Customer-based Collection Development
This essential guide to customer-based/patron-driven collection development will allow librarians to navigate the rapid changes in what users expect of libraries.
The traditional "top down" approach to collection development definitely has its drawbacks: even after spending a good deal of time, energy, and resources, librarians are sometimes frustrated to find that their library's collection is not being used as they anticipated. But there's another strategy that's gaining momentum. This book gathers together the best practitioners in the emerging field of customer-based collection development to find out what library users need and want and provide strategies to allow librarians to manage collections accordingly.
Drawing on the experiences of professionals from a variety of academic and public libraries, Customer-based Collection Development:
- Offers strategies for planning and implementing a customer-based collection program
- Summarizes its potential impact on a library’s budget
- Discusses cataloguing implications, and other day-to-day operational issues
- Presents guidelines for evaluating and marketing.
Customer-based Collection Development is one way for libraries to navigate the rapid changes in what users expect of libraries, and this new anthology is an important guide to this approach.
Karl Bridges has been a professional academic reference librarian for more than twenty years. He is the acting dean at Eli M. Oboler Library at Idaho State University. He holds master's degrees in history from Miami University and the University of Illinois, from which he also has an MLS. He has extensive professional writing experience, including scholarly articles in journals such as American Libraries and The Journal of Library Philosophy and Practice. He has also written three books (two as sole author, one as editor) and a book chapter on various library subjects including Web 2.0, library interviewing, and the future of libraries. He is also a book reviewer for publications including the Journal of Electronic Resources Librarianship and Catholic Library World.