Evaluation+of+the+Collection

Evaluation of the Collection "Collection evaluation is the process of assessing the effectiveness of a collection to meet the identified information needs of the school community. It is a continuous process which reflects changes in teaching/learning programs and user needs." (NSW Department of School Education, 1996: 25) 

Collection assessment and evaluation is a very important aspect of the school library media center's policy. Assessments are conducted to provide several kinds of important information to libraries. They help clarify the library’s goals in the context of its mission and budget, supply data used to set funding priorities, and build a base for long-range planning and administration. 

Evaluation and assessment techniques fall into two broad categories: collection-centered, which is based on the actual resources in the media center, and client-centered, which is based on the use of the collection. Client-centered methods include circulation studies, citation studies, in-house studies, and survey of opinion studies. Collection-centered methods include the use of standards, direct examination (by an "expert"), and statistical analysis. An effective assessment uses both types of techniques to gather two kinds of data: quantitative (including numbers, age, and/or use statistics) and qualitative (such as observations by informed staff and/or subject knowledgeable users). Many different evaluative approaches can be taken, based on the current needs and purpose of the media center. For example, when striving to provide a wide variation of titles, we might compare the collection's acquisition rate to annual publishing output, and might look at titles held per capita. If we instead find we have limited space and must keep growth to a minimum, data on turnover rates (how often items are circulated), acquisitions, and withdrawals (weeding) will be essential. Or if we decided we want to focus on popular works, we would want information on circulation to use in turnover rates as well as statistics on in-house use per capita. Some examples of the types of quantitative and qualitative data you can collect include:  **Examples of Quantitative Data:** Four assessment techniques are essential in evaluating a collection. They provide both quantitative and qualitative data, though they are not completely objective. Though other methods of evaluation exist, there is little need to go beyond these measures in gathering useful profile information about the collection and how it is or is not being used.
 * //Number of titles:// **A manual or automated shelflist count, a physical count or estimate of titles from the shelves, a count of acquisitions and expenditures, the percent of each subject’s yearly growth, and the percent of acquisitions compared to published titles.**
 * **//Age and timeliness of materials://** The materials’ median or mean age, the range and distribution of publication dates, or the most common publication date range (i.e., 1972-1976 = 56% of the nonfiction).
 * **//Use://** Circulation statistics by type or subject and interlibrary loan borrowing statistics in each general subject area.
 * **//Per capita measures://** How many titles or items per community member.
 * Examples of Qualitative Data:**
 * **//Percent of standard titles or items://** Calculated by consulting “best” lists.
 * **//Individual or group evaluation://** Shelf scanning by the librarian, observation by an outside expert, or observation by a committee. (WLN, p. 19)

**Determine the size of the collection/subject segment** This technique gathers quantitative data about the collection segment (subject, genre or media) including number of titles and the percent that this segment is of the whole collection. An automated system can often provide detailed reports of this information. If you don’t have an automated system, you may have to manually review the shelflist or the collection itself. For the most part, a multi-volume title is just one title for purposes of this assessment. Multiple copies of the same title sitting on the shelf do not add to the quality of the collection. If there is a need for multiple copies, that need should be evident in their use and circulation. If you have segments of your collection that are not in the catalog or cannot be counted by the computer for whatever reason, then you need to count them manually. While there are always things in circulation, your common sense and experience ought to enable you to estimate from the stacks how much might really exist. An exact number is not essential. A good estimate is usually enough for these purposes. You can easily calculate the percentage of the total collection that this segment represents. You are really acquiring two pieces of information in this process: (1) the number of titles/items in this segment of the fiction, nonfiction, or media collection, and (2) the percentage this segment is of the total fiction, nonfiction or media collection. This is important because it allows you to easily compare the usage with the size by changing it to a percentage.

Run a system report to determine the mean (arithmetical average) or the median (the approximate year that divides the collection by age, often in the 1970s or ‘80s). Most automated catalogs will allow you to do this for the whole collection and for segments distinguished by media type and/or call number range. Research shows that most of what is used in a public library is the newest material. Material that has not been used is increasingly less likely to be used. The average age of any segment of the collection is a variable to be considered along with many other variables including the subject itself, the purpose of this segment, our users, and the nature of the discipline. For example, while we will want to have some new editions of classic fairy tales with award-winning illustrations perhaps, we may also want to keep some of the older editions and translations. For sports, we may want to only have available current information because the rules change, our knowledge of physiology changes along with the advice we give regarding conditioning and practice exercises, and the players and jargon change season to season. The median age indicates the point at which half the collection is older than the date indicated, revealing currency and/or retrospective strength. The mode shows what dates are most common, revealing clumps in the collection and often are the result of grants, special initiatives or the founding of the library. Again, although these numbers are relatively easy to obtain, they are not to be construed as meaning either good or bad things. They are numbers that need to be considered with the other variables such as the subject, the circulation or use, and the goals of the library. Assess the age of any reference or non-circulating collection separately from the rest of the collection on the same subject because any non-circulating collection (reference or research oriented) is likely to need to be either more current or possibly older than the regularly circulating collection on the same types of subject.
 * Determine the average age (mean or median) of the collection/subject segment**

Run a report that tells you the total circulation for this segment/subject/genre of the collection. Using the total number of items one can easily establish the turnover rate for a 12-month period. Thus, if the library has 400 books about investments and money management classed in the Dewey 300s and the circulation for that segment in the last 12-months was 200, the collection turned over only .5 times. We arrive at the turnover rate by dividing the number of circulations by the number of items/titles. Knowing that a number of titles would have gone out multiple times, we recognize that at least half of the collection, or 150 titles did not go out at all. Further, it is easy to understand that warehousing these items is expensive, their appearance is likely to be less than inviting, and the more there is, the more difficult it is for users to find what is relevant. Investment strategies need to be current. We see that this collection needs to be heavily weeded. We also might wish to consider if this is an area that should even contain many books now that there is so much of this type of information on the Web. Our system can also easily determine the percentage of the total circulation this segment of the collection had for the past twelve months. It might be something as small as .07% of the adult nonfiction but it represents as much as 1% of the total nonfiction collection. Does this make sense to us at this time? Likewise, if the segment of the collection we are assessing is our adult mysteries and we find that we have 1,000 titles, with a mean age of 1973 and a twelve month circulation of 3,000, then we might consider giving more resources to this collection to increase its size because it is being heavily used with a turnover rate of 3. This might be 35% of the total adult fiction circulation but it represents only 22% of the total adult fiction collection. We can understand that we might need to be buying more mysteries and fewer of some other area of adult fiction. We might also run a report regarding any of the titles older than 20 years to see what has not circulated more than once in the past two or three years and consider some of these for weeding. This information might prompt us to discuss the need for the purchase of more current mystery best sellers in both large print and audio book formats.
 * Determine the turnover rate for the collection/subject segment**

This technique is essential. It is well suited to libraries of all sizes. It has the advantage of providing relevant information quickly, but it can be highly subjective (especially if the person doing the assessment also does selection). Working in a team should be encouraged. Direct examination should not be used as the sole assessment technique. Shelf-scanning should be conducted after the statistical data have been collected; the data complements our observations in the stacks. You should make notes on what you see as you examine a segment of the collection. You do not need to take every item off the shelf. Begin by locating the beginning of this segment (i.e., the cookbooks) and the end of the segment. Put yourself in the shoes of the user. What do you see? What is the condition of the collection? Is it inviting? Ugly? Dirty? There are things one can see when examining the collection in subject segments that are not easily understood by browsing the bibliographic records. We see the collection of cookbooks, football books, travel CDs, or whatever, as the user sees them. We see the condition, the age, the extent (how many are actually available at any given time not just how many the library has), and we can observe things like the presence of too many textbooks, items with only black and white pictures, no indexes, etc. Deliberately and objectively doing shelf-scanning of collection segments in conjunction with some statistics generated by an automated catalog can provide the best type of information about the information resources.
 * Objectively scan or examine the collection/subject segment**

 In a Web 2.0 world, the following questions should be addressed when evaluating the media center's collection. Answering these questions help ensure that the collection meets the technology needs of the school community.  
 * How has Web 2.0 changed collection evaluation and assessment?**
 * Does the library media center's book and audiovisual collection meet the needs of the curriculum? Has a baseline print collection size been established? Is the collection well weeded?
 * Is a variety of media available that will address different learning styles?
 * Have electronic and on-line resources been added to the collection when appropriate? Are there sufficient hardware and Internet bandwidth for groups of students to take advantage of these resources?
 * Has a recent assessment been done that balances print collection size and electronic resources? Have some print materials been supplanted by on-line subscriptions? Has space formerly used to house print materials been effectively repurposed?
 * Are new materials chosen from professional selection sources and tied to the curriculum through collection mapping?

Continued evaluation is closely related to the goals and responsibilities of all libraries and is a valuable tool of collection development. This procedure is not to be used as a convenient means to remove materials presumed to be controversial or disapproved of by segments of the community.  Evaluation of the Collection Resources: Warrior Librarian by Amanda Credaro - [] An overview of the Arizona State Library - [|http://www.lib.az.us/cdt/collass.aspx] // Evaluating Library Collections on the ALA Website - [] Doug Johnson's Blue Skunk Blog - [] ( ** the above mentioned resources cite several resources on their perspective pages. Therefore, the information is a compilation of many different resources) **//