Reflections on Assigned Reading-The Portable MLIS Chapter 9

In Chapter 9, the author (G. Edward Evans) based upon his various experiences as a collections development officer, offers the reader seven areas to consider when developing a collection. They are:

1. Get to know your community and its needs/interests
2. Our product is access to information regardless of format
3. Expect change and be flexible
4. Plan ahead-Scan the environment
5. Build relationships
6. Engage in collaboration/consortial activities
7. Promoting access can be a challenge

As someone who is new to the filed of library science, I found this list to be helpful. I've never considered the notion of "collection building" and his comments made excellent sense to me.

His suggestions, however, are not unique to the field of library collections. Most of his common-sense recommendations can apply to many other fields and professions as well. For example, my background is in (college but also) prep school admission. Most of Mr. Evans' list can be illustrated in my work as a former independent school Director of Admission and Financial Aid. I suspect that building a collection a collection is much like building an incoming class and his rules make sense in either arena. Allow me to explain.

Get to know your community and its needs was one of the first rules I learned in admission work. With a limited number of spaces available to new students each year, it was essential that I knew what attributes and talents my community needed from its incoming class. Those needs could be academic (high testing students), athletic (a goalie for the hockey team), artistic (oboe player for the ensemble), or even financial (need to accept the child of a big donor). I also needed to know my community in order to select the best students to join it. It made little sense to admit a child to my school if it was not a good match for either the student or the institution. Building a collection obviously requires a similar understanding of the community it will serve.

Expect change was my mantra during my prep school admission years. During the late 90's and early 2000's, my school was fighting an internal battle between producing expensive print publications (viewbooks and paper applications) and the latest electronic media (CD Roms, websites and on-line applications). This change was major and a school that did not embrace this upcoming change would ultimately suffer. From reading Mr. Evans (and others) it is clear to me that change is all a part of the game in library science and specifically in collection development. If you fight it, it will roll over you!

Think ahead and scan the environment directly relates to the changing demographic trends in my former filed. Knowing who is "coming down the pipeline" (ethnicity, socio-economic background, etc.) allows you to better prepare your institution (and your Board of Trustees) for the inevitable change that is coming. If I am ever in charge of collection development in a library, I will surely employ the skill of "seeing the forest" that I learned in school admission.

Building relationships, as well as engaging in collaborative and consortial activities were both vital to a successful independent school admission operation. Unlike colleges, the idea of attending a prep school for high school was new to many families. Working collaboratively with other schools, organizations, agencies as well as consultants not only helped promote the notion of independent schools to a broader audience, it also saved valuable travel time, money and resources. As a collection developer for a library, being a part of as many collaborative or consortial arrangements as well as the relationships these relationships foster are essential to building a broad, extensive, and cost-effective collection in a library. It is my hope that all the skills and lessons I learned in my former life in prep-school admission will pay dividends to me in the administrative aspect of my job as a school librarian.

References:
Evans, G. Edward. (2008). Chapter 9, Reflections on Creating Information Service Collections. Found in The Portable MLIS: Insights from the Experts by Ken Haycock & Brooke E. Sheldon (Eds.), Libraries Unlimited, Westport, Connecticut.