes, and its stakeholders, somewhat similar to punk ideologies. There is also an element of resistance to large and influential education businesses like Blackboard cooping emerging, collaborative, DIY technologies and techniques and repackaging them as their own product.

The Chronicle of Higher Education article mentions some resistance to course management systems and this is exactly the type of complaint I had when we moved to ANGEL at my institution last year.  The wiki and blog tools in our CMS are horribly inadequate and so, instead of using them, I taught students how to use tools such as Blogger and PBwiki for their class assignments, instead of ANGEL, which isn't social software and isn't designed to be.  So we make our own...
I like the idea of libpunk; libraries and librarians find a need, embrace it, and find solutions to the problem.  We aren't creating applications or using tools for a profit, but collaborating in order to help our users connect; to others, to information, to knowledge.  We are moving away from status quo and dependence on others for our traditional tools and finding aids.  We build our own.  Revolutionary...

The pace of change

Robert Darnton writes about the increasing pace of information change in the June 12th issue of The New York Review of Books and and argues that research libraries will NOT become obsolete.  He notes:

"Information has never been stable. That may be a truism, but it bears pondering. It could serve as a corrective to the belief that the speedup in technological change has catapulted us into a new age, in which information has spun completely out of control. I would argue that the new information technology should force us to rethink the notion of information itself. It should not be understood as if it took the form of hard facts or nuggets of reality ready to be quarried out of newspapers, archives, and libraries, but rather as messages that are constantly being reshaped in the process of transmission. Instead of firmly fixed documents, we must deal with multiple, mutable texts. By studying them skeptically on our computer screens, we can learn how to read our daily newspaper more effectively—and even how to appreciate old books."

Darnton argues that the idea of textual stablity (in many cases, one version of a text, with all revisions and corrections, published by one publisher) is a relatively recent one in book publishing, and provides an example of how each age of information change goes through turbulent periods of instability and chaos.  In his essay, Darnton uses the example of Google's book digitization program as another of these technological changes which are changing the way we communicate, read and exchange ideas.  But, he also makes a case for research libraries and their continuing importance in a Google world:

1. Criteria of what is important will vary from generation to generation.  Historians and anthropologists of the future may rely heavily on materials which our current generation might consider ephemera.  Analyzing an advertisement in a magazine from the turn-of-the century is an important element in understanding what people bought and how companies marketed to consumers. 
2. Google will find it nearly impossible to digitize ALL the holdings of the great research libraries, and to date they have 28 libraries signed up, but there are nearly 543 million volumes in the research libraries in the U.S.  A bit overwhelming, even for Google.
3. Copyright will be an obstruction that Google might be able to overcome (currently Google is working on arrangements with publishers and authors), but Google will probably never be able to keep up with the flood of new books published every year.  Plus, does Google even promise to conserve texts indefinitely?  They are providing access now, but what is their mission and goal in providing these digital copies in perpetuity?
4. The obsolescence of electronic media -- who knows how long Google will be king or even around?
5. The people behind Google are human and will make mistakes and errors when scanning and digitizing.  The reproductions may not be perfect.
6. Is digitization the best medium for preservation, or will it be eclipsed by something else?  Will  these copies last?
7. Google gets to decide which edition or copies of a particular book gets digitized and then made available.  Are they the best judge of which copy is suitable for a researcher's purpose?
8. The last point which Darnton makes is the one many of us have voiced: the physical properties of the texts themselves.  The size, shape, paper quality and thickness, smells, margin notes, pages which have been dog-eared and stained, the actual feel of a book can be important to the researcher.

The most important point, though, which Darnton makes is this:  Google is great, no doubt, and libraries are well-advised to take advantage of electronic resources, but don't think of libraries as mere warehouses or storerooms of material.  He's talking about the big research libraries, of course, but this could equally be applied for the undergraduate college library as well.  We do our users well to remind ourselves that we are not competing with Google, that we should collaborate and work with services like Google to get at the heart of our collections and make them more accessible.  This won't make us obsolete; on the contrary, we will become even more important as all the technological changes keep coming, fast and furious.

Perceptions of librarians at CIT

I'm pleasantly surprised by the turnout of librarians at the CIT conference.  I arrived this morning and met my co-presenter, we talked about the conference and she said to me, "I didn't realize that this was a library conference!".  It turns out she was discussing CIT with another faculty member who told her this conference was for librarians.  Which surprised me of course, since I don't think the conference is specifically geared towards librarians, but rather to technology specialists and faculty using technology at SUNY campuses.  It was flattering to think that some faculty view this as a library conference.  Librarians just happen to be one of the main constituencies on campus who use technology heavily; presenting, talking, and using lots of the good stuff.  In many cases, libraries were the first departments to use technology in higher education institutions.  On my campus, librarians are the staff attending and presenting at technology conferences.  In fact, there are two of us from my library presenting today; six of us are here in attendance from my library alone.  The bloggers, twitter users, and presenters are librarians; participants are librarians; learners are librarians.  I'm always impressed by the amount of training, workshop attendance and staff development which librarians undertake.
There may be a flip side to this - the colleague didn't bother coming to this conference because it was a "library conference", but maybe this also means the faculty know that librarians are at the forefront of applying and using instructional technology on our campuses.   Now, if only our computing & information technology department wasn't so territorial about instructional technology, we might be able to work together more productively to create some engaging and worthwhile faculty & staff training programs.

Brainstorming the presentation

A faculty member and I are presenting at CIT next week and I am scrambling to put our notes into some coherent form for the presentation.  At this precise moment I feel like I am "brainstorming" the presentation rather than working on our presentation content.
It presents a few dilemmas:
1. When I put together a presentation, I am obsessive about every little point I am going to make.  This presentation has all the hallmarks of being a free-for-all, which worries me.
2. I enjoy working with this faculty member, and I'm afraid I am obsessing over the presentation because I want her to be impressed by my dazzling powerpoint skills and amazing organization of information.  Ahem, that last part was a bit of an exaggeration, but I do want to impress her.
3. What I struggle with all the time; is this presentation worth the 30 minutes people are spending to hear it?  Are we presenting information that is original, revelatory, and innovative?  Will our talk inspire others to go out and incorporate technology into their class assignments?

My colleague and I are presenting a paper on our collaboration of the past three years.  I worked with this faculty member to infuse technology skills into the class requirements, by teaching her students how to use and evaluate certain Web 2.0 tools.  We started out with blogs, added RSS, then last semester created a library lab environment where students were working with blogs, RSS, wikis, podcasting, Adobe InDesign, and HTML.  Its been an interesting evolution, watching each successive class of students play with the technology.  In the beginning, the technology was really isolated from the class goals and assignments, but the instructor has worked hard to incorporate them into the objectives.  Students use blogs to keep track of web trends, use RSS to monitor each others' blogs (as well as the blogs they are using for their research), create podcasts of audio content for the web, and use a class wiki to develop a communication tool for new visitors to the area.  The results were students who now had a peer review process; monitoring and commenting on each others' blogs and writing about the process on their own blog.  Using a wiki to create a group project where each student could review, edit and comment the group's work and using RSS to keep track of all this information.  The class is a good model for Web 2.0 tools which can enhance and add value to the traditional classroom. 
Now, how do I put this into a powerpoint?  I guess just do it and stop obsessing...