Doll Carol A. & Barron, Pamela Patrick. Managing and analyzing your collection: a practical guide for small libraries and school media centers - Book Review

Kliatt, Sept, 2002 by Rita M. Fontinha

ALA. 93p. bibliog. c2002. 0-8389-0821-7. $26.00.

In this helpful book, the authors give "recipes" (calculations, formulas, and measurements) to come up with statistics to analyze and manage a library collection. Librarians interested in quantifying their hunches and guesses about the adequacy of their book collections can get a variety of concrete methods to determine that from this volume. Research-based statistics lend weight to budget requests as well as justify weeding. Librarians who hesitate to scrutinize their collection risk losing justification for additional (or even foundation) monies. Used as a tool, the methods hem will make needs and gaps understandable to everyone, including administrators and the community.

This is a well-documented and useful resource for all librarians. It includes extensive footnotes, tables, and suggestions for further reading. As a result of using this book, librarians will be able to create data to compare to state and national surveys of resources and have the foundation for a persuasive budget presentation. Highly recommended. Rita M. Fontinha, Lib. Media Spec., Norwood H.S., Norwood, MA