Focus on Assessment - Jun 27, 2011

Leisure Reading Collections are high-use, high-impact collections that are designed to
support recreational reading and promote the library as a place and service that people
can keep coming back to. This unique position requires that the collection be everchanging
and responsive to what people want to read now, as well as what they will
want to read a few months from now. This is a challenge that keeps collections librarians
on our toes, and requires us to be nimble and aware. We need to keep our radar
tuned to books that are popular or soon will be, as well as make sure we’re not holding on to long-forgotten titles that have become dead weight to the collection. Thankfully, there are great tools available to help us do this. In a nutshell, here are a few tools and techniques that I’ve found to be most helpful in my work with the Leisure Reading Collection at University Park.

1) Director’s Station

The University Park Leisure Reading Collection is primarily a leased collection. This means that we bring in approximately 150 new books per month, and we attempt to return just as many to the bookleasing vendor. To determine what books stay and which ones go, I run the “Total Cataloged Titles Report” monthly for the collection location. I create a report that lists the copies by total number of checkouts, and then I export it to Excel. Once exported, I sort this list by “date last checked out,” and hide copies that were created and/or checked out within the last six months. This enables me to first weed any copies that have not circulated in the past six months, and that are also not brand new to the collection.

Director’s Station is also a helpful tool in deciding what to lease. I periodically run reports on what call numbers circulate the most, and I make sure that what I am ordering matches what seems to be popular.

2) Pre-pub book lists

One of the best ways to maintain an engaging collection is to pre-order books that are anticipated to be bestsellers,
movie tie-ins, etc. Here are a few sources that I’ve found to be particularly helpful in filling that need:
• EarlyWord – Provides great information about the latest galleys (without me having to read them!) and there are
lots of links to other collection development tools from the site. It’s become my one-stop shop for book selection!
• Publisher’s Weekly – I still use this as a print resource.
It’s a great way to learn about books that are coming
soon, includes a simple rating system (starred or
unstarred), and also tends to publish thematic issues
which help me to easily fill in any collection gaps. I
order nearly all starred reviews for the collection.
• The Indie Next List – Publishes monthly lists of upcoming
hot titles. Site also provides links to current
best seller and wished-for title lists.
• Barnes & Noble’s Coming Soon Lists – Updated regularly,
and listed by date of release, these lists are very
helpful in identifying soon-to-be hits.