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I think Dale's comments are right on the money (literally). CTLS will be doing a collection Development workshop series this year, and I have been thinking along these same lines. I know of no easy way to analyze your collection. It seems necessary to think about the impact of your Collection Development efforts ALL THE TIME. But the best way to know what to buy is to pay attention to what is checking out (and what is selling in the book stores, video stores and music stores). I used to look at what was being checked out every day, by sorting and shelving my branch collection. I think anyone who has ordering responsibility should also put in some time shelving each day. I paid attention to all of the "best seller" lists, including Amazon, and read book reviews, catalogs, spent time in bookstores, etc. I also weeded a lot. If you do it every day, while you're shelving, using a print-out of what's not circulated in the past 4 years, say, you gradually begin to accept that if it's not going out, you might as well make some space for the next generation of books, instead of holding onto a bunch of old stuff that makes your library look antiquated and behind the times. It's sort of like you have to PROGRAM your brain - to memorize by means of visual, auditory and intellectual input, what the general public is interested in at any given time. And it changes all the time...you're basically trying to hit a moving target. So how could a computer program factor all that in? It's a great software challenge, isn't it? We could get rich! Jennifer -----Original Message----- From: Laurie Mahaffey [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, July 28, 2006 2:44 PM To: ctls-l Subject: Collection Assessment This is a message from CTLS-L. Selecting "Reply" will send a message to the originator. Selecting "Reply to All" will send a message to the entire list. --------------------------------------------------------- One of our librarians is looking for help with collection assessment. I have sent her questions to a few people, and she's seeking to cast the net farther. If you can tell us what you do to make sure you are buying the right materials for your community, we'd love to know. Thanks! Laurie <snip> I ran the collection through BenchMarc and it was very disappointing. I don't think that particular tool, for a public library, is worth the space the icon uses. <BenchMARC, available to Athena users, says it's for schools. -L.> I was just hoping that there was a magic electronic program out there that could read my collection and demographics and tell me what to buy... We do keep a request list running at all times. If a patron notices something we don't have, we ask them to add it. If someone asks for something we don't have, one of the staff writes it down. I just feel like we're still missing something. <snip> Do you know of a tool that can evaluate a collection to determine strengths and gaps and will take in to consideration population demographics? If not, would you post the question to the listserve? Thanks!
