Evaluating Library Collections

The evaluation of collections is a complex task because of the need to consider many variables and viewpoints. Nonetheless it is an important process, which can provide a sound basis for future decisions as well as support planning and communication among librarians and administrators, faculty and other library users. This guide considers how procedures for collection evaluation have changed with the shift to electronic resources. Collections are now more varied, less stable, less predictable but also more responsive, more immediate, more demand driven. Libraries need to facilitate "access" to information, as once they were responsible for building solid collections. The book considers the impact of changes brought about by the demand for remote access to support distance education; by publisher and vendor supplied full-text materials; by digitization of collections; and by the increasing number and variety of electronic resources.
New methods to measure new kinds of resources, demands and uses are examined, from gathering the data in integrated systems reports to using transaction log analysis and a variety of other measures for "in-house" use of materials, feedback from electronic reference queries, and interlibrary lending statistics.