Collection Development and Management: Book Review

The Book

Collection Development and Management for 21st Century Library Collections: An introduction
Vicki L. Gregory

The Review

My professor decided to begin the course with chapters 4 and 5 of this text before going back to chapters 1-3. Her rationale was that we would need to have some basic knowledge of the Selection (4) and Acquisitions (5) process before assessing the needs of users (2). This makes a great deal of sense. Most textbooks begin by defining crucial terms and then build on the basic concepts, this text assumes that the reader brings a fairly high level of experience with Collection Management (which includes selection) and Acquisitions with them. While I did have a vague sense of what it was, I have a much more solid knowledge of the process now. The difference between collection management and acquisition in the library setting is as follows:

Collection Management

The process of selecting materials the library should hold.

Acquisition

The physical process involved in actually obtaining the selected materials.

Other than that one issue with the content order, this book was the main text for the course LIS 6511: Collection Development and Maintenance. It was a smooth read and very well supported with documented resources. Chapters hover around 20 pages in length, so they were not too long yet they presented substantial information. This was overall an excellent textbook.

Citation

Gregory, V. L. Collection development and management for 21st century library collections: An introduction. New York: Neal-Schuman.