Collection Development for newbies

The library I work at does not have a Collection Development librarian... We don't have set budgets, specifically designated collecting areas or a system to track orders. This has been a great gift for me; it has allowed me to really learn and grow in terms of CD. I have gotten a grand opportunity to innovate and learn for myself what works and what doesn't (and share via the interwebs :) )

What Should I Order?

• Though it is my library's general philosophy for everyone to order everything, I generally order only for areas where I know what I'm doing. For example, my liaison areas are Computer Science, Physical Sciences and English/Communications. I try to connect with these departments in-depth by:
• Email communication with faculty. I try to send emails with cover graphics of what has just come in in their subject area that month/semester and also beg them to send me specific books or subject areas in which to order (replies are rare). When someone does order, I keep them updated on when things come in by giving them short urls to the records mentioned below and emailing them personally.
• Updates on statuses of what they and I have ordered for their department. I keep a public record of everything I've ordered, why, and its status (yellow-ordered, orange-in process, green-received/on shelf). Check out some examples: Computer Science, Physical Sciences, English/Communications.
• Knowing what classes are offered in the department. Recently, I started a project where I list all the classes being offered in Fall 2012 in a particular department, highlight keywords in the course description, list what books we have already that may be useful for that particular class and what I might order to support it. Here's the work in progress. 
• Finding out what textbooks classes are using. Many librarians are against collecting textbooks... I personally am I big fan of this, though. Students at my college often don't have the funds for books, or their grants for books aren't received till several weeks into the semester. I will order textbooks if no one can get me a free desk copy, and encourage instructors to put them on reserve and let students know in their syllabi.
• Statistics are important! If I'm in doubt on whether to spend money on something, say a YA fiction book, I check the circulation stats. Oh hey, a third of our top 100 circs are PZs! Since my library serves high school and community patrons as well as students, and has no policy against leisure reading, I order general interest and leisure books with the philosophy that all reading supports learning, which is part of my college's mission statement. I use statistics to back-up what I think we need and to learn about what's going on. For example, books about hurricanes have a really high circ rate. This topic is so popular that it warrants me consistently checking on what's published so I can keep the collection up-to-date.

What Should I get rid of?

• Weeding is necessary. If your computer science shelves are bogged down with Microsoft books from 1987, MS-DOT and WordPerfect help, the cool and helpful things you just ordered will get lost. Don't get caught up in the Library-of-Congress collecting philosophy. You have a specific population to collect for, and it is not the entirety of America. 
• As mentioned above for collecting, emailing faculty is a good choice, if doable. At my library, we just don't have the staff to let faculty know everything we're getting rid of, but it's a great idea. Check out this post on the weeding project at SUNY Potsdam's library.
• Knowing your subject and the curriculum offered is just as important in weeding as ordering. Computer science and technology books go out of date faster than other subjects; I have to be on top of what's current. Curriculum knowledge is also a basic here... if a certain program/class/department has been eliminated at the college, materials supporting that can be weeded down.
• Statistics generally indicate whether you should keep or chuck. My library has a policy that if something hasn't circulated in ten years, it automatically goes. You can use your judgement on this if your library doesn't have a policy; Is it a book that students often look at/read only in the library? Is it a staple of background theory? Ten years is probably a longer time than you'd typically give a book to circulate, so knowing your topic as previously stated will help.

What should I do so the books I order aren't the ones gotten rid of?

• To a certain extent, taking above steps on ordering will automatically help circulation rates. The background research you do will lead to good choices and check-outs. However, it shouldn't stop there. You should promote the books you order! Does your library have a facebook page? How about reviewing/promoting books there? In my experience, posting a book on the facebook page leads to its immediate check-out. What about a Pinterest account to categorize/recommend books? Maybe a display with reviews of books or "staff picks" section? Highlighting select subject books on the libguides? Promotion is the most important step here for librarians.

Leading users to eBooks

1. I have been working lately on collection development in computer science. It has been years since anyone has weeded this collection (see previous post with the WordPerfect photo).
2. Previously, when I was researching QR codes, I saw in a photo that a university library had a sign with a QR code in their stacks, right on the shelf. It pointed an online resource for students.

1 + 2 =

Brain says: Awesome! Let's do this for every subject!


Problem: Multiple subjects on one shelf lead to aesthetic displeasure and crowding.

Solution: We have these wooden book placeholders. We don't really use them at the library anymore and have a ton in the storage room downstairs. As a young librarian, I had no idea what they were when first coming upon them, but they go in place of a book that is being repaired, on reserve, on hold, etc. Pointing you in the right direction, if you're looking for something that we have, but isn't currently there on the shelf. Hello! Resources we have with no physical presence... eBooks!

Hence this:

Library Day In The Life: #libday8, Day 4

I haven't updated this blog in a long time. Since, I have gotten a tenure-track position as the Emerging Technologies Librarian at Pensacola State College. While I was catching up on my RSS feeds, I saw that one of my favorite blogs was doing a day in the life of a librarian again, and this time I actually have a job to write about!

As a faculty member, I have to allot my time and turn it into my boss so it can be approved by the college. So, here's what my day is supposed to look like:
Maggie's Work Day

It doesn't really much look like this, though. One of the librarians here (there are three of us full-time, and 4 adjuncts) is on sabbatical this term, and we have had a TON of workshop requests. In addition, co-teaching a regular 8 week class for the first time takes up FAR more time than I'd ever imagined.

7:40 am - Arrive at work. Only ten minutes late, minor victory. I settle in with coffee and try to catch up on technology and library news via Google Reader. I'm only 500 articles behind.

9:00 - Realize that my CGS 1050 students have a group project in their syllabus, due in one week, that I have not yet assigned to them. The students are assigned different search engines that they will give a presentation on. I pick: Yahoo, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Mahalo, Yippy, and Ask. I then go confer with my mentor, also my co-instructor, on coming up with a rubric for this project. I then hurriedly draft one, even though I never in my life have written a rubric, and feel imposter-like.

10:30 - Class time! My co-instructor is mainly teaching today, so I assign the project, present Hoover's database quickly and help those getting lost. Today she was teaching various subject databases; last class I taught medical databases (our class is full of nursing and PT students).

12 - A kid's size bourbon chicken from the food court... Delicious!

1 - Discussion with my mentor on the duties of a subject liaison. My departments this semester are English/Communications, Physical Sciences and Computer Science. I make notes on budget estimates, how to get in contact with each department, getting everyone involved, etc.

1:45 - I head to weed the Zs, where MANY computer program books such as this dwell:

I laugh and laugh.

3:20 - I head over to the Physical Sciences building. One of my friends is a professor there and she needs some help with computer-type stuff, such as creating distribution lists in Outlook. Because she is in my liaison departments, and because I'm the emerging technologies librarian, this is outreach. We also chat about what the CD money for physical sciences can get spent on... BESIDES books. We have a human skeleton and some models for the biology students in the library, and I suggest purchasing some rocks or dioramas for Physical Sciences with their collection development money. She thinks I'm a genius.

5 - Work ends, weekly Thursday Night Dinner with Friends ensues.

Learn CSS

     I know HTML... In fact, I first learned it a decade ago when I was a nerdy little book-wormy, band-geeky teen. However, nowadays HTML is pretty bare-bones while CSS is used to flesh out the aesthics of a web page.  If you don't know the difference, CSS stands for cascading style sheets, and instead of coding each page, you can use CSS to give a cohesive, over-arching look to your site. See how cool CSS is at CSS Zen Garden.
     My work learning CSS has basically been the way I learned to HTML code, and how I like to learn a lot of technology; I give a cursory glance at the instruction manual as it flies to the floor. I'm first a do-er and then a researcher. Doing things first gives me a better understanding of how the whole thing works so I can have a clue when I read the manual/watch the tutorial/browse the FAQs/troubleshoot.

     So in that vein, here's how I'm working on my CSS skills, and how you can, too:

• Tweak someone else's code. I suggest building a website on Weebly, because it gives you a generic HTML/CSS template, lets you edit it and has a preview window. So, you can pick apart the code, changing the CSS, previewing it and thereby learning what happens when you change this or that. Trial and error. In Weebly, you can do this under the Design tab. Pick a template and then hit "Edit HTML/CSS" to the bottom right.

• Look at your favorite websites' CSS coding to see how they did it. To view the CSS on any website, right-click (or control-click for us Mac users) and "View source" or "View page source." This brings you to the HTML. The CSS will be in between the head tags... Look for something that ends with .css and has quotes around it. Then, cut that section out and paste it to the end of the website link you were looking at.

• Now that you've seen CSS in action and understand, check out some tutorials. Here's some: 
• Webmonkey - Tutorial, sample codes, and crib sheet.
• CSS Zen Garden pathfinder

• Write some of your own CSS!

Thanks to Bridget for the Webmonkey link. I'll try to re-do this sort of format down the road when I attempt javascript.

YourNextRead (dotcom)

     I love free things, in particular freeware. I also love anything that allows user input. I even have an "I <3 Folksonomy" t-shirt. (Okay, no, but I'd like one).
     The other day, I discovered YourNextRead.com. It has a great, fluid interface and allows people to share recommendations by adding a title, or even simpler, click a thumbs up or thumbs down icon.

     This website was founded 2009 (or so says LinkedIn) and I consider that somewhat young for a site that requires user input and tagging. It doesn't seem to have many users (less than 300 followers on Twitter) and that limits its usefulness. More users = more (and better) recommendations. Also, more users mean better, more frequent site updates.
     I think this site has potential, though. It reminds me of NoveList, but I like it better because a. direct user-input b. FREE! Reader advisory and a free book recommendation site... Hm, does anyone else think public library?
Here's just a few casual thoughts on what YourNextRead could do to improve its site and perhaps become a NoveList competitor:

• The site mines data from Amazon too exclusively. Let's get some other sources for reviews on that right sidebar. 
• You're not Amazon's pimp. Stop sending users directly to Amazon when they click on a book. Clicking on a book's image should lead to a unique YourNextRead page with metadata and options for obtaining the book (Google, Barnes and Noble, eBay, Paperback Swap, WorldCat, etc)
• That metadata should contain genres, such as those listed on Goodreads. Since YNR already has some (albeit pretty poor) Goodreads integration, perhaps those genre categorizations can be imported.
• That metadata should also include tagging options. Netflix doesn't just categorize its movies now, it tries to better suggest options to its users by including descriptors such as "witty," "quirky," or "dark."
• Eliminate the doubles. I don't want to see the recently reprinted edition as a recommendation for a classic book.

     I would really like to see YNR take off and be used in public libraries. Often when I'm looking for recommendations on NoveList or Amazon, I'm lead down too simple a path. A work by the same author or something in the same genre doesn't usually express why I liked the book. Suggestions from people often grab those things that aren't quite obvious, such the writing style, how deep the characters are, if some concept or place in the book is currently in vogue. I think this site can capture that part of the human reader-advisory touch (especially if librarians sitting on the reference desk added a couple recommendations each shift in their downtime...5 minutes tops) in an easily accessible database, saving me the trouble of trolling blogs and discussion threads looking for suggestions from like-minded individuals.

Open Access & DOAJ

     In library school, people talked a lot about open access. I'm going to say it was far more professors than students, though. Why? Two main factors that cause people to talk about OA are necessity or ideals. 
     Students are in school (duh)... schools that pay for them to have access to journals and information they need. They don't have to think about the need for equal access to information, because they have access. Professors also have this access, but are usually a little older and wiser than their students and understand the general benefit to equal education OA provides. Also, their jobs concern intellectual endeavors, so they usually have time to think about this kind of thing at the office. 
When I'm writing a comprehensive literature review of new reference services, am I thinking about equal information access and how many tens of thousands of dollars my university library is paying to supply me with these journals? No, I'm pretty much wondering which caffeinated beverage is more likely to boost my awareness enough to finish my paper. It's not that I'm not intellectual, it's just that maintaining singular focus on the topic at hand (i.e. caffeine and new reference services) is necessary for survival as a graduate student. And I'm also not thinking about my publishing rights with for-profit journals vs. OA because I don't publish. Most students usually don't.


     However, now that I have graduated and am skint, I need to keep up with library happenings for free. I'm sure this is an issue for many MLS grads. Besides reading blogs and checking out website articles (like through American Libraries or Wired) I need some OA scholarly journals to keep updated with.
     The DOAJ, or Directory of Open Access Journals, is where I started. There are "117 journals belonging to subject: Library and Information Science." I went through this list and narrowed down to the links below. I'll do more posts after I actually really delve into these journals to review, eliminate and make a list of the ones I found helpful (the keepers).

• B Sides 
• Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
• code4lib
• Collaborative Librarianship
• Communications in Information Literacy
• D-Lib
• E-JASL: The Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship
• Evidence Based Library and Information Practice
• The Journal of Electronic Publishing
• JIL: Journal of Information Literacy
• Journal of Library Innovation
• Library Student Journal
• North Carolina Libraries
• VA Lib: Virginia Libraries

     It took a while to go through these, check out some of the articles to see if they were of interest, didn't contain too many international articles, etc. Also, the DOAJ needs to update. Many journals are listed as multiples, there is no end year notation and there have been a lot of name and publisher changes in the list. 

     More to come on open access and how I'm staying updated in library affairs.

What is this?

      So, I just graduated with my MLS last month. I, extremely realistic person that I am, quit my job to do this two year program in one year, figuring I'd get a librarian job STAT upon graduation.
     Um.... Nope. Not so far anyway.
     If I could have done it over I would have worked as paraprofessional library assistant and prolonged the program, doing practicums and special projects to broaden my portfolio and make more connections.
     But I didn't. Moving on.
     While reading about the librarian scene, I often see websites with lists of competencies, taken from experienced librarians and from job postings' desired skills. I haven't seen one that lists the places to gain this knowledge, though. I guess I'm going to try to make this blog sort of a pathfinder, or a documentation of my experience learning this stuff.
     It may just turn into a catchall of all my library-related thoughts, but I think that's okay. When I was researching academic libraries as I applied to jobs, I Googled staff members, and I found one in particular that kept a blog. He's a librarian, but his posts are sort of personal and informal, and made me feel like I got to know him more as a person. And wanted to work with him.
     "Oh wait, can this work the other way around?" thought bubble!
     I read his blog, get to know him, want to work at his library over other places. So, if perspective employers read my posts, maybe they'll get to know me and want to hire me? Let's hope so.
Some of the competencies I'm going to try to gain are found in job ads, this blog post, and Library 101's list of skills. I've already completed 23 Things, thanks to my fantastic information technology professor, but if you haven't, I recommend it. I am really interested in technology, and thinking about another degree in computer science, so I have a feeling I might be blogging some more high-tech skills than that site.
     Alright, stay classy blogging world, or whatever other type of sign off you want to imagine here.