Collection Development in the
Digital Age
Ramona (Mona) N. Kerby
Associate Professor & Coordinator of the School Library Media Program
McDaniel College, Westminster, Maryland
United States
In the digital environment where information is increasingly located by using online
databases, it becomes even more important that school library books be current, age
appropriate, and of outstanding quality. The presenter will review: (a) professional
selection sources, (b) creating a school curriculum chart, (c) weeding guidelines by
Dewey numbers, and (d) evaluating a library collection. Other topics will include
recommended online reference materials and an explanation of how a Maryland
consortium provides basic digital sources for all students in the state. Audience
participants will be encouraged to share their experiences and suggestions for
creating quality collections.
Introduction
Walk into a school library in the United States in the year 2007 of the twenty-first
century, and you’ll find students using computers. They are using them to locate materials, to
search for answers, and to write. While you’ll see books on the library shelves, if you
examine them, you’re likely to discover that they are out-dated. With students increasingly
turning to computers to search for their answers, librarians aren’t sure how many books they
still need to have. This dilemma will continue to challenge them—as librarians seek to find a
good balance between books and databases and how much to spend on each.
The purpose of this paper is to review what librarians learned in library school, to
provide practical solutions to help improve the quality of school library collections, and to
encourage dialogue on balancing resources in a digital age.
Professional Selection Sources
Short on time, some school librarians are relying on book jobbers and neglecting to
read professional review journals. Five basic selection criteria that you can ask for any
purchase—book or database—are: (1) Does the book have favourable reviews? (2) Do the
book’s author, illustrator, and publisher have good reputations? (3) Is the book appropriate
for your users? (4) Is the book clearly written? (5) Does the book have a pleasing design?
Multiple positive reviews help librarians spend their money wisely. If you don’t have time to
read all professional selection sources, then here are three I recommend.
Booklist and Booklist Online <www.ala.org/booklist>. Published by the
American Library Association, Booklist is issued twice monthly September through June and
monthly in July and August. Its purpose is “to provide a guide to current print and
audiovisual materials worthy of consideration for purchase by small and medium-sized public
libraries and school library media centers. A review in Booklist constitutes a
recommendation for library purchase.” Booklist Online, released in fall 2005, complements
and expands Booklist. For an additional cost, it will provide access to over 100,000 reviews.
Horn Book Guide <www.hbook.com>. Published in Boston, in the spring and fall,
the Horn Book Guide reviews some 2,500 titles in each volume. For a modest yearly
subscription rate of $50.00, the two guides give you short succinct—fifty word maximum—
reviews for virtually all of the children and young adult titles for the current year. The
reviews do not come from the Magazine; they are written especially for the Guide. Titles are
rated from 1 (outstanding) to 6 (unacceptable) and are written by 75 named professionals.
All titles receiving a superior rating of 1 or 2 are marked with a triangle.
Children’s Catalog, Middle and Junior High Catalog, or the High School
Catalog. <www.hwwilson.com> . Published by H.W. Wilson, these three “catalogs” are
goldmines of information. Each hardback volume of Children’s Catalog (preschool through
sixth) and the Senior High School Library Catalog (ninth through twelfth) is published every
five years; four annual paperback supplements are to be used with the hardback. The Middle
and Junior High School Library Catalog (fifth through eighth) is on a four year schedule.
All catalogs are available in print or online.
Some 7,000 entries are provided for each level. You’ll find a recommended and
“comprehensive list of fiction and nonfiction books, magazines, audiobooks, and Web
resources.” Materials are selected by an advisory committee of specialists in children’s and
young adult literature. All entries “provide complete bibliographic data, price, subject
headings, a descriptive annotation, and evaluative quotations from a review when available.”
Creating a School Curriculum Chart
Knowing the curriculum helps you purchase appropriate materials. But the guides are
written in confusing educational jargon and can be thousands of pages. You’ll need to distill
this boring information down to the essentials and make yourself a chart. It should be a one-
page (two pages maximum) chart of the key topics divided by subject and grade level. Ask
one or two teachers in each grade level or subject area to look over your topics and see if
you’ve captured everything. You need to know how long teachers plan to spend on a topic,
as well as how they plan to teach it.
While the primary reason you are making the curriculum chart is for you to have an
easy-to-read buying guide for selecting materials, your principal may want to share it with the
faculty and parents. Surprisingly, many teachers don’t know what their colleagues teach.
Examples of school curriculum charts can be found in my book published in 2006 by the
American Association of School Librarians, Collection Development for the School Library
Media Program: A Beginner’s Guide.
Weeding Guidelines
While old books are treasures, they belong in historical collections. Young students
have a tendency to believe that if it is in print, then it is true as they are still learning how to
discriminate between correct and inaccurate information. Here are two charts which I’ve
based on professional weeding guidelines such as CREW, or Continuous Review, Evaluation,
and Weeding.
Fiction Guidelines
Picture Books
Keep books in good condition that have outstanding stories and illustrations.
Keep books that are current, with up-to-date covers, and that are relevant to your
Fiction students. Hesitate before replacing old classics or old award winners as students
may find them dated. Multiple copies of formerly popular titles may no longer
be needed.
Young Adult Teens ignore books that are 10-years or older. Replace titles with new hardbacks
Fiction or paperbacks with updated covers.
Guidelines for Dewey Classifications
Delete old almanacs yearly; keep only the current year. Weed all encyclopedia sets that
General
are 5 years or older. Rotate the purchase of different encyclopedias so that one set is
Reference always new.
000s Computer books change rapidly. Consider buying paperbacks or using web sources.
100s Check for dated illustrations.
Need something up-to-date on every religion in the school community and the 6 major
200s
international religions: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Taoism.
As long as custom and folklore look okay, no need to discard. Delete career materials
300s
after 5 years.
400s Discard old dictionaries that don’t include new terms.
Evaluate all science books older than 5 years. Pay particular attention to physics,
astronomy, environmental issues, dinosaurs and astronomy. Check books on atoms
500s
every 2 years. Botany doesn’t change often. Keep basic books of significant historical
or literary value such as Darwin’s Origin of Species.
Medicine, television, space exploration, and cars date rapidly. Popular subjects such as
600s
pets and crafts may need replacing because of worn condition.
Consider keeping irreplaceable art books. Consider replacing old books on hobbies
700s with current interests. Sports books wear out and also get dated. Quantity, not quality,
is the key criteria for sports.
800s Books in this section don’t get dated. They just wear out.
900s Purchase books on countries on a rotating basis so that no title is older than 5 years.
Evaluating a Library Collection
If you have an automated circulation system, then you can run a quick report that
gives you circulation figures and the average age of the materials by Dewey numbers.
Bowker’s Book Analysis System <www.bowker’s bookanalysis.com> carries the evaluation
process to an even more sophisticated level by comparing your collection to a recommended
retrospective selection source. It will tell you how many and which titles match one or all of
the Wilson’s Catalogs—including Children’s Catalog, Middle or Junior High School, and
High School Catalog.
You can also compare your collection to a recommended selection source—for free if
you’re willing to put in a little extra time—by taking a random sample. Carol Doll and Pam
Barron have explained the process in their book Managing and Analyzing Your Collection: A
Practical Guide for Small Libraries and School Media Centers published by the American
Library Association in 2002. Here’s a brief description.
1. Count every item in the section(s) to be evaluated.
2. Divide this number by 200 to determine the interval size. For example, if there are
1,000 books in the section, divide 1,000 by 200. Since 1,000 ÷ 200 = 5, the interval is
5. This means that you will examine every fifth book.
3. To get your starting point, use the last digit on the serial number on a dollar bill. For
example, if the last digit is 8, start with the eighth book in the section. Then count
forward to the fifth book.
4. Continue to examine every fifth book until you have completed the 200 cards—
writing down this information for every book: the title, publisher, call number and
copyright year.
5. Compare your sample to a professional retrospective selection source by taking the
cards and manually look up the titles in the selection source. Write “yes” on the card
if you find the title; write “no” on the card if you don’t.
6. Count the “yes” cards. Divide this number by 200. The answer will be what percent
(estimated) of your total collection matches the professional selection source. For
example, if you have 17 “yes” cards, then 17 ÷ 200 = .085, or 8.5% of your collection
matched a matched the selection source.
Let’s digress, just for a moment. Why would you want to do this evaluation? In your
opinion, how many books in your collection should match a retrospective selection tool?
Other Topics
In Maryland, school district library supervisors and other have formed a consortium in
an attempt to get fair prices from online databases. As a result of this initiative, basic
reference services are available for all students in the state. As can be expected, students in
richer districts have more access to online materials. Companies such as United Streaming
<www.unitedstreaming.com>, Safari Montage < http://www.safarimontage.com/>, and
BrainPop <www.brainpop.com> provide films and video through the Internet that that are
appropriate for K-12 curriculum. Other databases that can be found in Maryland schools are
CultureGrams, <www.culturegrams.com>, TeachingBooks, <www.teachingbooks.net>,
Ebsco’s Searchasaurus, http://www.epnet.com/thisTopic.php?marketID=6&topicID=15, and
NoodleTools, <www.noodletools.com>, which was created by school librarian Debbie
Abilock and her son, Damon.
In Closing
I hope that this paper has served as a review to the key aspects of school library
collection development and that it will stimulate dialogue among school librarians.
References
Kerby, Mona. (2006) Collection development for the school library media program: a beginner’s guide.
Chicago: American Association of School Librarians.
The International Children’s Digital Library: A Library for the World’s Children. Retrieved March 12,
2007,from
http://www.childrenslibrary.org/
MDK12 Digital Library Project. (1995–2006 Montgomery County Public Schools, 850 Hungerford Drive,
Rockville, Maryland 20850) .Retrieved March 12,2007, from
http://www.mdk12library.org/.
NoodleTools. (1999-2007) Retrieved March 12 , 2007 ,from
http://www.noodletools.com/
Author Note:
Mona Kerby is an associate professor and Graduate Coordinator of the School Library Program at
McDaniel College in Maryland. She’s on the Fulbright Senior Specialist roster as an expert in
children’s literature and school librarianship. She’s published more than twenty articles for school
librarians and also two books; in 2006, the American Association of School Librarians published her
book: COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT FOR THE SCHOOL LIBRARY MEDIA PROGRAM. She also
writes for children and young adults. In 2008, OWNEY: THE MAIL POUCH POOCH will be published
by Frances Foster at Farrar, Straus, & Giroux. For more information, please see: http:
www.mcdaniel.edu and http://www.carr.org/authco/kerby.htm .
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
