Use the basic concepts and principles related to the selection, evaluation, organization, and preservation of physical and digital information items.

Introduction

Information organizations cannot collect everything. “All libraries have limited budgets, space, and time … choices must be made” (Hibner & Kelly, 2023, p. 1). Collection management requires careful selection, evaluation, organization, and preservation of materials. Most libraries have collection development policies, which use “the library’s current mission, vision, and value statements” as “a framework for the growth, selection, and scope of materials the library collects” (Disher, 2022). A good collection development policy should provide clarification on how the organization selects, evaluates, organizes, and preserves materials.

Selection

Building and maintaining a collection requires selecting appropriate materials that cover subjects users are interested in. The American Library Association (ALA) states that “selection policies should include specific criteria to guide professionals in purchasing items … [which] should be relevant to the library’s objectives” (ALA, 2018b). Disher (2022) argues that limited resources means adopting a “‘demand-driven’ philosophy and look[ing] for collection-building processes that focus first on community demand before considering other selection criteria.”

Evaluation

Ongoing assessment of materials is another part of managing collections. Cassell & Hiresmith (2023) describe evaluation as “a two-pronged process that involves determining gaps in the existing collection and evaluating the quality of available resources” (p. 370). Ways that gaps in a collection can be found include looking at interlibrary loan requests and browsing physical and digital collections to see if there is too much on subjects no longer popular or too little on subjects currently popular. The ALA says “an optimal library collection is one that is reviewed on a consistent basis for accuracy, currency, usage, diversity, and subject area gaps” (ALA, 2018a). The process of removing “unused and useless material” from a collection is referred to as weeding (Disher, 2014, p. 87). A weeding plan should be used to organize weeding activities; questions to consider for a weeding plan include how to identify materials to weed, who will be weeding, and where to put the weeded items (p. 92).

Organization

A key principal of archives, providing access to materials, applies to any information organization. How an archive or library organizes their collection is important for users and staff to understand. Cataloging is a way of organizing collections by “the acquisition or creation of bibliographic data for a library catalog or other discovery tool” (Bolin, 2022). One of the most used subject indexing classification systems is the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), which has been maintained since 1898 (Library of Congress, 2025). LCSH headings can be combined with subdivisions to create more specific topics; for example, Women immigrants—Employment—Texas and Same-sex marriage—Law and legislation—Connecticut.

Preservation

Information professionals preserve materials because preservation, much like organization, “is about reliable access” (Skinner, 2022). Preservation is needed for both analog and digital materials. Just as books decay over time, digital materials are “notoriously ephemeral and easily compromised” due to factors like software and hardware obsolescence, damage, and security threats. When an item is already damaged, repairing it is referred to as mending; preservation is “when collection developers take preventative action to stave off potential damage or to prevent additional damage” (Disher, 2014, p. 101). Issues that a collection manager needs to look out for include broken book bindings, torn book spines, torn and damaged pages, and water damage (p. 103-105).

Evidence

Artifact 1

Assignment: Information Sources Survey
Course: INFO 200, Information Communities
Description: This course has students choose an information community to research. The assignment asked me to evaluate information sources and determine their appropriate users and uses. One source needed to be research-based, like an encyclopedia or entire academic journal, and the other needed to be community-based, like a newsletter or blog. The research-based source would be something a community member would consult for information needs, and the community-based source would be something the member might contribute to or participate in.

My information community for INFO 200 was the ufologist community, based on unexplained flying objects. This survey demonstrates my understanding of the selection and evaluation aspects of managing a collection, as I determined relevant sources for a specific information community based on criteria like scope and context, author or editor credentials, and design. The research-based source I found was quite outdated but could be an interesting introductory source for an ufologist. The community-based source I chose was the large and active r/UFOs subreddit on Reddit, which has many discussions but suffers from the possible biases or gaps in information of users.

Artifact 2

Assignment: Online Music Collection Evaluation
Course: INFO 220, Music Librarianship
Description: For this assignment, I needed to write a report about the music databases of at least 3 online collections, including information on the databases’ breadth, scope, currency, and potential research uses. The report needed to include information on all relevant music formats: audio, video, journals, and music scores.

This report demonstrates my ability to select and evaluate databases for a music collection in a library. Since libraries have limited budgets, it is important to carefully choose where to spend money on the collection. These databases would not be necessary for a small public library, especially if the patrons are not overwhelmingly interested in classical or folk music or music theory, but the library at a music school would find a lot of use for them. If an information organization has a user base from a specific demographic, it could be useful to include materials for them; for example, the Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries database has thousands of songs from cultural groups like Jewish Americans and African Cubans, so a library with large user populations from those groups may find it a worthwhile purchase.

Artifact 3

Assignment: Discussion Post: Reference Management, Selection and Evaluation of Reference Sources
Course: INFO 210, Reference and Information Services
Description: For this assignment, I needed to write a discussion post based on the week’s readings and lectures regarding reference management and the selection and evaluation of reference sources. The questions to be answered were: what can a reference department do to prevent failures like General Motors’s massive layoffs, the importance of selecting and evaluating sources, and why weeding of materials is important in different kinds of libraries.

This post demonstrates my understanding of collection management, including selecting, evaluating, and weeding materials for a collection. Since this assignment was for a reference class, it is centered around providing those types of services, but the principles apply to any kind of collection. It is important to take user needs into account when selecting materials because of limited budgets, especially subscription-based sources like databases. Weeding should be a part of the collection development policy so staff understands how to determine what materials should be removed. I demonstrate my ability to apply these principles to other kinds of information organizations, as I recall being a law school library user witnessing the weeding process and not understanding its significance.

Conclusion

A collection management policy is integral to any information organization, especially libraries. There are many resources I can consult in the future for professional development on this topic. The ALA has e-learning webinars for a variety of library topics, including many on collection management topics like preservation, collection assessment, and curating collections for teenagers.

References

American Library Association [ALA]. (2018a). Collection maintenance and weeding. https://www.ala.org/tools/challengesupport/selectionpolicytoolkit/weeding

American Library Association [ALA]. (2018b). Selection criteria. https://www.ala.org/tools/challengesupport/selectionpolicytoolkit/criteria

Bolin, M. K. (2022). Metadata, cataloging, linked data, and the evolving ILS. In S. Hirsh (Ed.), Information services today: An introduction. Rowman & Littlefield.

Cassell, K. A., & Hiremath, U. (2023). Reference and information services: An introduction (5th ed.). ALA Neal-Schuman.

Disher, W. (2014). Crash course in collection development (2nd ed.). Libraries Unlimited.

Disher, W. T. (2022). Managing collections. In S. Hirsh (Ed.), Information services today: An introduction. Rowman & Littlefield.

Gregory, V. L. (2019). Collection development and management for 21st century library collections (2nd ed.). ALA Neal-Schuman.

Hibner, H., & Kelly, M. (2023). Making a collection count: A holistic approach to library collection management (3rd ed.). Chandos. https://doi.org/10.1016/C2022-0-01344-1

Library of Congress. (2025). Subject and genre/form headings. https://www.loc.gov/aba/cataloging/subject/

Skinner, K. (2022). Curation and preservation. In S. Hirsh (Ed.), Information services today: An introduction. Rowman & Littlefield.