Designing Collection Experiences:5. Selection

Roy Kenagyrjkenagy@netins.net

www.whatwouldranganathando.orgOctober 29, 2013

Waterloo Public Library

What will selectors do?

Other than read reviews?

Traditional Selection | Criteria

What selectors do How selectors decide

Cedar Rapids Public Library, a long time ago.

“In the hard-hitting works of Harold Robbins, even the sacred isn't sacred.”

Sony Reader Store

Free Library of Philadelphia, home of the original Greenaway Plan (1958).

In war, then, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns.

Sun Tzu, Chapter 2

Define Your Objective

The Mission of Librarians is to Improve Society through Facilitating Knowledge Creation in their Communities.

R. David Lankes

“The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners.”

The Stranger (Sam Elliott) in The Big Lebowski

Conversation abides.

The mission of librarians is to help readers create transformative meaning in their lives and in the lives of others.

Transformative meaning…

is pretty much by definition narrative.

Mode

Narration

Exemplar

Exposition Theory Practice Praxis Affordance

Narrative transformation matrix

True crime

Celebrity diets

Martha Stewart cookbooks?

Deck-building manuals

Travel guides

Pregnancy & childbirth manuals

The Pentateuch

Anticipation

Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.

Sun Tzu, Chapter 4

The half-life of texts

Publishing | Publicity | Reviewing Word of Mouth

Pre-order

Academic approval plansAutomatically yours

Pre-duplicate

The Harold Robbins syndrome: Why you should avoid relying on the volume of holds when you add duplicates.

Selection / Acquisition / Cataloging turn-around

Measure: Release time to shelf.

Reader requests

Purchase requests | Holds

Tactics Mj

Tactical Mjbudgeting Mj

The MjSelection Mj

Target Mj

Exploiting the MjTerrain Mj

The Selection Target

Title

Series

Format

Genre

Topic

Author

Placing a Bet

Popularity | Quality

Heterogeneous Granularity

We need all the clues we can get.

What is the best indicator of future use of a library text?

Where can we find the best evidence for the quality of a text?

Place your first bets on the titles that have a track record.

Renewals

Renewal

Replacement | New editions | Duplication

We may distinguish six kinds of terrain, to wit: (1) Accessible ground;

(2) entangling ground;

(3) temporizing ground;

(4) narrow passes; (5) precipitous heights; (6) positions at a great distance from the enemy.

Sun Tzu, Chapter 10

Exploiting the Terrain

Professional Resources

Reviews | Databases | Bibliographies

Booklist Online

Pregnancy and Childbirth titles

11 total2010 – 62011 – 32012 – 2

Jobbers

Ingram | Baker and Taylor | BrodartEtc.

Retailers

Amazon | Barnes & Noble Half-Price Books | etc.

Benchmark Libraries

• Hennepin County (Minneapolis suburbs)• Allen County (Fort Wayne)• Skokie (Chicago suburb) • Multnomah County (Portland)• County of Los Angeles• Queens• Iowa City

Benchmark library holdings: Pregnancy and Childbirth

2012 2011 2010 MeanHennepin County 35 29 26 30 IUPLA [WorldCat] 27 24 16 22 Allen County 24 25 15 21 Skokie 29 21 11 20 Multnomah County 18 24 17 20 County of Los Angeles 16 26 16 19 Queens 17 18 13 16 Iowa City 17 13 3 11 Mean 23 23 15

Publication DateBenchmark Library

Ti tle I ncr eas e multi ple

Increase in Number of Titles by Collection Scope

0

3

6

9

12

15

Discontent,Sadness, etc…

Happiness Eternal Joy The Cat'sPajamas

Collection Level

Average

High

Low

Serenity

Collection ScopeTitle increase multiple

Low Average High

Happiness 1 1 1

Serenity 2 2.5 3

Eternal Joy 4 5 6

The Cat’s Pajamas 8 10 12

42 copies; 2008 38 copies; 2009 34 copies; 2009

31 copies; 2009 27 copies; 2011 26 copies; 2013

How many titles will you add annually?

Renewal Mj

Streaming Mj

Concentration Mj

Tactical Mjbudgeting Mj

Renewal

Weeding | Replacement | Duplication

Streaming

Eliminating foregone conclusions.

Collecting Artifacts

Not to scale

The resource sets librarians traditionally have “selected” from

Concentration

Keeping your balance on the cutting edge.