Creative Ways of Funding Public Libraries in the Future

In today’s economy public libraries are taking big hits to their budgets, even though it is shown that they are needed now more than ever.  Public libraries provide many services needed by those who would otherwise not be able to afford them e.g. access to the internet.  This is why public libraries need to seek out new and creative ways to find revenue sources to pay for the services and materials needed to meet the demands of their communities.  Funding can come in many forms such as grants, donations, and partnerships to name a few.

Grants are a great way to fund programs, services, building improvements, and even build new libraries.  Anyone can apply for grants, and they come in all sizes and amounts.  Just like applying for grants for college, there is a lot of work that goes into just the application. The upside of grants is that you don’t have to pay them back; the downside is that there is a lot of paperwork involved.  Sometimes you need a dedicated staff person just to keep up with the all of the reports that are required.

Here in the state of California we passed a ballot measure in 2007 known as Proposition 14 the California Reading and Literacy Improvement and Public Library Construction and Renovation Bond Act of 2000.  Proposition 14 allowed public libraries to compete for over $350 million in grant money.  The grants awarded ranged anywhere between $50,000 and up to $20 million.  The grant money could be used to build new libraries or renovate older libraries, but could not be used for staffing, books, and services.  The San Diego Public library won two grants, one of which was $20 million for the New Central Library.  The San Diego Public Library Foundation website states the following:

Significant private donations coupled with designated funding that can only be used for this project, make building and operating the New Central Library within reach, without using one cent from the City of San Diego’s General Fund.

Funding for the $184.9 million project is secure with funds from the State Library, Centre City Development, the San Diego Unified School District and private donors. An additional $10 million in private funds has been donated to cover additional operating costs. (2013)

There are a few reasons I used San Diego’s New Central Library as an example.  The first is to show you that the grants are out there if you look for them. Second, to transition into the next topic of donations and last because the project was funded by outside sources and not by the City itself.  This means that this project would not have been built had we waited for the City to help fund it.  At the time we were seeing a decrease in the budget and hours.  Many had their doubts that it could be pulled off, but in the end it seems to have all worked out.  I am happy and proud to have been a part of the process and to see the project completed.  The new Central Library is scheduled to open this September

Another great revenue source is donations.  Donations also come in all sizes and amounts.  They can be used for anything the library needs, unless of course the money comes with strings attached.  Donations can help pay for materials, staffing, programs and even equipment.  If you are really lucky then you may even get a new library.  I have seen it happen many times, especially if you live in an affluent community e.g. La Jolla. Donations can also come in the form of naming rights. This is where you donate money towards an object, room or portion of the library, and in return a plaque with your name will be displayed. 

 Donations help out no matter how big or small.  They give the library the ability to have programs for kids, teens, and yes, even the adults.   According to the San Diego Public Library Foundation, together with the Friends of the Library, they have “raised more than $44 million from private sources during the past three fiscal years.” (2012)

Partnerships are another great way to provide services to your patrons.  By partnering with another group you share the costs to run the programs.  For example a library can partner with a bookstore to hold an authors series.  The library would help advertise and hold the event, while the bookstore would book the authors and would be able to sell books after the talk.  This becomes a win-win for each side.  The library is getting publicity and people are coming to the events, while the bookstore is make money off of the books they sell.

A library can partner with a media outlet e.g. KPBS to do a film series.  The library hosts the films which are provided by the media outlet.  This can actually be a win-win-win, the library wins by getting people in the doors, the media outlet wins by getting people to watch their films and the public wins by being able to get out and see a film for free.  Partnerships are a good way to get people involved and coming back to the library.

Another extreme measure to keep the doors open is to privatize the library. This option is not recommended but it is one that comes up every now and then.  In 2001, after considering the issues of outsourcing and privatization, ALA Council voted to adopt the following policy:

ALA affirms that publicly funded libraries should remain directly accountable to the Public they serve. Therefore, the ALA opposes the shifting of policymaking and management oversight of library services for the public to the private for-profit sector. (2011)

This option should only be considered if all other options have been exhausted.

To sum it up, there are many sources of funding out there to help boost a public library’s budget.  The chances of public libraries funding to increase is not looking up at this time.  Possibly as the economy gets better so will the budgets.  Until then we will need to think of creative ways to keep the doors open.

References

American Library Association. (2011). About the Project. Retrieved from http://www.supportmylibrary.org/centrallibrary/aboutproject

San Diego Library Foundation. (2013). Keeping Public Libraries Public: A Checklist for Communities Considering Privatization of Public Libraries. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/tools/sites/ala.org.tools/files/content/outsourcing/REVISEDSEPT2011_ALAKeepingPublicLibraries%20PublicFINAL2.pdf

San Diego Library Foundation. (2012). Library Fund Raising Top Accomplishments: How private contributions supported the Library in FY2011. Retrieved from http://www.supportmylibrary.org/pub/Library%20Fund%20Raising%20Top%20List%20for%20FY11.pdf

The Future of Libraries as Community Centers

As more and more of our customers have access to the internet and own mobile devices on which they check out e-books and other media, the library of the future will continue to thrive as a community center. Through diverse programming, community partnerships, outreach to the underserved and as a “Third Place”, the library of the future will be more essential than ever.

Libraries continue to offer diverse and inventive programming allowing people to engage them in their own ways. Story times, book discussions, craft programs, concerts, art shows, and film screenings are just a few examples. One Book/ One Community programs in which entire communities read the same book at the same time and participate in thematic events, is a great way to offer diverse activities while promoting literacy.  At “A Book Grows in Topsfield,” in Topsfield, Massachusetts, the library even started a community garden on library property to promote the upcoming events and to have vegetables to harvest at the end-of-the program potluck (Milone Hill, 2012).

At the Pueblo City-County Library District (PCCLD) in Colorado, much of the yearly programming budget is focused on a community reading initiative, All Pueblo Reads. Since 2008, PCCLD has invited the book’s author to speak at a free-to-the public lecture. Last year, PCCLD had 80 programs and over 32,000 total participants (for a community of 160,000). Though community-read programs are centered on a book, programming must be much broader to connect with the public. As Becky Rolands, Head of Circulation at Topsfield, summarizes, “I realized we had focused just as much, or even a bit more, on the community as on the book, and that part I do not regret at all”  (Milone Hill, 2012).

Building partnerships with other organizations in the community serves to strengthen the library’s place at the center of community activities. Again, One Book/One Community programs are a great way to connect with area organizations.  At PCCLD, over a dozen community members are invited to participate in the All Pueblo Reads committee and many events and programs happen at other area venues. Last year, the local university assigned the All Pueblo Reads book to all incoming freshmen. This year, the library is planning a community-wide art show, so that artwork created around themes in the 2013 book, The Help, are seen throughout the city in partnership with art galleries and businesses.

The library will continue to be essential in helping to provide services and resources to the underserved. Through adult literacy programs, ESL classes, and collections for non-English speakers, the library is often the one place that new immigrants can engage with the broader community in a welcoming space.

Finally, through these initiatives as well as through the creation of a comfortable and inviting physical space, the library actually becomes a “Third Place” for people in the surrounding communities. The concept of the “Third Place” was outlined by Ray Oldenburg in The Great Good Place (1991). According to Oldenburg, for society, “First Places” are where we live; “Second Places” are where we work and  “Third Places” are where we spend our time when we are not at home or working. Oldenburg outlines the following characteristics for “Third Places”:

•           Free or inexpensive

•           Food and drink, while not essential, are important

•           Highly accessible: proximate for many (walking distance)

•           Involve regulars – those who habitually congregate there

•           Welcoming and comfortable

•           Both new friends and old should be found there

(Wikipedia, 2013).

Libraries are already known to be free and highly accessible. As libraries have evolved, many already either allow food and drink in some areas or have a café. Some libraries have taken the bookstore model and become places that people want to hang out in and linger. Though it can be tempting for libraries to follow commercial trends, it is not necessarily the correct approach. In Libraries as the Spaces Between Us, James Elmborg cautions libraries against merely taking the bookstore model, but instead challenges them to think about how the library as a “Third Place”, can change the way that the public thinks about them:

We can choose to become more like commercial entities with products and customer bases, or we can aim to be socially meaningful institutions with a higher role and calling. We can become bookstores in an effort to beat bookstores, or we can work to build libraries and librarianship around the concept of shared social space where real people engage in real struggle for meaning and purpose in a landscape of increasingly rapid human movement and social change.  (Elmborg, 2011)

In other words, the library of the future will be less a place where people go just to check out books, and much more about a place where one will see an art show, learn a new skill or language or meet some friends for coffee. The library will thrive as a true center for the entire community.

References

Elmborg, J.K. (2011). Libraries as the Spaces Between Us: Recognizing and Valuing the Third Space. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 50(4), 338-50.

Milone Hill, N. (2012, July/August). One Book/One Community Programs. Public Libraries, 17-21.

Wikipedia (2013) Retrieved from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Good_Place_(Oldenburg)

Technology in the Future of Libraries

Most people might consider technology and libraries to be at odds with each other. After all, libraries are just relics for dusty old books, right? When talking about where libraries will be 20, 50, 100 years from now, nothing says futuristic more than technology. Technology is the cutting edge. Things will be faster, easier, and more efficient. It is the end-goal, the aspirations, the way life will be. Technology promises hope: and we are all waiting for our flying bookmobile.

Technology and libraries intersect in many places. Technology has infiltrated our cataloging systems, our materials, even the way the library communicates and interacts with the public. We are slowly adopting it in every aspect of librarianship, especially as technology costs decline and the demand for digital goodies increase. As one librarian soothsayer said years ago, “The future will be like the present, a mix of new and old existing side by side” (Dougherty, 2009). Some of us are on the cutting edge with new services and products, others of us are still playing catch-up. The important thing to remember about libraries and technology: we simply follow the trends of society; we are a response to the needs of our community, which are ultimately our focus.

If we asked a patron where technology and libraries do intersect, they would probably first say eBooks. eBooks are the material trend for the future. Daniel Freeman, an ALA affiliated writer observes: “Anything with the potential to transform reading has the potential to transform librarianship” (2009)—but this does not mean print materials are going away anytime soon. Hardcover and paperback sales are an increasing, $10 billion industry (Malmsheimer, 2013).

Still, Freeman has a point. EBooks are quickly becoming the checkout material of choice at public libraries, and the academic and school libraries are not far behind. We do not even need to look at the sale statistics to know eBooks are on the rise...but we will: fiction eBook sales rose 42% last year (Bosman, 2013). Instead, look at the news and gasp at the recent $30 million deal the Los Angeles School District agreed to pay Apple to give every student an iPad (Blume & Watanabe, 2013) Technology is not just changing the way patrons read, it is affecting the way we consume information. Will our students in 10 or 20 years reach adulthood without ever holding a book?

This is the role of libraries for the future. Many suggest, and more of us know, that we need to be less attached to a library as a physical place and more into the digital realm.

Rather than act as gatekeepers to knowledge, museums and libraries can be facilitators and teachers, providing the context, content, and tools that empower people to question, search, inform, and explore the worlds of information, experience, and memory. (Hines, 2013)

For school and academic libraries, the term “iCentre” has been used to describe a librarian’s roles in helping students make this digital shift as “chief information officers” (Hough, 2011). Instead of the school library being the place where kids read books and use the nonfiction materials for school reports, these are becoming technical learning centers, device training hubs, and are essentially the information center, eponymously named above. Academic libraries are in similar boats, absorbing student help centers and I.T. departments as they become the central location for everything information related. 

One of the ways libraries continue their roles as information leaders is through databases. Libraries rely heavily upon databases to deliver non-fiction material that we find relevant. Anyone who has done a research report or has worked in a library has seen people use a search engine as the first point of discovery for sources. But libraries are responding. Instead of buying expensive non-fiction tomes that get lost, damaged, or are out of date in 6 months, they are purchasing online subscriptions to databases instead. The Library of Michigan for example, will receive somewhere around $4.5 million from the Library Services and Technology Act this year (Biggs, 2012). In Michigan, the Library of Michigan uses almost the entire Institute of Museum and Library Services money to fund the Michigan Electronic Library (MeL), which the state uses to provide databases to nearly all of the Michigan libraries; if these databases were bought individually, it would cost somewhere in the vicinity of $61 million (Biggs, 2012).

Databases are a form of virtualization, another growing part of librarianship. Libraries use servers to connect to client computers and workstations across entire library branches, systems, and consortiums. Not only does this drive down the costs of technology, but it protects data from corruption and loss (Dougherty, 2009). One server could power many clients, whether they are staff machines in an archiving department to public internet computers, to catalog machines. We will see this huge shift to virtualization as libraries begin replacing older equipment. Virtualization in the form of conferences has shaved off hours and costs to librarians seeking to educate themselves. I can look at my own library’s budget to know how many thousands my library saves by doing webinars instead of paying for mileage.

Copyright issues and net neutrality are the forefront of our issues today. In this new age of iTunes and YouTube, we expect media to be streamed to us instantly—and often times for free. Welcome to the instant-gratification era. On the other side of this are censorship and copyright issues which have always been issues for libraries and are becoming serious legal battles in the United States, such as the 112th Congress’s Joint Resolution 37 against the Federal Communications Commission’s net neutrality open access decision (Library of Congress, 2011).

Unfortunately, libraries are just caught in the middle, trying to work with publishers and information curators. Already libraries pay a premium for eBooks, easily 300% more than a regular consumer, with some librarians quoting paying 600% more than print editions (Kelley, 2012). Libraries struggle to meet patrons’ demands and bridge the gap with free access to information, media, and other paid services. This is not even considering the host of issues that crop up when dealing with the first sale doctrine, resale, and the plethora of other battles libraries face with copyright issues. This has typically been one of ALA’s most pressing issues (2013).

As future librarians, we must be prepared for the organizations we work for to undergo dramatic shifts as they react to changes in technology. And if we do not accept the demands for changes we will be swept down the metaphorical river—the river of Styx that is. As professionals learning librarianship, we are preparing ourselves for the torrent the rivers of change will bring to us. But it is good to keep in mind the core mission of libraries: “A library is nothing more than a passage or gateway into the world of information” (Dougherty, 2009).

References

American Library Association (n.d.) Copyright. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/advocacy/copyright

Biggs, D. (2012, May 15). Michigan eLibrary. Beginners workshop. Meeting conducted at Shanty Creek Resort, Bellaire, MI.

Bosman, J. (2013, May 13). E-book sales a boon to publishers in 2012. The New York Times. Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/15/business/media/e-book-sales-a-boon-to-publishers-in-2012.html?_r=0

Blume, T. & Watanabe, H. (2013, June 18). L.A. Unified awards Apple $30-million contract for iPads. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0619-lausd-20130619%2C0%2C3194906.story

Dougherty, W. (2009, March 28). Virtualization and libraries: The future is now (or virtualization: wither libraries or libraries wither?). The journal of academic librarianship, 35(3), 274-276. Retrieved from: http://www.sciencedirect.com.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/science/article/pii/S0099133309000494

Freeman, D. (2009, April 29). A TechSource Blogger Forum: E-Readers and Libraries. ALA techsource. Retrieved from http://www.alatechsource.org/blog/2009/04/a-techsource-blogger-forum-e-readers-and-libraries.html

Hines, S. (2013, April 10). What will libraries be when they grow up?: Responding to the innovations of technology and imagining the future. Retrieved from www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/.../Hines_WhatWill.pdf‎

Hough, M. (2011, April). Helping schools face the future. School Library Monthly, 27(7). Retrieved from: http://ehis.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=2&sid=79ac31c5-48a4-41bc-b64e-2688fa5ff7d5%40sessionmgr114&hid=109

Kelley, Michael. (2012, March 2). Librarians feel sticker shock as price for random house ebooks rises as much as 300 percent. The Digital Shift. Retrieved from http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2012/03/ebooks/librarians-feel-sticker-shock-as-price-for-random-house-ebooks-rise-as-much-as-300-percent/

Library of Congress. (2011, February 6). Disapproving the rule submitted by the Federal Communications Commission with respect to regulating the Internet and broadband industry practices. The Library of Congress. Retrieved from http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:hj37:

Malmsheimer, Taylor. (2013, May 17). E-book sales almost doubled E-book sales almost doubled and online book sales rose 21.3% in 2012. Daily News. Retrieved from http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/2013/05/e-book-sales-almost-doubled-and-online-book-sales-rose-213-in-2012

 

 

Finding A Place For History In The Library Of The Future

  Is there a place for rare books, special collections, and archives in the ever-evolving entity known as the library? As we move to the future, these historical repositories may be one of the key factors that keep libraries relevant in the digital age. The archive’s unique material, connection with the community, and the ability to reunite material make these locations more important than ever.

Unique Material
            Archives and special collections amass vast amounts of rare and one-of-a-kind materials. Many of these items are from the local community. It has been the priority of many archives to digitize their collections, making it possible to share their information with few restrictions. The Association of College and Research Libraries writes that:

Many of these collections, particularly those that include rare or unique content or institution-specific materials such as university records and grey literature, are or will be digitized. OCLC Research reports that 97% of the 169 research libraries in the United States and Canada with special collections surveyed have “completed one or more digitization projects and/or have an active program”. (Association of College and Research Libraries Research Planning and Review Committee, 2012)

Once a collection is digitized, it is often placed on the Internet. This makes the collection more accessible to the public, researchers, and other institutions.
           In fact, the digitization of files makes sharing that information worldwide a possibility.  This leads to better cultural understanding, both at home and abroad. In his predictions about the futures of libraries, futurist Thomas Frey states: “Our ability to learn about and understand the cultures of the rest of the world are key to our ability to prepare ourselves for the global societies of the future.  At the same time that we learn about global societies, a new era of global systems will begin to emerge.” (Frey, The Future of Libraries, n.d.)  There is no better way to learn about a community than by examining first hand documents.

Community Connection
            Libraries are becoming the hub of many communities. The archive often gives a sense of perspective to a community, showing the evolution of the area over the years. Frey writes:

One of the most valuable things we can pass on to our children and grandchildren is the gift of perspective. Their ability to put themselves into our shoes 30-50 years ago, even for a moment, gives them a vastly different understanding of the world around us today. (Frey, The Library of the Future Series, Part 1: The Time Capsule Room, 2008)

This is important because it creates a sense of pride within a community, and often strengthens the bonds within the community as well.
            Community artifacts can take many forms. Traditionally, collections are usually comprised of old books, letters, and photographs. In his report Confronting the Future, Roger Levien looks ahead to the types of artifacts that we produce today that will be useful in the future. Levien writes:

These might include municipal records, such as demographic data, information on land and buildings, tax rolls, and police and fire records; educational records from the school system; local newspapers or blogs; personal remembrances and memoirs; historical and current photos; and the miscellaneous ephemera of public events. To the extent possible, these records would be digitized and linked to the Web or its successor. The local library would also catalog its unique local holdings. (Levien, 2011)

Projects like these engage the community and gain their support. If the community feels a bond with a resource such as a library or archive, they are more willing to fund it through hard times, and fight to keep the facilities and staff first rate.

Reunification of Material
            Another positive aspect for the future of archives in libraries is that as records are digitized and published, “lost” pieces of a collection are found at other institutions and with private citizens. Even though the physical original stays at its location, the digital records can be freely shared and reproduced between these entities. This may reunite collections that may not have been whole for hundreds of years. One example of this is the collection of Myron Eells. Eells’ collection was split after his death, and many pieces of it are resurfacing now. In his article about Eells’ collection, Michael Paulus writes, “The current state of Eells’ collection presents an example of the possibilities for restoring fragmented collections and of the opportunities for reconvergence among LAM [Libraries, Archives, and Museums] collections and institutions.” (Paulus, 2011) From an organization perspective, this is very important. As the Internet and searching evolve, records can now be located in a single easy to access space preventing researchers from having to physically visit multiple institutions.

            Digitization is the future for archives. As technology evolves, the archive will evolve with it. Possibly we will learn how to save smells and tastes one day, and there will be an archive waiting to store that information. Books may fall to eBooks like CDs fell to mp3’s, but there will always be a need to retain unique and local data.

 

Works Cited

Association of College and Research Libraries Research Planning and Review Committee. (2012). 2012 top ten trends in academic libraries A review of the trends and issues affecting academic libraries in higher education. College and Research Libraries News, 73(6), 311-320.

Frey, T. (2008). The Library of the Future Series, Part 1: The Time Capsule Room. Retrieved June 14, 2013, from The Da Vinci Institute: http://www.davinciinstitute.com/papers/the-library-of-the-future-series-part-1-%E2%80%93-the-time-capsule-room-by-futurist-thomas-frey/

Frey, T. (n.d.). The Future of Libraries. Retrieved June 14, 2013, from The Da Vinci Institute: http://www.davinciinstitute.com/papers/the-future-of-libraries/

Levien, R. E. (2011). Confronting the Future: Strategic Visions for the 21st Century Public Library. Chicago: American Library Association.

Paulus, M. (2011). The Converging Histories and Futures of Libraries, Archives, and Museums as Seen through the Case of the Curious Collector Myron Eells. Libraries & the Cultural Record, 46(2), 185-205.

 

The Future of Collection Development and Patron-Driven Acquisition

What exactly is collection development? What components make up collection development? What is the future of collection development? These questions are all relevant to libraries and librarians today.

According to Dictionary for Library and Information Science by Joan M. Reitz collection development is:

The process of planning and building a useful and balanced collection of library materials over a period of years, based on an ongoing assessment of the information needs of the library’s clientele, analysis of usage statistics, and demographic projections, normally constrained by budgetary limitations. Collection development includes the formulation of selection criteria, planning for resource sharing, and replacement of lost and damaged items, as well as routine selection and deselection decisions. Large libraries and library systems may use an approval plan or blanket order plan to develop their collections. In small- and medium-sized libraries, collection development responsibilities are normally shared by all the librarians, based on their interests and subject specializations, usually under the overall guidance of a written collection development policy. (2004)

Simply stated, collection development is choosing materials for a library, based on what patrons want and fitting into a specified budget. Demographic changes, new technology, the introduction of downloadable materials, and shrinking budgets are changing the way that collection development is implemented. In his article “Defining ‘Transformation’: The Very Nature of What We Do and How We Do It is Undergoing Fundamental Changes,” Keith Michael Fiels stated:

In the United States, as in much of the world, demographic changes are affecting communities of all sizes, including the continued urbanization of the US population as more and more people move from rural areas to cities. At the same time, new immigrants have also changed the demographics of communities large and small across the country. The fact is, communities are changing – and libraries must continue to change with them. (2013, p. 6)

This change in demographics is leading to many changes in today’s libraries and is transforming collection development; these changes go hand-in-hand with advances in technology and the introduction of downloadable materials. Fiels stated:

Library collections are also being transformed. While traditional collections consisted of books and printed periodicals located within the library, libraries now also provide ebooks, e-journals, and downloadable digital files. Last year, for example, a typical academic library spent two-thirds of its materials budget on digital content. A growing number of academic libraries now maintain institutional repositories of digital content created by faculty and staff. (2013, p.6)

To add fuel to the fire, libraries across the board have seen severe budget cuts due to a period of economic decline across the United States. In Paul D. Moeller’s article “Literature of Acquistions in Review, 2010-11,” he summarized the findings of a survey of Association of Research Libraries’ (ARL) budgets.

Member libraries have experienced three unprecedented years of flat or reduced budgets beginning with FY 2008-09, when 55 percent indicated reduced budgets. In FY 2009-10 that trend continued, with 61 percent experiencing flat or reduce [sic] budgets from the prior year. For this year, 2010-11, 47 percent are faced with flat or reduced budgets. (2013)

While the impact has been greatly felt within the academic library realm, public libraries have not been immune. Moeller quoted Michael Kelly from his article “Bottoming Out?”:

The overall trend in FY10 was a brutal grasping by money-starved government officials for the low-hanging fruit of library budgets: 72 percent of survey respondents said their budget had been cut, and 43 percent had staff cuts. Among libraries serving populations above one million, these figures were even more acute, with 86 percent reporting budget cuts in their libraries and 93 percent reducing staff. They also reported a drop in service hours that on average equaled two branch closings. (2013)

These economic impacts (a.k.a. budget cuts), have intertwined with the above mentioned changes in demographics, advances in technology and the introduction of downloadable materials to spur on the transformation of collection development. “This challenging budget situation and the increase in electronic resources managed by libraries have had a continuing impact on the work of acquisitions” (Moeller, 2013). The increase in these electronic resources, coupled with new technology, may just be the answer to desired changes in collection development. “In this prolonged period of economic challenge, libraries are looking for means of increasing efficiency and effectiveness” (Moeller, 2013).

In the article “Patron-driven Acquisition and the Educational Mission of the academic Library,” William H. Walters defined patron-driven acquisition (PDA), “Patron-driven acquisition (PDA), also known as demand-thriven acquisition, patron-initiated purchasing, or books on demand, allows patrons to select and purchase books for the library collection without staff mediation or oversight” (2012). This is a scary concept for most librarians, as they are relinquishing control to patrons. It does, however, streamline the collection development process, saving money, while at the same time addressing patron demands. “Whether it is referred to as patron-driven acquisitions (PDA), purchase-on-demand, patron-initiated purchasing, or demand-driven selection, just-in-time purchasing has received a good deal of attention as libraries attempt to meet the needs of patrons while limited by distressed budgets” (2013). So what is the future of PDA and how do librarians fit into this model?

While conducting his study, William H. Walters defined 11 main concerns related to PDA (2012):

1.       Failure to Distinguish Between Patrons’ Immediate Desires and Their Long-Term Needs

2.       Failure to Make Full Use of Librarians’ Knowledge and Expertise

3.       Failure to Represent the Full Range of Library Stakeholders

4.       Systematic and Idiosyncratic Biases in Selection

5.       Potential for Overspending and Associated Budgetary Problems

6.       Issues Related to Bibliographic Control

7.       Problems Specific to E-Book PDA Programs

8.       Limited Availability of Titles as E-Books

9.       Digital Embargoes

10.   High Prices of E-Books

11.   E-Book Licensing Issues

Many of the concerns mentioned above can be relieved by combining PDA with other models. Walter’s explained this idea:

 . . . problems such as overspending and idiosyncratic bias can be mitigated by combining PDA with other selection methods, by limiting selection authority to particular groups of patrons, by restricting the set of titles from which patrons can select, and by maintaining professional oversight over the PDA selection process. (2012)

In conclusion, collection development is, and will continue to change, as libraries evolve to meet changing demographics, new technology, the introduction of downloadable materials, and shrinking budgets.

The acquisitions literature review for 2010 and 2011 reveals libraries, vendors, and publishers working cooperatively and collaboratively in the face of the continuing economic downturn. Tools are being developed, refined, and repurposed to meet the needs of librarians. Improving standards are easing the flow of information and improving the user experience. Approval plans are expanding to deliver e-books and print books on demand while being otherwise narrowed to only supply print books with high profitability of use. Just-in-time acquisition models are being embraced because they show promise of more efficiency than traditional acquisition models that rely on title selection by librarians. (2013)

Librarians will always be an important part of collection development, but like everything else, the process and a librarian’s role in the process is not immune to change.

References

 Fiels, K. M. (2013, May). Defining "transformation": the very nature of what we do and how we do it is undergoing fundamental changes. American Libraries, 44(5), 6+. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA330500878&v=2.1&u=lom_pls&it=r&p=GPS&sw=w

Moeller, P. D. (2013, April). Literature of acquisitions in review, 2010-11. Library Resources & Technical Services, 57(2), 87+. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA326981508&v=2.1&u=lom_pls&it=r&p=GPS&sw=w

Reitz, J.M. (2004). Dictionary for library and information science. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.

Walters, W. H. (2012, July). Patron-driven acquisition and the educational mission of the academic library. Library Resources & Technical Services, 56(3), 199+. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA296045314&v=2.1&u=lom_pls&it=r&p=GPS&sw=w