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Publication Date

2021

Abstract

Library collection management is an ongoing process of selecting and deselecting – or weeding – materials based on institutional policies, budgets, and community needs. In this hypothetical collection management exercise, we were given a selection budget of $1000 and expected to examine and manage a portion of a rural public library’s collection. Our group chose the Brighton Public Library’s (BPL’s) print collection on Canada’s involvement in World War II. We compared publicly available community demographic and library use statistics for Brighton and Brighton Public Library with those of three other Ontario communities/libraries to complete a community assessment, and we compared BPL’s mission, vision, strategic plan, and collection management policy to its online public access catalogue to assess the current collection, and ultimately determine selection and weeding criteria. We also employed list-checking to select materials and, as per BPL’s policy, the Texas CREW Method to weed materials. Conducting this collection management exercise was much more difficult than expected; we struggled to spend the budget, selecting over 80 children’s and young adult titles based on the collection gap we identified for these age groups. At the same time, we weeded only three copies of books in the collection. We learned that successful collection management is not only rooted in library policy, library values, and community values/needs/wants; it is an iterative, reciprocal process.

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