Collection Evaluation in Academic Libraries: A Guide and Annotated Bibliography PDF
Preview Collection Evaluation in Academic Libraries: A Guide and Annotated Bibliography
Page iii Collection Evaluation in Academic Libraries A Literature Guide and Annotated Bibliography Thomas E. Nisonger 1992 LIBRARIES UNLIMITED, INC. Englewood, Colorado Page iii Collection Evaluation in Academic Libraries A Literature Guide and Annotated Bibliography Thomas E. Nisonger 1992 LIBRARIES UNLIMITED, INC. Englewood, Colorado Page iv This book is dedicated to my father, Irvin J. Nisonger, and the memory of my mother, Mary C. Nisonger. Copyright © 1992 Libraries Unlimited, Inc. All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. LIBRARIES UNLIMITED, INC. P.O. Box 6633 Englewood, CO 801556633 Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data Nisonger, Thomas E. Collection evaluation in academic libraries : a literature guide and annotated bibliography / Thomas E. Nisonger. xix, 271 p. 17x25 cm. Includes indexes. ISBN 0872879259 1. Libraries, University and collegeCollection development EvaluationBibliography. 2. Collection development (Libraries) EvaluationBibliography. I. Title. Z675.U5N58 1992 025.2'1877dc20 9211037 CIP Page v Contents Acknowledgments vii Introduction ix Abbreviations xvii 1 Survey Works 1 General Survey Works 2 Overviews from a Special Perspective 10 Bibliographies 13 2 Methods and Methodology 15 Methodological Discussions 15 The Checklist Method 17 Other Methods 19 Measurement of Holdings 23 Measurement of Use 25 Miscellaneous 27 Notes 29 3 Case Studies 30 Collection Evaluation Case Studies in a Single Library 31 Notes 36 4 Use Studies 37 General and Miscellaneous Use Studies 38 Periodical Use 47 Government Documents Use 54 The Pittsburgh Study 55 Notes 60 5 Availability Studies and Document Delivery Tests 61 Availability Studies 62 Document Delivery Tests 71 Notes 72 6 Overlap Studies 74 Overlap Studies 75 Collective Evaluations of Two or More Library Collections 79 Page vi 7 Standards 83 Official Statements 85 Other 90 Notes 95 8 Citation Studies 97 General and Miscellaneous 99 Case Studies Using Citation Analysis for Collection Evaluation 106 Structure of Disciplines or Subjects 111 Notes 119 9 The RLG Conspectus and the National Shelflist Count 120 The Conspectus—General 123 Case Studies of Implementation of the Conspectus in North America 130 The Conspectus in Europe 132 The Conspectus in Australia and New Zealand 136 The Pacific Northwest Conspectus 138 The North American Collections Inventory Project 142 Verification Studies 145 The National Shelflist Count 146 Notes 149 10 Evaluation of Serials 150 General and Miscellaneous Discussions 151 Serials Evaluation Models 162 Identification of Core Journals 164 Serials Cancellation Case Studies 167 Notes 176 11 Journal Ranking 177 Theoretical Discussions 179 Journal Rankings in Business 185 Journal Rankings in the Social Sciences 192 Journal Rankings in Other Disciplines 202 Notes 207 12 Application of Automation to Collection Evaluation 209 Automated Systems 210 Software 214 Online Searching 216 Miscellaneous 218 Notes 222 Glossary 223 Author/Title Index 229 Subject Index 255 Page vii Acknowledgments The author is indebted to numerous individuals who assisted in a variety of capacities. I gratefully acknowledge these contributions. Irvin J. Nisonger, my father, gave me the original inspiration to write a book. Claire, Suzanne, and Stanley Nisonger, my wife and children respectively, patiently endured countless hours when my attention was occupied by an article or a computer terminal. Suzanne also photocopied many articles and input some annotations into the word processor, while Claire verified a number of citations. Herbert S. White, former dean of Indiana University's School of Library and Information Science (SLIS), made this book possible by hiring me into a library and information science faculty. Daniel J. Callison, as acting dean of Indiana University's SLIS, arranged a convenient teaching load to allow timely manuscript completion. Judith Serebnick, associate professor of Library and Information Science at Indiana University, and Robert N. Broadus, professor at the School of Information and Library Science, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, read preliminary drafts of the manuscript and provided valuable feedback and encouragement. Blaise Cronin, dean, Indiana University's SLIS, provided helpful assistance. David V. Loertscher, senior acquisitions editor of Libraries Unlimited, offered valuable advice throughout this project. Pat Riesenman, a librarian at Indiana University, conducted a DIALOG online search. Karen Fouchereaux, Donna Rhiver, Ben Burck, Anne Fliotsos, and Cathy Zeljak, my graduate assistants over the course of several years, diligently tracked down citations, photocopied innumerable articles, and assisted with inputting. I also thank the Indiana University Office of Research and the University Graduate School for funding $100 of a DIALOG online search. Any deficiencies are the author's own responsibility. Page ix Introduction This guide's primary objective is to summarize the literature published since 1980 that is pertinent to academic library collection evaluation. The intended audience is anyone interested in collection evaluation in academic libraries. This consists of two broad categories: 1) library practitioners, including fulltime collection development specialists, administrators, and librarians with partial collection development responsibilities; and 2) individuals in library science education, including students, faculty, and researchers. The Boundaries of Collection Evaluation It is relatively easy to define collection evaluation. On the most fundamental level, the term means assessing the intrinsic quality of a library's holdings. On a broader level, the term includes determining how well the collection is serving its purpose and meeting patron information needs. As stated in the Magrill and Corbin textbook, "Collection evaluation is concerned with how good a collection is in terms of the kinds of materials in it and the value of each item in relation to items not in the collection, to the community being served, and to the library's potential users." 1 Paul Mosher identified several benefits to be derived from conducting a collection evaluation: 1. Understanding the collection's scope, depth, and utility 2. Assisting with collection planning 3. Acting as an aid to writing a collection development policy 4. Measuring a collection development policy's effectiveness 5. Determining collection quality 6. Improving the collection by rectifying deficiencies Page x 7. Focusing human and financial resources on areas requiring attention 8. Justifying budget increases 9. Convincing administrators that action is being taken to rectify the "bottomless pit" of library acquisitions. 2 In recent years there has been increasing interest in the evaluation of innumerable types of library and information services. A keyword search of the term evaluation in the Library Literature CDROM database covering December 1984 through June 1991 revealed 5,538 entries; a similar search in the Library & Information Science Abstracts CDROM database covering 1969 through March 1991 identified 4,421 entries. In the Mission of the Librarian, Ortega y Gasset observed that a librarian's role is to help patrons filter out from the "torrent of books" the small portion that meets their information needs.3 In a sense, a bibliography performs the same function, by filtering out from the vast array of published material the portion that seems most relevant to the topic and useful to the reader. Thus, this bibliography seeks to filter out from the vast library and information services evaluation literature the portion most relevant to academic library collection evaluation. Determining the boundaries encompassed by the collection evaluation concept is much more challenging than defining the term itself. Nevertheless, based on the coverage in textbook chapters on evaluation, the ALA Guide to the Evaluation of Library Collections (see entry 1), as well as the work of such authorities as F. Wilfrid Lancaster (see entry 16) and Paul Mosher (see entry 21), one can confidently conclude that collection evaluation embraces use, citation analysis, overlap, and shelf availability studies as well as standards. Each of these categories is represented by a separate section in this literature guide. A major criterion for separating collection evaluation from other collection development functions that are closely related in practice but analytically distinct in theory concerns whether materials are dealt with at the macro level (that is, in large categories) or the micro level (on an individual, titlebytitle basis). Collection evaluation obviously deals with the library's holdings at a macro level, since it focuses on an entire group of materials and sometimes the total collection. In this context, weeding and selection would not be included within the scope of collection evaluation because they normally deal with materials on a titlebytitle basis. In some instances, selection is also conducted on the macro level, as when approval plans or blanket orders are used.4 Nevertheless, the differentiation between evaluation on the one hand and selection on the other remains a valid and generally recognized distinction. The preceding discussion should not be confused with the distinction between macroevaluation and microevaluation, as explained by Baker and Lancaster, based on work by King and Bryant. Macroevaluation is descriptive and measures the overall level of success, whereas microevaluation is diagnostic and identifies the reasons for failure.5 Page xi Scope This annotated bibliography focuses on items pertaining to collection evaluation in academic libraries and published from 1980 to approximately the end of the 1991 calendar year. (The manuscript was submitted in early November 1991, although the final cutoff for adding entries was roughly three months after that date.) "Classic" or extremely important articles published prior to 1980 are also annotated, although a precise definition of classic is not readily available. Included are evaluation case studies, research pieces, overviews of the evaluation process, textbook chapters, literature reviews, "howto" guides and manuals, standards, and methodological and theoretical discussions. The term academic as used here covers universities, colleges, and community colleges. However, a few influential items concerning collection evaluation in public, school, and special libraries were also included. Medical, dental, and law libraries, although commonly classified as special libraries, are covered here because they are frequently affiliated with an academic institution and their collection evaluation literature is highly pertinent to academic librarianship. NonEnglish items, Ph.D. dissertations, master's theses, ERIC documents, National Technical Information Service documents, inhouse library publications, and unpublished speeches or conference presentations were excluded. This annotated bibliography is neither comprehensive nor highly selective. In other words, even though every identified item has not been included, this list is not limited to the very best contributions. Any work that would warrant the attention of a practitioner or student is included, while items with little substantive value were excluded. The primary selection criteria were the work's intrinsic merit and whether it would be of interest or value to this book's intended audience. Obviously, not every entry will be of equal value to all readers. Items published before 1980 were included if: 1) they are frequently cited in the post1980 collection evaluation literature; 2) they are explicitly identified as classic by contemporary authors; 3) their merit or significance warrants inclusion in the judgment of this literature guide's author; or 4) they are necessary for the full understanding of items published after 1980. For the sake of continuity, items published during the late 1970s that follow up or comment on the Pittsburgh Study or Kantor's branching method for analyzing book availability are also included. In the final analysis, the decision to include an item published before 1980 was essentially a subjective judgment for which the author assumes personal responsibility. Based on advice from the publisher, this work's presumed audience is North American. Nevertheless, an attempt has been made to include relevant Englishlanguage material published throughout the world, on the assumption that the principles of collection evaluation are universal rather than limited to a particular geographic location. However, the author freely admits that his survey of internationally published material was limited to items that can be identified through the bibliographic apparatus available in North America. Page xii Selection and weeding are not within this literature guide's scope because they usually deal with materials at the micro rather than the macro level, as previously explained. Also beyond this bibliography's scope are items that primarily discuss other major components of the collection management process, such as collection maintenance, collection development policies, approval plans, and budgeting. Likewise excluded is the evaluation of procedures and issues relating to the collection development and acquisition process, for example, the evaluation of vendors, approval plans, gifts, and the relative merits of faculty selection versus librarian selection. Items about preservation generally were excluded. Likewise, compilations of library statistics are not included unless they bear a direct application to collection evaluation, such as the National Shelflist Count. Very little is available concerning nonprint collection evaluation in academic libraries. Most of what has been published about nonprint media, especially the newer formats such as computer software or CDROMS, concerns selection on an itembyitem basis rather than evaluation of the entire collection. Hence, this bibliography contains only a few entries pertaining to nonprint materials. Organization The book is organized into twelve chapters. Chapter 1 concerns overviews of collection evaluation; chapter 2 deals with collection evaluation methods and methodology; chapter 3 annotates collection evaluation case studies; chapter 4 covers use studies; chapter 5 is devoted to shelf availability studies and document delivery tests; chapter 6 focuses on overlap studies; chapter 7 covers standards; and chapter 8 deals with citation analysis. All these topics are obviously considered within the traditional boundaries of collection evaluation. Chapter 9 concentrates on the RLG Conspectus and its variant form, the Pacific Northwest Conspectus. Earlier evaluation literature did not cover the Conspectus because only within the last half decade has it emerged as a nationally and, in many instances, internationally recognized collection evaluation instrument. This book heavily emphasizes the evaluation of serials. Chapter 10 covers serials evaluation and chapter 11 is devoted to the closely related concept of journal ranking. Chapter 4 contains a section on periodical use studies. This emphasis reflects the extensive literature on the topic during the last decade. Academic libraries have become especially concerned about their serials collections because of the runaway inflation in serials costs and its effect on stagnant library budgets; thus, a major portion of this literature deals with the evaluation of serials for the purposes of cancellation. One could argue that inclusion of serials evaluation is contrary to the previously noted macro/micro distinction as a criterion for defining the boundaries of collection evaluation, as serials are usually evaluated on a titlebytitle basis. However, serials were included because of their major significance to contemporary academic library collection development. Also, most serials
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