Curating the Pellissippi State Libraries Book Collection
Curating the collection
The Pellissippi State Libraries are classified as an academic library of utility, meaning that we curate a targeted collection of materials to meet the day-to-day needs for study, research, and teaching. Collection assessment is an established practice in academic libraries and includes:
- Ensuring the collection is current and relevant.
- Identifying gaps in subject coverage for adding new titles.
- Increasing the librarians’ knowledge of the collection and the college curriculum.
- Identifying titles to replace with newer editions.
- Removing titles from the collection.
- Making it easier to find titles and use the collection.
- Adhering to the collection development policy.
Why some titles were removed
Collection assessment is a holistic data-informed process in which librarians make intentional decisions to curate a collection.
The goals of a collection assessment project are:
- To ensure a curated collection that is current, accurate, and aligned with the college’s curriculum.
- To follow best practices in librarianship.
- To comply with our collection development policy.
- To increase space for use by the college community, including quiet study spaces, and collaborative, social, and productivity spaces.
Who made the decisions?
Professional librarians at all four college campuses made decisions about the collection.
How did librarians make the decisions?
To assess titles in the collection, librarians used the following criteria:
- CONTENT
- Is the information misleading or factually inaccurate?
- Has the title been superseded by a newer edition"
- Is the content trivial with no discernable literary or scientific merit?
- Is the content irrelevant to the needs and/or interests of the college?
- Is the title a duplicate copy that we need?
- Does the content include based, racist, or sexist views or terminology?
- Is the title easily available from other libraries?
- USE
- Has the ever circulated?
- How many times?
- When was the last time it circulated?
- When was the title added to the collection? (To ensure it's had time to circulate)
- PERSONAL BIAS
- Does the title interest you personally?
- Does the title offend you or not align with your own beliefs?
- CURRICULUM SUPPORT
- Is there a research assignment in a course syllabus that requires the title?
- Are there other, better materials that will also meet this need?
- Is the item in support of a course or program that no longer exists?
- Is it a landmark title in the field?
- FORMAT
- Do we hold the title in another format, e.g., digital, print?
- Is the content available in one of our databases?
- OTHER
- Is the item self-published or published by an instant, pay to play, or vanity press?
- Should we transfer it to another library location, e.g., works on Appalachia at the Strawberry Plains Campus Library?
- Does it include local or state history relevant to our college community?
- The Collections Librarian shared reports with specific information about each item's circulation history and when it was added to the collection.
What recommendations did librarians make?
Librarians made the following recommendations about titles in the collection:
- Keep the item in the same location.
- Transfer the item to another campus location.
- Replace the item with a newer edition.
- Replace the item with another title on the subject.
- Replace the item with an e-book.
- Withdraw the book from the collection.
Librarians identified over 1,200 new titles to be added to the collection.
Can I suggest titles to add to the collection?
The Libraries encourages faculty, staff, and students to recommend titles to add to the collection. All recommendations will be considered in the context of the collection development policy.
