A collection development policy for digital information resources?

John Kennedy

Manuscript received April 2005

This is a refereed article

Introduction - the library collection development policy today

In her recently published book, Fundamentals of Collection Development and Management, Peggy Johnson provided a definition of a 'collection development policy' that would probably be broadly acceptable to most in the library and information profession:

A formal written statement of the principles guiding a library's selection of books and other materials, including the criteria used in selection, de-selection, and acceptance of gifts. It may also address intellectual freedom, future goals, and special areas of attention (2004: 311).

But if there are few who would be unwilling to accept this definition, there would probably also be few who were excited by it or felt that it related to a particularly dynamic branch of information provision. Collection development policies have been with us for a long time: Johnson (2004: 73) herself suggests that they were becoming prominent in United States libraries by the 1950s and 1960s. While their 'golden age' was probably later than this, at least in Australia where they attracted most attention in the late 1980s and early 1990s, there can be no doubt that in the early years of the twenty-first century they are not a burning issue.

One possible reason for this may suggest itself from looking at the wording of Johnson's definition. It will be noticed that it mentions 'books' but does not explicitly mention digital materials. This is not of course because Johnson is unaware of such material: she in fact devotes a section of her book to a discussion of what might appear in a policy document devoted to 'e-resources' (2004: 80, 83). There has been considerable discussion in the literature of what should appear in collection development policies devoted to digital resources, and of whether it is more appropriate to have a separate policy for such resources or a policy document that combines consideration of both print and digital resources. The website Electronic Collections Development (2002) provides numerous examples of collection development policies largely or entirely devoted to digital resources. Notwithstanding this, however, Peter Clayton and Gary Gorman were able to observe in a book published as recently as 2001 that 'Most existing collection development policies are strong on their approach to traditional print materials but weak on electronic materials - if, indeed, they are covered at all' (2001: 31, see also Lee 2002: 6).

If this is true, and collection development policies are closely linked to print materials in the minds of librarians, it is hardly surprising that collection development policies are not a major focus of attention in the library and information profession at the beginning of the twenty-first century. For many professionals and paraprofessionals today, in particular those working in major academic and research libraries, it is digital resources that are of primary importance, and it is digital resources that their clients seem most to want and need. These digital resources may come in many different forms, including computer-mediated materials like CD-ROMs brought into the library and owned by it, and others not owned by the library but accessed remotely when needed from terminals either within the library or linked to the library from the homes and offices of the library's clients. Familiar examples include websites on the World Wide Web and digital versions of serials. Increasingly there are available digital counterparts of all the familiar kinds of print and audiovisual materials - some straightforward machine-readable counterparts of items that may have been created decades or centuries before the advent of computerisation, and others digital editions of such materials which exploit the possibilities of hypertext - as well as items which exist only in digital form and indeed would be inconceivable employing technology such as print.

Libraries today often see themselves as 'hybrid' institutions, making available both print and digital resources, and many observers see this as a transitional stage on the way to the digital library, defined by Oppenheim and Smithson as 'an information service in which all the information resources are available in computer-processable form, and the functions of acquisition, storage, preservation, retrieval, access and display are carried out through the use of digital technologies' (1999: 97). A visit to a large university library today is not likely to convince anyone that this prediction is fanciful: typically the bays of print materials are areas of largely undisturbed tranquillity, while crowds, queues, and frantic keyboard activity identify where the computer terminals linked to electronic resources are to be found.

Even in this environment there may be few ready to commit themselves in print to the view that written collection development policies are 'Wasted words' (Snow 1996), or willing to join Hazen in stating that

Collection development policies as traditionally conceived are static, reactive, and of little practical utility. They have outlived their purpose (1995: 29).

The recent collection management texts of Evans and Zarnosky (2000), Clayton and Gorman (2001), and Johnson (2004) all devote considerable space to such policy documents. But clearly many practitioners have 'voted with their feet' (or at least the allocation of their time). Despite exceptions such as the State Library of New South Wales, which published on the internet the first part of a new two-part collection development policy, completed in 2002, part two of which is yet to appear (State Library of New South Wales 2004), creating new collection development policies, or revising those now several years old, is not a major activity in the profession now focusing ever more intently on digital resources.

Of course, the reason for this neglect of such policies among practitioners is not merely that they are associated with print materials and other resources that the library purchases in a tangible form for in-house processing and eventual location on its shelves. It is not merely that they have come to seem old-fashioned. The very concept of collecting has been called into question as a primary activity of libraries. When increasingly the resources that the library makes available are ones which are not physically collected and brought within its walls but to which it provides access if and when they are needed, it would hardly be surprising if some came to regard a document that seeks to guide its collecting activities as of diminishing relevance. Furthermore, now that it is an easy task to explore online the records of the holdings of almost all major libraries and many lesser ones in the developed world, the question might arise as to whether the traditional role of collection development policies in communicating to interested parties the collecting strengths and collecting intentions of libraries is as important as it was when discovering 'who held what' meant consulting cumbersome print or microform catalogues, or even long journeys by land, sea, and air.

Collecting in a digital environment

The idea that in a digital environment libraries no longer collect does not really stand up to closer scrutiny, however. They may increasingly not collect physical objects that can be admired in serried rows on the shelves, and they may only to a limited extent collect files that occupy server storage in computers under the direct control of the library. But they do assemble virtual collections of materials to which they have access. However strong a library's commitment to relying on digital resources accessed remotely when needed, it is most unlikely not to identify the resources that it considers to be of particular interest to its clients, and to conclude agreements with the vendors of these items to make them available. Often this will in fact be the only way to ensure prompt access to the resources in question: electronic publishers and vendors frequently insist on a contract or licence before making their products such as digital versions of scholarly journals available if and when needed. In some circumstances such 'anticipatory' arrangements may not be strictly necessary - access to an item on a fee per individual use may be possible. But such 'pay-as-you-go' access is likely to be clumsy to operate in a busy library and significantly less economic than prior purchase of access if the resource in question is one likely to be used frequently by library clients.

Though recent years have seen some resources, such as digital versions of newspapers, move from being available free of charge on the internet to being available only for a fee, it remains true that many useful resources (as well as immense dross) are available free of charge to the user on the internet. Few information professionals, however, would take the view that if they provide computer terminals and access to Google their duty to the clients of their library in respect to such material has been fully discharged. Most professionals see as part of the library's role the identification of what is worthwhile and of particular relevance to their clients amidst the bewildering overabundance of the anarchic internet, and the bringing of this material to the attention of clients by establishing links to it from the library's web pages or its OPAC.

What this means is that in a very real sense libraries continue to collect in a digital environment. They select from the universe of digital publications those that to some extent they bring under their control, by paying fees to ensure access to them or by establishing well-defined pathways to them. The control may be more intangible and impermanent than that which exists over printed items sitting on the library shelves; it may even vanish overnight when a subscription is not renewed or an internet site disappears. The content of the collection may be more fluid than it ever was in any print collection subject to the ravages of theft and physical deterioration. But the fact of collecting seems beyond dispute.

Traditional collection development policy functions in a new context

If collecting occurs there is a need for management of the process. In any organisation accountable for the funding it receives, collecting obviously needs to be systematic. Decisions need to be made as to what should be collected to serve the purposes for which the library exists within the limitations set by the funding available to it. For digital resources, as for traditional print ones, the available funding will provide access to only a fraction of what has been 'published' (and probably of what clients would like to have available to them), so there need to be principles to guide the act of selection in individual cases, with a view to ensuring that funds are optimally spent to serve the needs of the clientele. More is involved than just payments to publishers and vendors: the library needs to ensure that the time of its staff is used wisely, rather than on mater ial not likely to be of value to the users of the library. Consideration also needs to be given to the fact that what finds its way into the digital collection does not necessarily have a justification for remaining there indefinitely: the digital library may not have to worry about its shelves being cluttered by material that is outmoded, no longer relevant, dirty, or torn, but it does need to concern itself about paying for access to what is no longer of value, and about the cluttering of catalogues and web pages with links that lead to outmoded material if indeed they lead anywhere at all.

The collection development policy for digital resources is an essential planning device in a way broadly similar to the policy for print resources. It should also fulfil a broadly similar communication function for, unlike a good collection development policy, digital access to the catalogues of a library indicates the individual items it holds or makes available, not the principles and policies which inform the work of those building and maintaining its collection. As in the case of print resources a collection development policy can provide some protection for library staff in the legitimate performance of their selection duties by laying down the principles governing selection that have the sanction of the library's parent body. This protection is at least as important in a digital environment as in a print one, since, for example, potentially offensive sites displayed by clients of the library on the screens of its computer terminals in public areas are more likely to cause outrage than material less obtrusively retained with the covers of a printed volume.

New and enhanced functions

Such considerations suggest that a collection development policy for digital resources is as important as one for print resources. The reality, however, is that the policy is more important in the case of digital resources than it ever was in the case of print.

Partly this is because of the nature of digital resources. In the 'pre-digital' era libraries did acquire materials such as audio disks and microforms that required equipment to access the data they contained, and there was of course the 'time bomb' of the slow physical deterioration of most twentieth century paper-based materials. But most collections were predominantly print and most libraries most of the time were able to operate without giving much consideration to these problems. In general, materials once acquired and placed on the shelves, could be expected to be readily available several decades later. Digital materials, in contrast to paper-based ones, require computer hardware and if they are to be used, the library must ensure that the appropriate kinds of hardware and software are available in sufficient quantities. In the case of material not owned but accessed remotely the problem may usually be minor, as vendors will normally ensure their material operates on standard software; but digital resources that the library purchases outright and maintains on its own electronic systems pose a potentially far greater problem. Finding that changes in information technology, including rapid obsolescence may make it difficult or impossible to access a resource created several years earlier is quite a common experience. This means that the selection decision becomes more complicated, because it involves what are in effect new and possibly unpredictable factors to be considered. In the words of Ellis Weinberger, 'The institution will need to determine the possibility and cost of preserving the object before obtaining it' (2000: 68). Collection development policies must include consideration of both the equipment to use and the preservation implications of the digital materials to which they refer.

The complexities of collecting digital resources also stem partly from the ways in which such resources are made available to libraries. Publishers of digital materials, a cynic might say, have avoided many of the mistakes made by print publishers, who allowed a situation to develop in which libraries purchasing examples of their products were free to make them available to whomsoever they choose, including casual visitors to the library and even individuals in other libraries who sought access to the items through an interlibrary loan service. In the case of digital resources publishers' interests are typically protected by licensing conditions that they impose, or attempt to impose, on libraries seeking to purchase access to their products. The library may find itself confronted with extremely restrictive conditions attempting to govern to whom and under what conditions it may make the digital resource in question available, and further, imposing on it legal liability for any breaches of these conditions by people who access the resource through the library. Consideration of licensing conditions needs to form part of the selection or acquisition procedures for digital resources. Negotiation may well be necessary, for in extreme cases the licensing conditions proposed, if taken literally, would make library use of the resources impossible. The library may have its own conditions which it wishes to insist on writing into the licence agreement, such as a requirement that digital resources provide a satisfactory level of use statistics (Johnson 2004: 83). The services of legal advisers may even be needed. A digital resources collection development policy should probably not be a detailed negotiator's manual, but if it is to be an effective planning device it will need to outline the procedures to be followed in dealing with the complexities of licensing.

In many cases the library will not be acting alone. Some digital resources are very expensive, and libraries band together in purchasing consortia to obtain access to them. Such consortia inevitably restrict to some extent the library's collecting autonomy, and modern collection development policies need to make provision for the possibility of the library's entering into consortia agreements that convey both advantages and obligations on it. It is not merely in relation to other members of a consortium that a library may find its autonomy somewhat circumscribed in a digital environment. In concerning itself with digital resources the library is entering territory to which the parent organisation's computer centre might lay claim, since the centre might well argue that matters relating to computer hardware, computer software, and even data files are its area of expertise. The matter may be dealt with, if not always resolved, by amalgamating the library and the computer centre, but whether or not this happens, an important role of the collection development policy may be staking out the claim of the library to be the collecting agency for files collected for their information content rather than as tools required in the conduct of the organisation's operations.

A different kind of demarcation is involved when, as is usually still the case, the library actively collects print materials despite its emphasis on digital resources. When does the library purchase only the digital version, when only the print version, and when both? Increasingly academic and research libraries appear to be resolving this issue by declaring that digital versions are preferred, and print versions will be acquired only when digital ones are not available. But this may not always be a desirable option, particularly for public libraries, and a collection development policy may need to address the issue. (This, of course, is an important argument for not having completely separate print and digital policy documents: if a library does collect in both formats, efficient use of its budget requires the coordination of development of the two.)

The hybrid or the digital library does need a collection development policy, and it needs a policy prepared with as much care and consultation as was devoted to the creation of print policies when creating them was a 'fashionable' library activity. In fact, the further the library ventures into the rich variety and complexity of different kinds of digital resources, with the challenges of licensing and consortia negotiations, the greater the need for a collection development policy is likely to be. Clearly too, the rapid and constant transformation of the world of digital resources and information technology make revision of the policy at regular and reasonably frequent intervals more important than the often-neglected revision of the print policy ever was. The content of the policy will indeed need to be somewhat different from that of policies of earlier decades to take account of new problems and new complexities such as those outlined above. There may even be a case for abandoning the word 'collection' as being too redolent of a bygone age when libraries boasted of the number of volumes that sat ready for use on their shelves. But arguably the case for retaining it and emphasising that today collecting activity includes acquiring access to resources in digital format, is even stronger, since it is essential to keep in mind that even in an entirely digital environment, libraries are still in a vital sense collecting institutions.

References

Clayton, P and Gorman, G E (2001) Managing Information Resources in Libraries: Collection management in theory and practice, Library Association Publishing, London.

Electronic Collections Development (2002) http://www.library.yale.edu/~okerson/ ecd.html (viewed 20 January 2005).

Evans, G E and Zarnosky, M (2000) Developing Library and Information Center Collections, 4th ed., Libraries Unlimited, Englewood, Colorado.

Hazen, D C (1995) 'Collection development policies in the information age' College and Research Libraries 56: 29-31.

Johnson, P (2004) Fundamentals of Collection Development and Management American Library Association, Chicago.

Lee, S D (2002) Building an Electronic Resource Collection Library Association Publishing, London.

Oppenheim, C and Smithson, D (1999) 'What is the hybrid library?' Journal of Information Science 25: 97-112.

Snow, R (1996) 'Wasted words: the written collection development policy and the academic library' Journal of Academic Librarianship 22: 191-194.

State Library of New South Wales (2004) Collection Development Policy, http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/about/policies/collection.cfm (viewed 20 January 2005).

Weinberger, E (2000) 'Towards collection management guidance' The New Review of Academic Librarianship 6: 65-71.

Biographical information

John Kennedy studied librarianship at the University of NSW and the College of Librarianship Wales and worked in three university libraries before joining the School of Information Studies at Charles Sturt University. His publications include Collection Development in Australian Libraries with GE Gorman (1992) and Collection Management: a concise introduction (2002).

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