Summary of Rethinking Collection Management Plans: Shaping Collective Collections for the 21st Century

Summary of Rethinking Collection Management Plans: Shaping Collective Collections for the 21^st Century

                Academic libraries’ collection needs are continuously growing while physical spaces for collections are dwindling. In addition to the diminishing physical space for collection development, academic libraries are also losing State/University resources.  A new trend has arisen from these issues. A shared repository for print media might be the answer for many academic libraries. This repository for low use materials would be shared with other libraries and would cut on cost and space. Samuel Demas and Mary E. Miller, the authors of Rethinking Collection Management Plans: Shaping Collective Collections for the 21^st Century, also state that academic libraries can then connect print version of a certain material to a digital one allowing a patron access to either. The idea of libraries pulling together on resources and collaborating on collection development leads to some very interesting questions.   The whole notion of collection development than has to be revisited and revised to fit into a more cooperative framework.

                The article states the importance of collection management which included merging collections, transferring items to storage, weeding, preserving etc. It also stresses the significance for developing a formal plan for cooperative collection development. The article looks at the planning and policy of shared collection development, the fundamentals behind writing a collection management plan and goals and strategies.  

                This article was certainly fascinating, however it only gave broad terms on how to accomplish a collective collection.  Overall, the article addressed many of the pressing issues that would accompany creating a collective collection. It didn’t address the issue of start up cost to build it. The time and energy put into creating a new collective management plan or even the weeding would be enormous. However, once started I believe this would help libraries save resources and create more 

sustainability.