Collection Development for My Random Life.

The acquisitions department in my library is moving our collection development selection process online. As a librarian, I have the option of using LibraryThing or Blackwell’s Collection Manager to upload my collection requests. What I like about this, is that we are being given the option to use either of these tools. The acquisitions department is going export everything to Excel so they don’t care what we use.  In fact, if I find something else that is exportable to an Excel file, I could potentially use that too as a collection development device. It is great to be given choices to make this process customizable to my own collection development style.

Now why can’t libraries do something similar for its users? Much of  a library’s collection is (or could be) available in other places besides the online catalog. Patrons can find library books in Worldcat, Google Books, even LibraryThing if we upload it or just simply make it available.  Why do libraries limit the access to their collections within the library most often only to their online catalog? Why can’t we give our users the choice of which interface they feel more comfortable using to find their books they want?

I think patrons like to have choices too, so let’s make the library customizable to the users needs.

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