CONTACT INFO
HOBSON LIBRARY
| 90 South Henry Street | P 740-368-3271 |
| Ohio Wesleyan University | E libraries@owu.edu |
| Delaware, OH 43015 |
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We have two main, overarching goals for building our collection moving forward:
Our approaches to each will be multifaceted and we’ll strive to make the entire process manageable for both staff, faculty, and students while keeping limitations of space and budget in mind for the next several years.
For this year, we will continue the process we’ve been following for the past several years.
New this year we will be subscribing to the CHOICE Resources for College Libraries product. This product provides a list of 90,000+ titles curated by librarian and faculty subject experts, providing a list of resources considered essential for undergraduate study at two and four year academic institutions. It will also allow us to check our records against our current collection to see how many of these titles we have purchased in the past.
The goal for this year is to work with faculty and other stakeholders to create a master list of books from Beeghly we’d like to repurchase for our collection. Some content we will be able to purchase immediately, while other items will need to come in time based on availability, space, and funds available.
1. Library staff have identified three main categories of books, spanning all department and program areas, that will create the foundation of the replacement list.
These lists will be made available on the library website for all faculty to review if they wish and can be sorted by department/subject areas.
2. In addition to these lists, faculty are invited at any time to consider items they have used or relied on heavily from the collection and submit those to library staff. Consider this a known go-to list or perhaps a top 20. You can use our Resource Request Form or send a list with enough identifying information to your library liaison.
3. Finally, for any faculty or department that would like to undertake a deeper review of books in a certain area or on a certain subject, the library can generate individual lists for review. Criteria for building lists include:
The goal is to have a master list of replacement purchases compiled by the end of Summer 2025 but we can start purchases of higher use, available items sooner. The following is the suggested timeline to help keep this work on track and manageable for all involved.
| Start Date | End date | Milestone/Benchmark |
|---|---|---|
| September 23, 2024 | TBD | Library staff makes three library-identified collection lists available for review |
| September 2024 | May 6, 2025 |
Open ordering for any specific faculty and staff requests for known items to repurchase. |
| October 1, 2024 | May 6, 2025 |
Interested individual faculty and departments make requests for customized books lists to review. |
| November 1, 2024 | December 2, 2024 | Library staff orders items from Reserves list to make available for checkout |
| January 2025 | TBD | Library staff starts to order from the most recently purchased list. |
| Summer 2025 | Implement new ILS/LSP | |
| End of Summer 2025 | Master list of repurchase requests are submitted to library staff. Library staff reviews master list and begins to determine process for acquiring remaining list items based on available budget, space, and availability. |
The library currently has 44 active periodical titles we receive in print at Hobson. We will continue to review these as well as our electronic subscriptions annually. To order back issues for the size of our previous holdings acquired over the 50 years plus that Beeghly has existed would be beyond anything we could reasonably afford. We will instead rely on ILL to source any point-of-need articles.
Additionally, we will rely heavily on our subscription services like Kanopy and AVON for media title access given the preference for the streaming format that has evolved over the years. We will still continue to purchase and repurchase physical media upon request as the situation warrants.
A few years ago, we shifted our purchasing process away from individual department allotments to a lump sum for all one time purchases.This process allowed for a more inclusive, just-in-time acquisition process for faculty using the same total amount of money allocated for these types of purchases each year. Additionally, library-specific endowed funds for certain departments are typically used first for purchases before dipping into the general fund pool.
The amount can and has fluctuated by year depending on library budget and past spending activity. We’ve been able to hold steady at allotting $25,000 for the last few years.
It’s hard to say in total. Because one-time purchase funds are taken largely from library endowed accounts, underspending over the last few years has given way to rollover funds we can use towards replacement. From the library side we can comfortably do a match of $25,000 for repurchases at this time with the potential for more as the fiscal year progresses.
While we can run projections for a typical book cost, there are many factors that impact price like print vs. out of print status, format, vendor, and even subject matter. It would be almost impossible to give a final total for the project at this time. As faculty work to review the 3 main library-generated lists, we will be working to research availability and pricing for these lists.
Right now we are considering the following options:
Important Note: If we consider acquiring used items, condition will be of the utmost importance. Library staff will create a vetting process to assess condition before acquisition.
We hope by making this a yearlong process, faculty on leave in the fall and summer will have an opportunity to work with staff to create lists or review lists generated as a result of a larger department request. We feel if we begin to purchase some titles from the reserves and recent purchases lists earlier in the year that these would not require major review or conversation given these are lists of items faculty have already indicated are needed.
The entire build back process will be a multi-year process. We are just getting started and believe focusing on creating a master list of replacements was an achievable goal in the next year for all involved. Acquiring content will take longer and we have more library-related work and changes coming in the near future to consider in terms of workload. A statewide switch over to a new library catalog and discovery system is on schedule for Summer of 2025. Additionally, we know conversations will soon begin again around the Library of the Future building process.
Once we have a master list compiled, we can also end our subscription to Green Glass (which allows us to generate the bulk of our lists) to put towards the cost of other collection building services and items.
Hobson library currently contains physical books, journals, and a few media items. It has capacity for around 60,000+ volumes and we are currently in the 40,000 range. We can plan for about 20,000 or less volumes in the next few years.
We are currently exploring options for bulk purchasing and storage as we near closer to moving into a new building. We are still very early in this process.
For new one-time purchases, we are averaging a couple hundred per year, including e-format titles.
For the replacement list, we don’t want to necessarily limit anyone by numbers. We want faculty to think about what is needed for the curriculum and research. We will be doing the same from the library side. With that said, we still urge everyone to keep in mind what is truly core for our OWU collection keeping in mind past usage, availability, not holding duplicate formats unless necessary, and other aspects we consider each year. We hope the ability to cross check the Beeghly collection with suggested core lists from other subject experts contributing to the Resources for College Libraries will also provide another data point to help inform decision-making along with consultation with your library liaison.
We have been considering a good target number for the future physical collection as that will be important to planning for the new library. We have been consulting resources like the median collection size of academic library collections as reported and compiled by ACRL, collection sizes of peer institutions, usage of our previous collections, as well as storage/shelving options possible in a new space. We have a range in mind but the acquisition of the new Resources for College Library lists as well as this year’s work will continue to help inform our figures.
| 90 South Henry Street | P 740-368-3271 |
| Ohio Wesleyan University | E libraries@owu.edu |
| Delaware, OH 43015 |
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