How was the activity relevant to your professional development?
“Tough
times and financial constraints have forced libraries to start behaving more
like businesses: analysing costs and looking for alternatives to the
traditional models of doing library work” (Ogburn, 1994, p 363),
enter outsourcing and consortia models.
Kogarah Library is part of one such consortia;
SSROC – Southern Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils. On November 19th
I attended a Collections Group
meeting to discuss the revisions of the Regional
Selection Profile document, specifically profiling cooperative purchasing
of Children and Youth Material. This
meeting brought together several children’s staff members of the SSROC
Consortia and other non-Consortia librarians- some outsource selection of
materials and technical services such as cataloguing and ‘shelf-ready-items’,
and some who don’t.
Were any gaps in your knowledge revealed?
This was the first of these meetings I have
attended. It is also the first role I have had the responsibility for
Collection Development in the area of Children’s and Youth materials. Having responsibility for Collection has been
a learning curve on my part and having the chance to discuss issues with other
librarians was an excellent opportunity.
Children’s and Youth Librarians had been
communicating electronically for several months through Karen, the facilitator
of the group. Given that the SSROC comprises of 16 local government areas,
reaching agreement on the document with such a range of opinions was
challenging. Contributing to the meeting and documents were important to ensure
my ideas were presented as well as a chance to network.
What did you learn?
I felt
worried that some participants hadn’t understood that the Selection Guidelines
for Children’s material were not the place to add detail and specificity. For
example in the priority area section
one library had asked to have special issues such as same sex parenting added
as a priority for purchase in the picture books category. I said that my
understanding was that we were creating a generic
profile to serve all of us, and that it was anticipated that each library
service would focus on its specific needs that may be important in their
community. The local profiles were where we would focus on diversity issues. I
suggested that an example of what would be identified in the general profile as
priorities would be things like ‘Australian content’.
The facilitator of the meeting agreed that the
generic profile (Regional Selection Profile document) should be used in
conjunction with individual Library Profiles and Standing Order lists. I think
this made the rest of the meeting clearer and we were then more on track for
agreeing on the document.
In discussing procurement the main issue Librarians
were concerned with was diversity. How would our collections be different and
unique from one another’s if we are cooperatively purchasing materials? The
answer to this is part of the guiding principles of the profile. “The SSROC
Library services purchase works across a broad range of subjects but do not aim
to collect comprehensively across all areas, only core and popular material”
(SSROC LIBRARY SERVICES REGIONAL SELECTION PROFILE, Revised 2013). The fact
that we were all purchasing different amounts from different suppliers and
different proportions of our budgets made this apparent through the meeting.
Diversity of collections for young people can be
maintained by the fact that not all libraries outsource the same collections, and each library is at
liberty to retain a proportion of discretionary spending. This may be
determined through a range of measures including customer requests, targeted
surveying and focus groups. If suppliers are providing around 70% of the same
material- the point of difference becomes crucial to maintaining unique
collections, local specificity and collections that celebrate diversity.
I discussed with the group the fact that Kogarah
Community has high proportion of people of Chinese, Greek and Arabic ancestry.
To cater for such a multicultural and diverse group of children and youth we
have children’s collections in those community languages, including bilingual
items. All of these items are selected in-house and are not subject to
cooperative purchasing.
In my case I said that my discretionary budget is
also often used to replace weeded materials, and fill gaps in series (because
everything we get through suppliers are new materials only) and also to buy things
customers have requested.
“The literature related to diversity in libraries
has focused to varying degrees on the four issues of staffing, collections,
services and organisational climate” (Winston, 2007, p 66). Diversity
celebrates difference in various community groups and encompasses acceptance
and respect for individual differences and recognises distinct community
profiles of race, ethnicity, gender, socio economic status, religious beliefs
or other ideologies. Collection development policies can incorporate awareness
of diversity both in the community and between other library services will
ensure that all Public Libraries are inclusive and catering to the special
needs of all communities.
Public
Libraries as community spaces need to provide safe and positive environments
that cater for the range of patrons that frequent libraries. The decisions on
what materials to purchase for each Collection need to factor in embracing the
rich dimensions of each community. With outsourcing the opportunity to
incorporate diversity is not diminished if local profiles and library
specificity is effectively presented to suppliers. This means being aware of
decisions being made on behalf of your library and being active in the
development of policy and documentation. “Librarians must be active
participants in the development of outsourcing services or risk consequences of
services inadequate for their needs” (Bush, 1994, p 409).
Diversity can also be guaranteed by creating
individual and unique standing order lists. Karen asked who had up to date
standing order lists and overwhelmingly most libraries attending did not have
them. Diversity can also be achieved by using discretionary budgets to purchase
specific materials. In my case a higher proportion of tactile books are needed
for fortnightly storytimes with intellectually disabled children.
What occurred to me during this meeting was that
because Kogarah have been outsourcing, we now view it in a positive light. Most
of our teething problems have been solved and we’ve learnt the importance of
communicating well with suppliers. We have also changed suppliers several times
and eventually found ones that fit us. “A good partnership with a vendor is the
key to achieving the benefits of outsourcing” (Bush, 1994, p 398). This has been true for us and it was
apparent that other people at the meeting were going through some of that adjustment
with their suppliers to find the right fit for them.
New partnerships have led to opportunities to have
shelf ready materials for the Junior Fiction, Junior Non Fiction and Picture
Book Collection which has freed up a lot of time to be able to focus on
community connection through children’s events and regular programs.
For many others at the meeting who were not yet
outsourcing, they had fears about the process, especially giving up the
selection materials themselves.
I mentioned that I felt it was not feasible anymore
for me to go back to older models of
purchasing, given the demands of working part time and the popularity of
children’s programs as well as the huge cost saving benefits to the library. As
my library manager would agree, library networking, outsourcing and consortia
is now
“considered fundamental to cost-effective library
management” (Machovec, 2013, p 1). The idea behind that is that if we can show
that we can cooperate on the level of purchasing we may avoid amalgamation of
councils. As some people at the meeting
pointed out, conversely it may just work the other way around and mean that
councils are more ready to be amalgamated if we go down the track of cooperation.
I explained
to everyone that I fought to retain 100% of the PRC budget as my own to select
across all age groups but have actually found it challenging to find the time
to manually select every PRC item this year. But I do think it is important to
keep that collection in my hands because of so many old items I need to replace
and series to maintain.
I communicated to the group that Standing order
lists are working well for Junior Fiction at Kogarah. For Junior Non Fiction we
have created a comprehensive description of our needs in a JNF Requirement
document. I offered to share these with others if they were interested.
Fear of
homogenisation of collections was a big panic reaction ten years ago and I
think some of the more sceptical people at the meeting realised by the end that
there was in fact scope to retain unique and locally specific collections with
consideration for diversity in the community, if the Selection Documentation,
Local Profiles and individual Standing Order lists are in play.
How might knowledge gaps be filled?
Attending this meeting was a useful professional
activity as it was a great opportunity to discuss issues that we all face in
our day to day work. It revealed to me what a complex task Collection
Management was going to continue to be and that time needs to be set aside each
week form my 21 hours to focus on development and check what is coming in from
suppliers.
The most
apparent from the meeting was that we had much more than collection issues to
discuss for example whether or not to
charge for events, online booking systems, stack items, (to keep or not to
keep). The meeting revealed that so much could be gained from staying in touch
with each other and sharing ideas. It was a helpful exercise listening to how
others approached different aspects of programming. I asked if anyone could
share evaluation/feedback forms if they use them. It was reaffirming to listen
to so many anecdotal tales of what makes our jobs so very interesting,
demanding and rewarding.
Bush, C.C., Sasse, M., & Smith, P. (1994). Toward a New World Order:
A Survey
Of Outsourcing
Capabilities of Vendors for Acquisitions, Cataloguing and
Collection Development
Services. Library Acquisitions: Practice &
Theory. 18(4).
Ogburn, J. (1994). An Introduction to Outsourcing. Library Acquisitions: Practice
&
Theory. 18(4).
Winston, M. (2007). Leadership diversity: A Study of Urban Public
Libraries.
Library Quaterley.
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