Navigating the Parallel Universe: Education for Collection Management in the Electronic Age - collection of electronic and printed library resources

Library Trends, Spring, 2000 by Virgil L. P. Blake, Thomas T. Surprenant

Our present information environment is once more in a state of flux. "The forces of change are so prevalent in scholarly communication," Rowley and Black (1996) point out, "that the collection development mission of libraries cannot avoid their impact" (pp. 22-23). The access rather than ownership approach is going to shift the focus of activity once again. No longer will physical entities in a local collection and its neighboring allied institutions be the arena in which those responsible for the collection will operate. We now have a new element to contend with--electronic resources--that do not exist as physical entities that can be accessed on demand. The addition of these resources to the repertoire of the library/ information center broadens the scope of activity once again. The collection is now a far larger entity. The task of determining which of the new classes of information resources is/are appropriate to the mission of the library/information center and how they are to be merged with the existing collection will prove to be quite complex. This suggests that the profession has moved beyond collection development to a new plane. Using the concepts of collection management will clearly allow us to make the necessary differentiation.

EDUCATION FOR COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT

Collection development (nee, book selection) has been as consistent a part of library/information science education as cataloging/classification and reference work. When Dewey founded the School of Library Economy at Columbia University, "Selection of Books and Periodicals" was in the course offerings (Vann, 1961, p. 31). In preparing his landmark report for the Carniege Corporation, Williamson (1923) analyzed the catalogs of eleven library schools and discovered that "book selection" ranked second in "the average number of hours of classroom instruction given ... in a subject" (p. 22). At about the time when the concept "selection" was being supplanted by "collection development," Osburn (1980) examined the place of education for collection development in the curriculum. He argued that library/information science educators were "responsible to a considerable extent for both reflecting concerns of that profession and giving guidance in its direction" (Osburn, 1980, p. 560). However, his analysis of the professional literature of that era led him to conclude that collection development was not a major interest of the professorate. Collection development, in his view, was not an art and could no longer be treated as such due to the publication explosion and increasing fiscal pressures. Before this delusion could be set aside, Osburn (1980) indicated that there were some considerable obstacles to be removed. These were: (1) the failure to realize that collection development involved decision making and planning but not acquisitions, which is a separate specialty; (2) a profession that was still wrestling with a clear demarcation between professional and para- and/or nonprofessional tasks; and (3) the inexperienced faculty teaching collection development.