Collection Development Policies and Procedures

This volume will help you acquire and manage a strong collection for your library, even when budgets are being cut. Topics covered include purchasing materials, formulating selection criteria, sharing materials with other institutions, and evaluating and preserving materials. This edition by the late Elizabeth Futas begins with the results of the author's survey of academic and public libraries. The author then explains how a sharply focused and clearly articulated collections development policy can assist libraries in providing the best possible service in the most cost-effective manner. These and other ideas, practices, and policies in this new edition will allow libraries to continue meeting the needs of their particular constituents, even in uncertain economic times.

About the Author :
The late Elizabeth Futas, PhD, was a professor and director of the Graduate School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Rhode Island, Kingston. Over the past 27 years, she had acquired a wide range of teaching and library experience, having served as reference librarian, cataloguer, and bibliographer at a variety of academic and public libraries, in addition to holding professor and lecturer positions at several universities. Dr. Futas also provided consulting services for collection evaluation and policy formation. A former editor of the ALA SRRT Newsletter, she was the author or editor of numerous publications, including the first and second editions of Collection Development Prices and Procedures formerly titled Library Acquisitions Policies and Procedures, also published by Oryx Press.

Review :
The book is physically attractive and, at $35, quite resonably priced. . . . [T]his volume, in the tradition of the two earlier editions, constitutes an important contribution to the collection development literature. The work will provide guidance to librarians who are writing or revising a collection development policy and will also be an especially valuable teaching tool. The various policies are not simply photocopies of existing documents, but rather appear as cohesive parts to a very fine work. Highly recommended for all professional collections. Not many professional books in library and information science have audiences of sufficient size to prompt their publication in multiple editions, but Elizabeth Futas's compilation and analysis of collecting policies is perennially popular with librarians in all types of libraries. . . . Thousands of readers who learned how to develop their collections systematically from Library Acquisitions Policies and Procedures 1977 and 1984….will miss the well-chosen examples and sensible appraisals that characterized Elizabeth Fustas's approach to her subject. Good role models are not easy to find. This book provides many of them, protecting the beginner from accepting a single statement without seeking a broader range of thought, while simultaniously offering the experienced librarian valuable lessons both from practice and theory. This book is highly recommended for practitioners, educators, and students of collection development and managment. By far the best and most comprehensive collection of statements. A superb resource. [T]he late Elizabeth Futas continues her excellent work on collection development policy formation and content….This compendium is a fitting final book from one who has stimulated such profound improvement in our understanding of the management of collection development in an era of unprecedented change. . . . All collection development libraries and professional collections should aquire a copy.