ALISS Christmas Seminar 2012

Exploring concepts of ‘collection’ in the digital world

Angharad Roberts12/12/12 ALISS Christmas Seminar

12/04/2023 © The University of Sheffield

This presentation:

• Overview of the research• Interview findings• Initial survey findings• Conclusion• Discussion

Conceptualising the library collection for the digital world :A case study of social enterprise


Creative Commons image by jeffmikels from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffmikels/3845418669/


(based on Social Enterprise Alliance, 2012)

What is social enterprise?

Social enterprise and library collections• Interdisciplinary subject• Communities of practice / interest• Diverse stakeholders• Material in all library sectors


Main research question:

What constitutes the concept of the library collection in the digital world?


Research design


• Strand 1: British Library case study• Strand 2: Catalogue searches• Strand 3: Interviews followed by survey

Initial findings: interviews

Interviews• 24 June 2011 – 28 June 2012• 18 interviewees:

• 5 involved with social enterprise

• 6 library and information practitioners

• 2 researchers

• 2 policymakers

• 2 publishers

• 1 administrator


Definitions of collection• Collection as process

• selection

• search

• service

• Collection as store or thing• groups

• sub-groups

• quantity

• Collection as access


Collection as process

From the interviews:“collection... feels like a journey, doesn’t it?” – social enterprise practitioner

“a body of work that has been brought together using a particular set of criteria” – academic

From the literature:“Consider what a collection does rather than what a collection is” – Horava, 2010, p. 150

“A collection is logically defined as a set of criteria for selecting resources from the broader information space” – Lagoze and Fielding, 1998


Collection as store or thingFrom the interviews:

“you’d still have to have some concept of the whole and I think collection just does make it a whole” – librarian

“collection to me seems special and thought through and... like I say with a theme or a kind of motif around it.” – policy maker

“How many sub-groups of collection are there within a collection?” – academic

“More than one and relating to a theme” – academic

From the literature:“subcollections” and groupings of material on a subject – Lee, 2005, pp. 73, 76


Collection as accessFrom the interviews:

“the term collection can mean anything that we provide access to for both teaching and research to do with the university” – librarian

“access to material via an online resource” – research administrator

From the literature:Collection “can also be taken to include all the information resources to which a library has access, including those available through physical and virtual networks” – Feather and Sturges, 2003, pp. 80-81

Lee, 2005 describes customer priorities of access and availability versus librarian priorities of control and management


Collection as lifeboat?

Online resource which preserves e-documents:“sort of lifeboat for information”library and information practitioner

Challenge of deciding what to preserve:“like choosing who gets in the lifeboat”librarian



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Creative Commons image by OZinOH from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/75905404@N00/3576061204/

Collection and the impact of digital• Digital is global:

“the market easily becomes global as long as... your work’s relevant” – publisher

• Digital is personal:“it used to be that... you’d be seeking to digitize the paper world whereas now the paper world is a route into building up your digital world” – academic


• Digital adds complexity:“digital allows you to have an awful lot more depth” – publisher

• Digital – lack of physical space constraints• Echoing Dempsey (2012, 8): inside – out

versus outside – in:“I think if we can organise our assets and get them out there we can actually affect the pedagogy” – librarian


• Digital and the order of collection processes

• Digital and “free” information:“people think that digital is free, which you’ll see it really isn’t... with any digital product.” – publisher

“I would love to recommend students here to go down and access those free of charge instead of complaining that we don’t have something that they want.” – librarian


“I suppose a really good collection is... where you take content and you can merge it, you can cross-fertilise it, you can... discover easily” – publisher


Initial findings: surveys

Two surveys:

• Library and information practitioners:• 338 invitations, 103 responses (30.5%)

• Social enterprise stakeholders:• 445 invitations, 46 responses (10.3%)


Question LIP responses SE responses

Defining collection: options ranked 1, 2 or 3

Group of materials on a subject or theme 95% 80%

Provision of access to resources 48% 52%

Set of results created through searching 37% 43%


Question LIP responses SE responses

Importance of information sources for social enterprise

Libraries: Very important or essential 57% 33%

Google: Very important or essential 53% 80%

Significance of library preservation role

Preserving print: very important or essential 53% 68%

Preserving digital: very important or essential

47% 64%

Preserving customer publications: very important or essential

39% 52%


Some other findings:• Terms for library resources• Community analysis and social enterprise• Small minority have no collection policy

document • Views about the purpose of collection

policy documentation• Sectoral differences in selection methods


Conclusion

Conclusion

• Collection and searching• Shared understandings of “collection”• Interpret “collection” in a dynamic way• A new collection development hierarchy?


Acknowledgements

Thanks to Sheila Corrall, Sheila Webber, Peter Marsh, Sue Ashpitel for their expert guidance and supervision of this project.

Thanks to the interview and survey participants who gave their time to participate in this research.

Thanks to the British Library for supporting this research.


ReferencesBritish Library (2006). The British Library's Content Strategy – Meeting the

Knowledge Needs of the Nation [Online]. London: British Library. http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/findhelpsubject/busmanlaw/contentstrategy.pdf [Accessed 26 November 2012]

Dempsey, L. (2012). Libraries and the informational future: some notes. In G. Marchionini & B. Moran (Eds.), Information Professionals 2050: Educational Possibilities and Pathways (pp. 113-125). Chapel Hill: School of Information and Library Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Retrieved 4 December 2012, from: http://www.oclc.org/resources/research/publications/library/2012/dempsey-informationalfutures.pdf

Feather, J., & Sturges, P. (Eds.). (2003). International Encyclopedia of Information and Library Science. 2nd ed. London: Routledge.

Horava, T. (2010). Challenges and possibilities for collection management in a digital age. Library Resources & Technical Services, 54(3), 142-152.

Lagoze, C., & Fielding, D. (1998). Defining collections in distributed digital libraries. D-Lib Magazine. Retrieved 29 October, 2012 from: http://www.dlib.org/dlib/november98/lagoze/11lagoze.html


http://www.oclc.org/resources/research/publications/library/2012/dempsey-informationalfutures.pdf

http://www.oclc.org/resources/research/publications/library/2012/dempsey-informationalfutures.pdf

http://www.dlib.org/dlib/november98/lagoze/11lagoze.html

Lee, H.-L. (2005). The concept of collection from the user’s perspective. The Library Quarterly, 75(1), 67-85.

Social Enterprise Alliance. (2012). The case for Social Enterprise Alliance. Minnetonka: Social Enterprise Alliance. Retrieved 29 October 2012, from: https://www.se-alliance.org/why#whatsasocialenterprise


https://www.se-alliance.org/why

Thank you!

Any questions?

[email protected]

http://digitalworldcollections.blogspot.com


mailto:[email protected]

http://digitalworldcollections.blogspot.com/

ALISS Christmas Seminar 2012

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