Making a collection count

March 13, 2014
4:15 - 5:15
Holly Hibner
Mary Keller

The presenters were very lively which was good for a program at the end of the day and a subject which can be very dry - collection management!  They wrote a book called Making a Collection Count: a holistic approach to library collection management.

What I liked was their focus on the big picture on collection management - learn the process of your library's collection cycle - acquisitions, processing and cataloging, shelving, checkout, reshelving and repair and maintenance. If someone who takes off for a vacation, someone else can do their part of the process so nothing comes to a standstill but continues as a cyclic workflow.

They outlined what makes a robust collection management - collection data, circulation data, group activity, item activity, collection audit, physical inventory, collection statistics, collection objectives (need collection policy which fulfills the library's mission), collection benchmarks.

At the very least - concentrate on legal and medical collections, most popular collections and most expensive collections.