Collection development in a world without

subject librarians

Rachel Kirkwood, Collection Development Manager,

University of Manchester Library

UKSG 2016 @racheljkirkwood

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Big business

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Best value

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Content budget diversity1. OCLC FirstSearch Subscription (less than £1K)2. Proquest Ulrich's Serials Analysis Systems3. Participation in the CLOCKSS Archive4. ORCID Membership5. Royal Society Open Access6. Access to Altmetric for Institutions & API7. ELSEVIER Scopus Fee8. ELSEVIER SciVal All Modules (nearly £50K)

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Drivers for changeStudent Experience

Course Collections ProgrammeValue of investment

Materials budget allocation changesNew modes of access

E-book packages

New servicesCompeting pressures for Academic Support Librarians (ASLs)

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Why did we do it?• No more jack of all trades librarians• Specialist teams to meet new challenges, e.g. for research services:

– Research Data Management– Scholarly Comms and OA– Citation analysis

• Academic Engagement Librarians as ‘key account managers’• Teaching & Learning Librarians to transform info literacy teaching

with My Learning Essentials Practical imperative to ‘automate’ CD

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BUILDING THE RESEARCH RESOURCES ROBOT

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Automation/self-service• PDA (patron driven acquisition) for e AND print: Books

on Demand• EBA (evidence based acquisition) of JSTOR monographs• Approval plans and back runs– ‘blanket’ approach but can be tailored through a detailed

profile– More librarian input (subject knowledge?)

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Getting clever with data• Let’s try: search profiles based on research keywords1. Extracted from Scopus abstracts (Maths)2. Harvested from School web pages (EEE)– More clever, but tricky; statistical skewing OR labour-

intensive• Blended approach: standing orders based on

academic liaison

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Unlocking the back office• Using Alma Analytics• Building dashboards– Age profiles– Print and e-books by Dewey century/decade– Loan rates– Items added to stock per year– User types at site libraries …

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Looking to the future• Collection profiles– Leeds categorisation of collections

• Discipline profiles– Statistics combined with relationship knowledge

• Dynamically linked, by mapping the taxonomy of one domain to that of another– Demonstrating relevance and value

• Combining multiple sources of data@racheljkirkwood for #UKSG16

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Outstanding issues• Poor quality/absent (meta)data• Lack of data fluency• Need for statistical analysis skills• Complexity and inconsistency of usage data• Linking differently structured data

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OVER TO NICK!

Any questions?

rachel.kirkwood@manchester.ac.uk@racheljkirkwood