Thursday 6.30 - 9.10
No class room assigned
(This is a desktop to desktop delivered course. Knoxville students may
take the course at home.)
455 Communications Building [865-974-7918]
wrobins1@utk.edu
web.utk.edu/~wrobinso/
1.00 - 3.00 Tuesday, Thursday
Before class
Other times by appointment
These are my official office hours, but I will be pleased to see you at other times. I often work at home on Mondays. If I am not in my office, please leave a note in my Comm 450 mail box or send me an email message.
Email is the best way for students who are not often on campus to communicate with me. I normally check my email several times per day during the work week and once a day [in the morning] on weekends and holidays. Normally, I can answer your queries within a few hours.
If you need course adaptations or accommodations because of a documented disability or if you have emergency information to share, please contact the Office of Disability Services at 191 Hoskins Library at 865-974-6087. This will ensure that you are properly registered for services. It is also important to meet with the teacher to discuss your situation.
Selecting and preserving a variety of items (tangible and intangible) to meet needs of particular users; community analysis; policies and procedures; evaluation; purchasing.
This course will introduce the principles, philosophy, and
practice of collection development and management to meet
particular needs. The course--text (when used), lectures, and
assignments--attempts to cover the most important aspects of
collection development and management. The course deals with
collections in a general sense rather than collections
limited to a
particular subject, format or agency. Examples will be taken from a
variety of settings, but many will come from libraries where
collection development and management tends to be more established
and where the teacher has more experience. Please note that
collections may contain items in any format. For example, a zoo
is an animal collection and a garden is a plant collection.
While classroom activities will be somewhat general, assignments will involve the student with a specific community, agency, collection, subject and format.
Since there will be about 45 hours of classroom time, some important topics will not be covered extensively in the class. The following is a tentative schedule of topics to be covered in the course. The nature of the topic, the amount of class discussion, and the discovery of new material may result in changes. We may not cover all of the topics listed below.
Lecture notes for the topics covered in this class are available
at the teacher's website. Please read the appropriate lecture
notes before that topic is presented in class. Class room
presentations will assume that you are familiar with the lecture
content and may NOT repeat content from the notes. When
PowerPoint slides are used, they represent important content from the
notes, but only highlights.
This course is presented in a desktop to desktop mode using Centra software using the Windows OS. Knoxville students may take the course in the 321B classroom using its work stations or at home. If you elect to take the course at home, you are responsible for insuring that your home computer meets the Centra requirements and has that software installed. See the Outreach Cyberclass WWW site. We will also use the Blackboard CourseInfo software DropBox to deposit student work and to provide printable access to the PowerPoint lecture notes.
When you complete this course, you should be able to:
This is primarily a lecture course. However, lectures are interruptible and appropriate questions likely to interest the class are encouraged. Prepare yourself for the subjects which will be discussed in class by doing the appropriate reading. Review the lecture notes. Think about issues raised and relate them to your own experience.
Only a few topics can be covered in class. Much of what you learn will come from the time, effort, and thought given to the assignments. Class time is used to introduce the student to general concerns, problems, and trends. Since class time will not provide the student with specific how to do it information about assignments, students should discuss particular concerns, questions or problems with the teacher outside of class.
Class attendance is not required. However, failure to attend class and participate in class discussions will be considered in the student's final grade if performance on assignments is marginal.
The University, because of its residential nature, rarely closes even when the weather is dreadful. The School does not have a dangerous weather policy, but leaves these decisions to individual faculty members. If the University is open, but road conditions are dangerous where you live or if you are anxious about future road conditions, stay at home. The teacher will not come to the University to meet with the class or to broadcast if roads are dangerous where he lives. Makeups are difficult with desktop delivery courses because of scarce studio facilities and evenings. At the moment, the teacher is unable to teach from home.
The teacher will post a note on UTKSIS-L and UTKSISDE if he is unable to meet the class.
All written work must be word processed or typed using double spaced content. Please use at least a 11 point font. Distance Education students will submit papers written in MS Word to the BlackBoard DropBox. Knoxville students may use the DropBox or give their work to the teacher. Distance education student work will not be returned, but comments will be sent via email. Knoxville students will have their written work returned to their Comm 440 mail boxes IF their mail box number is on the front page. Turabian is the official SIS style manual.
Each assignment may be done by an individual or a team of two students. Teams are self-selected. Each team assignment should close with a brief statement indicating what each student contributed to the assignment.
1. The first evaluation exercise (100 points) requires you to identify an item that has received at least three reviews [more are better]. Please answer these questions:
I am looking for:
2. The second evaluation assignment (100 points) requires you to answer ONE of the following questions. The purpose of this assignment is to demonstrate your ability to evaluate and select the best from a pool of items. Best for what and best for whom will be important in a thoughtful response. You will also need to briefly characterize the pool of available items and discuss your evaluation and selection process.
I am looking for:
3. You will develop a collection on a reasonably sized subject using appropriate formats.
Select a local organization, group, or agency with a need for a professionally developed collection. Please be reasonable in any demands which you make on local contacts. Make an appointment and organize yourself so as to make minimal demands on other's time. Develop a collection in your subject or topic following the collection development process described on the separate process handout available via the teacher's website. Your chosen organization and subject must be approved by the teacher. This assignment is worth 650 points.
Late work may not be accepted. If accepted, late work without a persuasive rationale will be given a letter grade penalty which will reduce the optimum grade to B. Discussion before the due date may provide an extension without penalty.
Incomplete grades are given only in extraordinary circumstances. If you are aware of a problem likely to make it difficult to meet a course deadline, please contact the teacher as soon as possible. Rationale statements are less likely to be accepted after the deadline has passed.
Academic honesty is an integral part of graduate study. Cheating, plagiarism, and other acts of academic dishonesty will be dealt with severely as set forth in Hilltopics, the UT student handbook. It is also important to note it is normal for graduate students to help each other in a variety of ways while still being responsible for creating their own intellectual property and clearly indicating where they are in debt to others.
As an introductory course which should give you basic information about selection, evaluation, and acquisitions, the course is not comprehensive. Important aspects of collection development and management will be mentioned only in passing. The course cannot tell you all that you need to know. Rather, you should leave the course with the feeling that you know enough to continue your education on your own. One short course cannot give you the collection development and management competencies necessary for a professional lifetime.
Class time will emphasize basic concerns. Students will be responsible for becoming familiar with a variety of bibliographic and other sources on their own time. Note that use of a variety of appropriate sources is required for success with the project. The teacher may discuss appropriate sources with the student at a mutually convenient time.
Since there is much to do and time is limited, establish your own schedule and stick with it. Plan on completing the first assignments soon so that you have adequate time for the major selection project.
Besides the specific assignment specifications mentioned above or on other course hand outs, ALL written work will be evaluated according to the following criteria:
The following convention is used in evaluating student work:
| A | Substantially exceeds expectations | 93 - 100 percent |
| B+ | Exceeds expectations | 88 - 92 percent |
| B | Meets expectations | 83 - 87 percent |
| C+ | Meets some expectations | 78 - 82 percent |
| C | Meets few expectations | 73 - 77 percent |
We will have a text this term: The
Responsive Public Library: How to
Develop and Market a Winning Collection by Sharon Baker and
Karen L.
Wallace. Please ignore the main title and focus on the subtitle. This
book is widely applicable for the student with a little imagination.
A frequently used standard text is Developing Library and
Information Center Collections by G. Edward Evans (Libraries
Unlimited, 2000). A much more recent text would be Fundamentals of Collection Development and
Managment by Peggy Johnson issued by ALA. This is a
comprehensive treatment and would be a good substitute for the adopted
text if it included more content on marketing.
Other older texts for those interested in library collections are widely available {call numbers below are for the UTK Libraries but similar ones should be found in other LC classed collections} and include: Collection Management: Background and Principles by Wortman [Z689 .W787 1989]; Carter, Bonk and Magrill, Building Library Collections; Katz, Collection Development; Ranganathan, The Five Laws of Library Science [Z670 .R22 1963]; and Broadus, Selecting Materials for Libraries [Z689.B86]. Collection Development in Libraries [Z687 .C64] was a state of the art review which is dated but still has many of the useful characteristics of a text.
Collection Management [Z687 .D42] is the most useful of those periodicals which regularly treat library collection development but as a Haworth title is is somewhat suspect. Library Resources and Technical Services [Z671 .L717] publishes research articles on library collection development and acquisition work. Library Collections, Acquisitions, and Technical Services can also be useful. It was formerly Library Acquisitions: Practice and Theory.
A useful and comprehensive website for acquisitions and collection development is AcqWeb.This site now includes a directory of selected collection development policies on the WWW.
Several of the many library and information science discussion groups on the Internet deal with CDM on an irregular basis, usually by subject or type of library. You may also want to check with your favorite discussion list index to check for lists that deal with highly focused collection development on a topic such as printing history or a format such as maps.
The American Library Association has two units devoted to collection development and management. The Resources Section of the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services [ALCTS], with its Collection Management and Development Committee, has traditionally been the association home for collection developers. Recently, the Reference and User Services Association has created a Collection Development and Evaluation Section. The degree to which these two sections cover the same scope is presently unclear. Ideally, the prospective library collection developer should belong to both.
***Please see the teacher if you have special needs, objectives, or problems