F. Use the basic concepts and principles related to the selection, evaluation, organization, and preservation of physical and digital information items;
Section 1. Interpretation of competency
To me, this competency is about collection development and management. It means to select materials that are in line with the collection development statement, and the overall mission of the institution. According to Wong (2018), the collection development statement is intended to “guide librarians in making consistent, reasoned decisions about the library’s collection” (p. 138). The ongoing implementation of the collection development statement is collection management, which was described by Disher as a “complex process that involves strategic planning, innovation, change management, and community analysis” (loc. 8409).
Items need to be evaluated prior to acquisition to make sure they are suitable for the collection and then re-evaluated on an ongoing basis to make sure that they are still suitable and relevant. Adhering to a logical classification schema organizes the collection and makes it accessible. Preservation activities ensure materials in the collection are still usable for their designated purpose. These concepts are all related to each other; success depends on careful consideration of all four.
The person that selects materials varies from institution to institution. In large academic and research libraries it is often a shared responsibility as those libraries tend to have subject experts. As Gilman (2018, loc. 2675) points out this individual may even have an advanced degree in their area of expertise. Many libraries have a librarian that only handles acquisitions, this role can include sourcing materials, overseeing the budget, and managing staff.
Evaluation of materials has two facets. The first is at the acquisition step to make sure that the items being purchased meet a certain level of editorial quality and can withstand the rigors of being in a library collection. For books, this means purchasing physical copies with library bindings when possible, as well as using archival-quality supplies for storage and repair. For digital items, it is important to make sure that the technical underpinnings are robust enough to support the expected user base and are accompanied by a licensing agreement that has favorable terms for the library.
Evaluation is related to preservation and is a particularly crucial step where digitization efforts are concerned. Whereas physical collections are limited by size and environment, digital ones are limited by factors such as bandwidth and technical expertise in addition to some of the same issues surrounding fragile materials. Problems with fragility often relate back to the types of materials used to make the original, at other times problems are created due to poor storage or other environmental damage. An evaluation might also include a review of copyright ownership as this might determine how these items are accessed.
Organization comes into play for both physical and digital items. Physical items need to be stored properly in order to retain their value and remain usable. Valuable archival items should be given special care. Archives also sometimes have their own organizational schema that reflects the unique needs of the institution. Digital items might also need a classification scheme that is not the same as other parts of the collection. Some metadata schemas such as PREMIS are better suited for long term preservation, while others such as MODS are very interoperable with other library systems.
Preservation is a key piece of collection development and management. Having a solid grasp on how items should be preserved and a well-defined plan is very important to sustaining a collection. It is also quite crucial to be able to accurately describe the necessary steps. As Skinner described it is important to know exactly what the different terms of art related to preservation mean, yet many professionals speak as though conservation is synonymous with preservation, although they are not (loc. 4802).
A review of the literature shows that collection development and management includes many activities throughout the entire library. Tasks related to developing, overseeing, and preserving the collection are spread across many departments and the responsibility is shared by many. Therefore it is important to realize the importance of having a cohesive and comprehensive plan to maintain the focus and integrity of the collection.
Section 2. Reference to supporting evidence
Evidence One. Academic assignment.
Literature Review of Recorded Sound Preservation: Materials, Storage, and Access. Paper on the preservation of sound recordings.
In the class Music Librarianship (Info 220) I learned about some important issues facing music librarians, archivists, and other persons working with recorded sound media. My paper discusses archival recorded sound collections both in terms of the environment that the items are to be stored in as well as the specific care of the individual pieces in the collection. My paper covered some of the major forms of media used in the 20th century including early wax cylinders, vinyl records, and magnetic tape. It also reviewed best practices for setting up and maintaining a controlled storage environment.
Evidence Two. Professional development experience.
Migrating to the Open: Moving Scholarly Journals to the IR. Presentation made at 2017 Digital Commons New England User Group Meeting, UMASS Medical School, July 28.
My second piece of evidence is about digital preservation. It is a presentation that I made at the Digital Commons User Group Meeting in July 2017. My presentation was about the two law journals and one alumni magazine that I had added to the institutional repository at UNH. Each publication was quite different. The first was our law review. A current publication that would have a new board of student editors each year, we would need to plan for some formal training for them to produce issues on their own each year. I was the Library Liasion for volumes 15 & 16 and handled this as well as some editorial management decisions. The other law journal, Risk, ceased publication and we ended up buying digital copies of our back run from a commercial publisher. The third publication was a partial run of our alumni magazine from before the law school was part of the state university system.
I included this project as part of my evidence for this competency because it called on many of my skills in the areas of selection, evaluation, organization, and preservation. As the main person working on this, I had to make definitive choices regarding how to source the materials we were missing; how to organize the online publications; what types of journal matter to include from our back run; and how to reconcile messy past publishing practices with a consistent online format. I wanted to present this topic to my peers because I knew that many of them were facing the same issues and I feel it also captures some of the true essences of collection development.
Evidence Three. Work experience and professional development.
FDLP Academy Certificate of Education: Preservation for Free. August 23, 2017. Certificate of completion for preservation webinar.
At my previous job as Serials Supervisor for the University of New Hampshire School of one of my areas of responsibility was to repair books as needed. I did not receive any formal training at first but rather relied on online tutorials and from Cornell and in-person workshops at Dartmouth, as well as the instructional materials that came with the supplies we ordered to help me figure out what to do. This knowledge became more useful over time. I found that I could do many basic types of repairs such as tightening the hinges on older books with loose covers. It often meant the difference between the shelf and the dust bin.
I was also able to plan other conservation projects, in particular, a proposal to repair individual pages in a book that had a number of torn pages. I sent my proposal for repairing the book to my supervisor along with a list of the supplies I needed. I also looked for the book in Worldcat to get a sense of how widely it was held as well as on the used book website Abe.com. Armed with the information, we were able to do a cost analysis and in this case, we determined that it was not cost effective. If I had not acquired some skills and vocabulary in this area, we would not have been able to undertake any this.
I also viewed an interesting webinar entitled Preservation for Free. It covered some basic things that libraries can undertake to protect their collection. This included adhering to best practices for handling of materials, particularly the use of book trucks to transport any archival item, even if it is just one piece. Another idea presented was the concept of assigning each staff member a bank of shelves to oversee. This entailed doing short periodic assessments of the volumes on the shelves, straightening them up, thereby ensuring that damage or theft would not go undetected for long.
Section 3. Application of competency
As an information professional working in the area of scholarly communications, I use the concepts and principles related to the evaluation, organization, and preservation of physical and digital items on a regular basis. My ability to evaluate the physical state of materials before digitizing; to select the correct metadata schema to use, and my ability to understand common challenges to each is a combination of classroom and work experiences.
One of the things that it is important to know about are nationally recognized resources such as the Northeast Document Conservation Center, as well as more local ones. For me, I have been able to connect with people working in this area through my membership in the New Hampshire Archives Group, and by attending the occasional class at the Dartmouth Book Arts Workshop. For digital preservation, I have found knowledge and support online through things like the Google Group IR Managers and the ALA scolcomm listserv.
Section 4. Bibliography in APA format
Disher, W. T. (2018) Managing Collections. In S. Hirsch (Ed.), Information Services Today: An Introduction, 2nd Kindle Edition (8396-8686). Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield.
Gilman, T. (2018). Learning and Research Institutions: Academic Libraries. In S. Hirsch (Ed.), Information Services Today: An Introduction, 2nd Kindle Edition (2649-3038). Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield.
Skinner, K. (2018) Analog and Digital Curation and Preservation. In S. Hirsch (Ed.), Information Services Today: An Introduction, 2nd Kindle Edition (4768-5149). Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield.
Wong, M.A. (2018). Developing and Managing Library Collections. In K. Haycock & M.J. Romaniuk (Eds.), The Portable MLIS: Insights from the Experts, 2nd Kindle Edition (137-152). Santa Barbara, CA : ABC-CLIO.