Collection Development Counterparts Meeting - Rugby, TN
September 26, 2003
Information Alliance collection development counterparts met in Rugby, Tennessee on September 26, 2003. University of Kentucky hosted the meeting, led by the heads of collection development. Participants were:
ART
Jennifer Beals (Tennessee)
Yvonne Boyer (Vanderbilt)SOCIOLOGY
Sue Erickson (Vanderbilt)
Ellie Read (Tennessee)
Sarah Vaughn (Kentucky)COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT
Jim Burgett (Kentucky)
John Haar (Vanderbilt)
Linda Phillips (Tennessee)
Counterparts brought information about their respective clientele, academic programs, and collections. The group discussed a proposed timetable for counterpart projects that begins with information sharing and leads to a brief report synthesizing the Rugby meeting, subsequent conference calls to discuss collaborative possibilities, selection of a project, incorporation of Information Alliance work into annual goals, development of timelines and funding sources, and a summary of progress by December 2004. Counterparts met before and after lunch, concluding the day with brief reports to the group at large.
ART
Tennessee and Vanderbilt collection budgets for art are similar. Generally the UT arts program is more applied and Vanderbilt places greater emphasis on art history. UT has a professional school of architecture and offers the MFA. Vanderbilt offers a master’s degree in art history. There might be a natural opportunity for collaboration in purchasing art resources, with Vanderbilt concentrating on historical materials and UT specializing in studio art. New faculty at UT have identified a need for more studio art resources. UT is developing an emphasis in the art of Africa and Oceana. Vanderbilt has strengths in Latin American and Asian art, areas also of interest to UT scholars. New interests at Vanderbilt include native arts of North America. University of Kentucky offers a program in landscape architecture, a possible area for collaboration in collection building because both UT and Vanderbilt faculty would like to expand their scope in this direction. Counterparts are interested in digital projects and plan to keep both user needs and differences in mind. UT currently maintains separate art and architecture slide collections in the departments, and the library may be called upon to offer strategies for streamlining. UT’s tradition of having faculty representatives for both art history and studio art is of interest to Vanderbilt.
SOCIOLOGY
Librarians shared information about research interests of their
respective faculty. All three counterparts are relatively new
to their positions. Vanderbilt has hired six new sociology faculty
in three years, illustrating the importance of the discipline
there, as well as the potential for new requests for information
resources. Three new sociology faculty members have joined UT,
two in criminology and one in political economy. Tennessee uses
undesignated endowments for one-time purchases to support research
requests from new faculty during their first three years. Librarians
compared the mechanics of managing budgets and providing reports
for their respective collections. Kentucky and Tennessee both
have rural sociology and social work programs, so the collections
are likely more comprehensive in these areas than Vanderbilt’s.
Counterparts review the Serials Archive Titles for Consideration
list and plan to consult faculty about retaining one set of low-use
materials in one of the libraries. There is high interdisciplinarity
among the materials that counterparts collect. A potential subject
area for collaboration is globalization because of its broad impact
on sociology. Collecting could focus on continents or on subject
divisions, such as poverty, social justice, etc. Tennessee has
used one undesignated endowment to increase the number of materials
on international subjects; all social sciences librarians place
requests from this fund. Librarians are aware of information needs
beyond the specific requests they receive for new materials. Terrorism
is an example of such a subject area. All receive a fair number
of requests to purchase films on videotape or DVD; this is another
logical area for collaboration.
COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT HEADS
This group has a contract with ALA Editions for a monograph on collaborative collection development, and spent part of their meeting working on the project. They also discussed a draft interlibrary lending policy that would permit circulation of media and bound journals among Information Alliance libraries. Such an agreement will complement the existing expedited delivery service as the foundation for interdependence among collections. The heads of CD are requesting that the policy be discussed and approved at the October 21 meeting of the Information Alliance in Nashville. They have also asked for a meeting with the library directors to affirm the directions being taken among CD counterparts. The heads discussed strategies for moving forward with decisions for the Serials Archive. Next steps: Heads will meet on October 22 to make final revisions to first draft; conference call scheduled for October 31 11 Eastern/10 Central.
