Best Practices for Collection Managers

FUND MANAGEMENT AND RESOURCE ALLOCATION

Collection managers manage designated fund lines with subject responsibility for the selection of materials that provide direct support to the instructional and research programs of the University. They work with their designated academic departments to build and maintain a collection that balances the needs of students, staff, and faculty. Collection managers evaluate all selection requests for appropriateness to the collection and maintain awareness of new information resources available for purchase. They are responsible for spending their funds in a timely manner, in accordance with the fiscal calendar and departmental needs.

• Review all approval and purchase plan shipments and monitor the approval and purchase plan profiles (making adjustments as necessary) to ensure the appropriateness of the materials supplied.
• Utilize vendor supply notification slips or forms, publisher catalogs, advertisements, and book reviews to make selection decisions.
• Review gift materials for possible acquisition and make replacement purchase decisions for lost or long overdue books.
• Address user needs for new journals and for online access to existing subscriptions.
• Assess and make purchase recommendations regarding new databases and other electronic products.

Communication between collection managers and stakeholders is critical to effective fund management. Their collaboration builds a collection with broader awareness of University needs, helping to maintain a quality research collection. Collection managers are responsible for communication with their designated academic departments as well as with their colleagues.

• Work with the reference fund manager to ensure ongoing purchase of needed reference material.
• Collaborate with departmental/school budget officers as appropriate.
• Collaborate with colleagues to meet cross-disciplinary needs. This can include creating or working with an Interest Group to explore cross-disciplinary needs.
• Maintain an awareness of collection endowment possibilities and grants.

PROJECTS OR COLLECTION-WIDE INITIATIVES

Effective collection management requires active participation in collaborative collection building and collection management. To foster collection-wide coordination in collection building and management, CMT regularly develops collection-wide projects and initiatives. Several of these occur on a regular basis (such as Serial Review and Big Ticket Prioritization), but occasionally special projects are needed. Typically collection-wide projects have clear goals and processes are developed by CMT. CMT tries to design processes for special projects to provide individual Collection managers with as much flexibility as practical in meeting the goals of the project. Collection managers thus need to work effectively within the framework provided, but must also make independent decisions about how to best manage the collections for which they have responsibility.

• Make sure they understand fully the nature and goals of the project or initiative. If their input is needed for process development, they offer thoughtful advice. They attend any orientation or discussion sessions that are arranged to ensure they understand the process fully. They collaborate and consult with colleagues to ensure that they are implementing processes effectively and to ensure that interdisciplinary issues are addressed. They meet any established deadlines and provide any output required by the process.
• Regularly monitor CMT and ERC minutes to ensure that they are aware when special projects are under development, are prepared to offer input and advice when opportunities arise, and are informed about the details of any processes that are developed.
• Follow the processes developed for the project. They use any data, reports, documents, etc. provided as resources thoroughly, thoughtfully, and creatively in completing their assignment.
• Recognize that most collection wide initiatives require both individual work and cooperative work at the subject team level or in other groups. They complete their preparations fully and in a timely manner to allow them to work effectively with their teammates as well as their own collections.
• Communicate with faculty as needed about collection-wide initiatives. In communications with faculty they strive to build support for initiatives, conveying the importance and value of the project for the collections and library service. Where faculty participation is encouraged, they work with teaching faculty to ensure they understand their role and have opportunity to participate fully. At the same time, effective Collection managers recognize that the responsibility for collection management rests with them and are prepared to act in the absence of faculty input as a last resort.
• Prepare in advance for initiatives that occur regularly such as Serial Review and Big Ticket Prioritization. For instance, they maintain ongoing awareness of needed expensive items and talk to faculty regularly about serial subscriptions.

CITIZENSHIP

Citizenship represents the ways in which members of CMT demonstrate their responsibilities to building and maintaining the UM Libraries� research collections.

• Abide by CMT (core tasks/best practices).
• Contribute to the preservation of library materials by following sound preservation practices such as those outlined in the UM Libraries Preservation Guidelines for Shelving Books, and by avoiding exposure of collections to food and drink.
• Participate in UM Libraries meetings dealing with collection development issues.
• Seek leadership and mentoring opportunities in collection management work, such as committee membership with local or regional committees.
• Interact effectively with colleagues in other library units teams.
• Collaborate with colleagues within and beyond the Libraries to promote and improve collection management.

COLLECTION EVALUATION

Periodically an academic department asks its liaison librarian to conduct a formal collection evaluation. These are most often done either to establish or renew accreditation or to determine whether or not the existing collections could support a new program, a new degree, or a new certificate that might be offered on campus. In either case, typically the collection manager creates a memo from the library and submits it to the accrediting body or to the campus curriculum committee. The librarian might be asked to do similar evaluation for departmental self-evaluations or for campus-mandated department reviews (which are often scheduled every 5 years). Through their liaison activities (see "Liaison," below) librarians will learn from their departments when such documentation from the libraries is needed.

Librarians should be prepared to respond to such requests in a timely manner and with the level of detail required. To do so, effective collection managers:

• Notify the Director of Collection Management and Special Collections and the Collection Management Team Leader that the request has been made.
• Work with the Collection Management Team to collect the data necessary to support the memo.
• Are familiar with standard bibliographies in the discipline where these are available.
• Maintain awareness of current curricula and planned curriculum changes.

Informal collection evaluation should take place on a periodic basis, at the librarian's discretion. The purpose of this type of evaluation is for collection maintenance as well as to gather information that might inform selection decisions. In this case, effective collection managers:

• Visit the stacks to gauge the condition of materials and to maintain awareness of the general condition of the stacks.
• Review collections to identify unneeded, outdated or superseded editions and make decisions for transfer or withdrawal.
• Review data on lost, missing or long over-due materials and make decisions for replacement purchases.
• Check standard bibliographies for the discipline, where such exist, to check the collection for gaps. Determine if retrospective collection development is warranted.
• Consult with the Preservation Department.
• Work with available system reports.
• Make decisions regarding purchasing replacements or withdrawing copies in keeping with standard fund management and resource selection practices (see above).

LIAISON

Developing relationships between the University Libraries and academic departments at the University of Maryland is a core responsibility for collection managers guided by the Collections Management Team. The Collection Management Team recognizes that a variety of approaches promotes rapport between the University Libraries and academic departments or special collections and considers liaison activities an essential contribution to the ongoing mission of the University Libraries for providing support of teaching and research across the curriculum. Individual Collection managers assume responsibility for stimulating and encouraging viable relationships between the University Libraries and their respective academic departments or recognized special interest groups. In liaison relationships the Collection Management Team strives to promote transparency grounded in mutual respect, shared understanding, and awareness of the challenges and opportunities inherent in simultaneously serving narrowly defined specialized areas of academic creativity and more generalized areas of pursuit within the university community. Examples of liaison activities appropriate for collection managers are limited only by the imagination of the collection managers working together with academic departments to forge mutually beneficial alliances. Effective alliances, of this kind, are based on shared understanding and commitment to service throughout the university. Individual collection managers are encouraged to combine various activities, as appropriate and useful, in achieving the desired ends previously stated above.

• Work closely with assigned department to develop an understanding of the ongoing needs for library resources and collections.
• Attend meetings of academic departments when possible to report on library acquisitions and gather information related to collections.
• Consult with faculty about departmental requests for new or updated acquisitions.
• Respond to faculty requests in a timely fashion.
• Provide faculty with a full explanation and rationale for initiatives or reviews related to collections.
• Attend departmental seminars, colloquia, and symposiums, as schedule permits, to increase awareness and understanding of teaching and research interests.
• Inform faculty, students, and staff of new resources. Offer instruction or guides to facilitate use when appropriate.
• Attend departmental orientations for new faculty and students.
• Send welcome letters or letters of introduction to new hires.
• Monitor changes in curriculum related to both traditional and interdisciplinary initiatives.

TECHNICAL SERVICES

Effective collection managers build collegial relationships with technical services faculty and staff. Excellent collection managers consider the impacts of their selection decisions on TSD staff resources. Effective collection managers work with TSD staff to promote reasonable patterns of workflow enabling the most efficient use of staff resources, cooperating with quotas, targets, freezes, deadlines, etc.

• Work with preservation staff to identify those portions of the collections in need of conservation or preservation care;
• Provide their expertise in identifying highly used materials that merit special attention to preserve these materials for future use;
• Consult with Preservation staff regularly in making treatment decisions. This may consist of a single title or an entire subject range needing deacidification, repair or replacement.

• Understand and apply preservation guidelines for the safe handling of library materials;
• Attend preservation training workshops in order to further enhance their knowledge of these guidelines.

• Provide Acquisitions staff with complete and accurate information for orders/cancellations/status report requests;
• Respond quickly to requests for clarification or additional information;
• Maintain responsible relationships with publishers, vendors and other providers of library materials;
• Are also excellent fiscal managers, planning the spending of their monies so as to minimize funds held over into the next fiscal year and to prevent last minute ordering;
• Consult with Acquisitions staff when preparing orders that require particular attentions or when making special requests;
• Consult with Acquisitions staff when evaluating an acquisition, particularly gift materials, in comparison to the costs of normal processing as well as necessary preservation/conservation measures, which may also require consultation with Preservation staff.

• Work with cataloguing staff to ensure appropriate classification of materials;
• Make responsible decisions to move, withdraw or reclassify materials and communicate those decisions clearly to cataloging staff;
• Seek assistance from TSD staff experts when interpreting records.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

An effective collection manager will take advantage of opportunities to learn about and contribute to collection development work, issues, and the publishing universe of his or her subject specialization(s).

Successful collection management depends on collection managers keeping current with new collection development work and issues, such as the advent of electronic formats, and gaining expertise and knowledge on information resources in their subject field(s).

• Attend relevant on-campus and off-campus training sessions to learn about new and existing products.
• Attend Collection Management Team (CMT) and Electronic Resource Committee (ERC) sponsored training sessions on collection management issues.
• Attend professional conferences, especially those sponsored by library associations, publishing groups, or academic societies related to your subject specialization(s).
• When feasible, join library, academic, or professional associations related to collection management issues or subject specialization.
• Monitor new developments in the field through joining appropriate list-servs and reading professional literature, especially the major review journals in your subject field(s).

Collection managers should strive to have an impact on the profession of collection management and the publishing universe in their field(s) through scholarly research, writing, and collaboration with publishers.

• Develop relationships with publishers so that you may be consulted in the development of new products, or sit on their editorial advisory committees or boards.
• Research collection management issues for publication or presentation at professional conferences.

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