The author provides bulleted points to emphasize important points when considering collection development, which I found quite helpful, and stated his theme succinctly as:
"Having the right items, at the right time, in the right format is the essence of a valued collection."Collection development appeals to me, and although my self-imposed geographical limitations preclude this, I find myself thinking about what a career in this area would be like. The idea of matching resources to users and cultivating new users with suitable resources seems to me to strike at the heart of librarianship. I hadn't previously thought about the need to "scan" the community and keep abreast of demographic changes and trends in terms of collection development, only as it relates to programs and services. But, the author makes a compelling argument for anticipating changes in patron needs and even in the demographics of the community the library serves.
I also like the thorough discussion of varied formats. The author gives very good advice in his section on What to Collect and advocates effectively for being open to alternative information sources, even when it occasionally means miscalculating the long-term usefulness of a medium.
"Dynamic, highly regarded information services build their collections around what information formats best meet the needs and interests of their service communities."I have also taken to heart his suggestion of "understanding the nature of organizational change" as a useful career skill.
Evans, Edward G., (2008). Chapter 9, Reflections on Creating Information Service Collections. In Ken Haycock & Brooke E. Sheldon (Eds.), The Portable MLIS: Insights From the Experts (87-97). West Port Connecticut: Libraries Unlimited.
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