Presented at IMIME 2020

1. Collection Analysis/Evaluation
Teresa S. Welsh, Ph.D.
teresa.welsh@usm.edu

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What is Collection Analysis/Evaluation?
Collection assessment or evaluation:
 Systematic evaluation of the quality of a library
collection to determine the extent to which it meets
the library's service goals and objectives and the
information needs of its clientele (ODLIS, 2014).
Analysis:
 Detailed examination of the elements or structure of
something (lexico.com, 2019).

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Why is Collection Analysis Important?
 Collection analysis or evaluation is vital for
collection development and management
 Planning and building a useful and balanced
collection of library materials should be based
on ongoing assessment of information needs
of library's clientele, analysis of usage
statistics, and demographic projections
(ODLIS, 2014).

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What are the types of collection analysis?
According to Crowley-Low (2002), there are two
basic types of collection analysis:
1. Materials-centered such as determining how
many materials in a collection support a particular
curriculum, i.e. collection strength (White, 2008).
2. User-centered such as analysis of circulation rates
of library materials (Crowley-Low, 2002).

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What are the types of collection analysis?
Ciszek and Young (2010) sub-divides these two
categories into quantitative and qualitative:
1. Collection-centered quantitative assessment
2. Collection-centered qualitative assessment.
3. User-centered quantitative assessment
4. User-centered qualitative assessment

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1a. Collection Quantitative - Comparison
Comparison of one collection to another, or to a
checklist (Nisonger, 2007), or measurement of
collection growth over time
‘A Comparative Analysis of the Religious Non-Fiction
Collections of a Public Library and a Christian Church
Library’ (Bolton, 2014)
 Checklist of religious nonfiction books in
Public Library Core Collection: Nonfiction
 Public library collection had 7 times more recommended
religious nonfiction books than church library.

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1b. Collection Quantitative - Checklist
Checklist methodology can use award-winners, best-
of lists as a checklist:
‘A Collection Analysis of the African-American
Poetry Holdings in the de Grummond Collection’
(Heidelberg, 2013) used two checklists
 de Grummond Collection held 100% of poets from the
Harlem Renaissance listed on Patton’s List
 Collection held only 38% from the Black Arts
Movement on the poets.org list

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2a. Collection Qualitative - Condition
Examination of physical condition of a collection:
‘Condition Survey of the Circulating Collection: Cook
Library, University of Southern Mississippi’ (Reinke,
2013)
 random sample of books for age, types/condition of
cover material, types of physical damage, paper acidity
level, degree of paper brittleness
 80% contained acidic paper, 21% already embrittled

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2b. Collection Qualitative - Content
Examination of content of a collection
‘A Content Analysis of Cinderella Illustrated
Storybooks Housed in the de Grummond Collection’
(Smith, 2012)
 71 Cinderella illustrated storybooks had animal helper
character instead of fairy godmother
 most classified as Asian or multicultural.

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3a. User Quantitative - Survey
User-centered quantitative analysis includes user
surveys:
‘Standardized Survey Tools for Assessment in
Archives and Special Collections’ (Yakel & Tibbo,
2010)
 Archival Metrics Toolkits first step toward standardized
assessment tools for archives
 includes 5 user-based survey instruments.

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3b. User Quantitative – Circulation
User-centered quantitative analysis includes usage
such as circulation statistics:
‘Monograph Circulation Over a 15-Year Period in a
Liberal Arts University’ (Cheung, Chung, & Nesta,
2011)
 about 1/3 of books in the study not checked out
 circulation within the first few years of acquisition was
good predictor of future circulation.

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3c. User Quantitative – Citations
User-centered quantitative analysis includes usage
such as citations:
‘A Citation Analysis of Scholarly Journals in
Communication Studies’ (Romero, 2018)
 collected citation data every 5 years for 30 years from
articles in 116 communication journals
 compiled a list of top 50 most-cited communication
journals for collection development decisions.

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4a. User Qualitative - Interviews
User-centered qualitative analysis includes
interviews, qualitative responses:
‘Beyond the Scanned Image: A Needs Assessment of
Scholarly Users of Digital Collections’ (Green &
Courtney, 2015)
 analyzed interviews, qualitative responses from
workshops
 determined how digital collections were used and how
they could be enhanced.

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4b. User Qualitative – Focus Groups
User-centered qualitative analysis includes focus
groups:
‘Is This a Chapter Book?: Parent-Involved
Categorization in a Kindergarten Classroom Book
Collection’ (Holstrom, 2019)
 facilitated parent groups were asked to categorize
chapter books
 parent-suggested categories included book use, new
categories for difficult-to-categorize books.

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5a. Mixed Methodologies
Mixed methodologies include user-centered
quantitative and qualitative data:
‘Small Library Research: Using Qualitative and User-
Oriented Research to Transform a Traditional Library
into Information Commons’ (McCrary, 2017)
 usage patterns, surveys, interviews, comment boards
 similar results – more group study space needed, more
access to power, quieter environment.

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5b. Mixed Methodologies
Mixed methodologies include user-centered
quantitative and qualitative data:
‘Moving Beyond Citation Analysis: How Surveys and
Interviews Enhance, Enrich, and Expand Your
Research Findings’ (deVries, Kelly, & Storm, 2010)
 citation analysis of faculty publications
 Faculty surveys and interviews to determine
effectiveness of library collections.

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5c. Mixed Methodologies
Mixed methodologies include user-centered and
collection-centered quantitative data:
‘Serials Use in Post-Graduates’ Dissertations of
Pharmaceutical Sciences: Collection Building by
Citation Analysis’ (Nagaraja & Prashanth, 2015)
 citation analysis of pharma. sci. grad students
 Compared to library holdings to identify frequently-
cited sources not in library’s collection.

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Thank you for your attention.
Results of a bibliometric study of scholarly LIS
literature on collection analysis/evaluation to be
presented at QQML20 in Barcelona, will be available at
www.slideshare.net/drtwelsh/presentations