Arriving somewhere... but not here (Week 5)

OK. I'll just admit it. I was trying to come up with a way to make "collection development" sexy and interesting to even the most jaded internet junkie, but I have failed. You're just going to have to walk with me here, and hopefully you'll see the light. You can look at lolcats later.

The thing that will really make collection development interesting, I think, is to skip ahead to the end. That is, the vision that Prof. Lankes has put forth of the library as the publisher of the community. You might not think this vision and collection development have a necessarily strong link. And honestly, today's libraries might reinforce that impression. But as librarians, we could in fact make the library the place where the community goes to create new knowledge.

The key to making that vision become a reality is being in tune with the community's needs. This is far from an easy task. People are increasingly moving their identity, and even their entire social lives, online. Thus, libraries must make the move too. Even if you get a random tweet at 2 a.m. complaining about how you don't have the new Twilight novel (*shiver*), you are providing a way for the community to express its needs in a way that wouldn't happen otherwise. People are blatantly honest online, which can be beneficial when gauging needs. It can also backfire tremendously when abused *cough* Price Chopper.

I also think that in the collection process (i.e. acquisition-> processing-> circulation-> weeding), weeding seems to really stand out as a problem. As a Humanities student, and one who has never thought there is a useless book or useless information, weeding sets my teeth on edge. There's no doubt that it is a vital part of collection development: libraries are only so physically big, so some old stuff has to go. But how on earth do you prioritize that? Even if we go for the stock answer of, "whatever the community doesn't use," how do we know the community won't use it in the future? Perhaps the library has done a bad job of making the community aware of a certain section. Maybe it's a section that is not high-traffic, which has nothing to do with its content. These issues are perplexing.

As it stands now, the library might have to become the community publisher not because of altruism, but from necessity. As new editions of books skyrocket while material budgets decrease, and every library needs more and more licenses, subscriptions, etc., there's just no other real option. I think it would be wonderful to be a librarian that supports local artists. There's great potential for finding the kind of knowledge that would make a home in the library, that it might not otherwise make in the public sphere, where it is based on marketability.