• Will the processes and concepts of collection development and collection management in 2020 will be unrecognisable from those used in the late 1990s? The case of UK public libraries

    Author(s):
    Isadore Auerbach George (see profile)
    Date:
    2019
    Group(s):
    CityLIS
    Subject(s):
    Collection development (Libraries), Digital media, Information technology--Moral and ethical aspects, Library science, Information science, Libraries, History, Social justice
    Item Type:
    Essay
    Tag(s):
    bame, lgbtq, technology change, Collection development, Information ethics, Library and information science, Library history
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/a21n-rm36
    Abstract:
    Collections development refers to the practice of adding items to the collection of a library, and collections management refers to what happens to these items after they join (Johnson, 2018). These terms encompass diverse activities from deciding the scope of a collection to a policy for de-selection (or ‘weeding’). Practice will vary between special, academic, corporate, and public libraries, and which regulatory jurisdiction they fall under. Collections practice also changes through time, as technology, ideology, communities and economic conditions all fluctuate. In this essay, I discuss changes in collections development and management in the last 25 years, with a focus on UK public libraries. I evaluate these against the statement that the concept and processes of collections practice are, as we enter 2020, “unrecognisable” from those in the late 1990s. I examine these changes in three sections: paradigm shifts in library practice, as driven by the Internet revolution; economic changes that have affected libraries during this period; and the social changes in the communities public libraries serve. In reality all these factors work together and affect one another in a way that cannot be neatly unpicked.
    Notes:
    This essay was written in December 2019 as part of the module 'Information Management and Policy' in the CityLIS MSc course.
    Metadata:
    xml
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    3 years ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved
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