tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469661005521080252012-02-16T02:08:31.518-08:00Deborahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09328384855029600123noreply@blogger.comBlogger11100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-946966100552108025.post-29472720782528993482009-06-01T07:24:00.000-07:002009-06-01T08:31:56.157-07:00North Texas librarians are participating in an online program to learn "23 Things" about Web 2.0 tools. Setting up this blog will let me share 20+ years of collection management successes and frustrations. I'm currently the Collection Management Administrator at Fort Worth Library. Before that, I had similar positions at Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Free Library and Springfield (Mass) City Library, with a brief but enjoyable foray to the Dark Side at Sirsi.<br /><br />About 10 years ago, after a particularly frustrating head-banger of a day, I typed these up and stuck them on a bulletin board in the office. Somehow they made their way around the Web, then Charlie Robinson picked them up in the March 1999 issue of <em>Library Administrator's Digest</em>. Looking back over them, they seem as relevant now as they did then. We'll address each one in future posts, and maybe come up with some more.<br /><ul><li>"Circulating" implies the book comes back. </li><li>Books are tools. When they're no longer useful, throw them away and get better ones.</li><li>An old book is not necessarily a bad book.</li><li>A new book is not necessarily a good book.</li><li>A book is good only if it's used once in a while.</li><li>If the collection is "self-weeding," what's left on the shelf isn't worth stealing. Weed it!</li><li>Just because it would leave the shelves bare doesn't mean we don't weed it.</li><li>Just because it'll get stolen doesn't mean we don't buy it.</li><li>Building a collection with gifts isn't collection building.</li><li>Gift books aren't free.</li><li>Better multiple copies of one good book than single copies of lots of mediocre ones.</li><li>A book sitting in Tech Services does no one any good. </li><li>A request in the hand is worth two "maybes" in the bush.</li><li>No one wants to tell a customer that we didn't buy more copies of the book he wants to read because we're saving the money to buy something that someone might want to read some day.</li><li>Multiple copies of popular titles that circulate many times a year and then die are just as good of a use of taxpayers' dollars as single copies of single titles that circulate seldom but steadily over several years.</li><li>If it hasn't been used in the last two years, it's probably not going to be used at all.</li><li>A good collection has something offensive for everybody.</li><li>No book at all is better than one that's inaccurate or out of date.</li><li>Internet access can enhance a collection. It can't replace it. </li></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/946966100552108025-2947272078252899348?l=librarycollectionmanagement.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Deborahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09328384855029600123noreply@blogger.com2