This document discusses collection management in libraries. It begins by defining collection development and outlining the types of materials that can be included, such as books, periodicals, theses, and audiovisual materials. It then discusses selection of materials, the importance of a collection development policy, and procedures for book acquisition. The document also addresses weeding collections and challenges with managing digital materials. It concludes by noting the importance of balancing acquisition with weeding to provide relevant materials and assessing community needs regularly to keep collections updated.

1. BY
IGBINOVIA, OSAHON MAGNUS
Department of Library, Archival and Information
Studies.
University of Ibadan, Ibadan-Nigeria
October, 2016

2.  Introduction
 Types of materials
 Selection of materials
 Collection development policy
 Book acquisition
 Book acquisition procedures
 Donor agencies
 weeding
 Collection management in the digital environment
 Challenges of collection management in developing
countries.

3.  Collection development is the systematic building of the library’s materials
(print and non-print) with the objective of meeting the information needs
of the parent institutions for which the library exist.
 The collection development librarian must first develop the profile of the
library and its parent institution if it has one.
 A knowledge of the clientele to be served and the disciplines that
constitute primary area of interest to the parent institution is essential.
 It is therefore absolutely essential for a library to possess the resources
that will enable it to meet its goals.

4.  For the purpose of this presentation, types of materials will be categorised
into the following:
1. BOOK
2. LIGHT READING MATERIALS
3. PERIODICALS
4. THESES AND DISSERTATIONS
5. SPECIAL MATERIALS
6. DOCUMENTS
7. MICROFORMS
8. AUDIO-VISUAL MATERIALS
9. VERTICAL FILES
10. MACHINE-READABLE MATERIALS
 BOOKS: A book is operationally defined as a publication in printed form with
a distinctive title, it usually appears as a monograph, but it can also be
multi-voluminous. They include reference books, monograph, textbooks
among others.

5.  LIGHT READING MATERIALS: This type of materials help the library to meet
with one of its objectives, namely, assisting the library user in his own
personal self development
 PERIODICALS: These are publications that appear with distinctive titles and in
successive numbers or parts at regular or irregular intervals.
 THESES AND DISSERTATIONS: This are systematic investigations with a view
to earning academic degree such as doctoral and masters degree. They are a
category of research materials.
 SPECIAL MATERIALS: These would include archival collections, manuscripts
and regional collections, minutes book, pamphlets, private papers etc.
 DOCUMENTS: Here documents would be used to refer to government (issued
at different levels) and United Nations publication.

6.  MICROFORMS: is a generic term referring to any information storage or
communication medium that is made up of images too small to be read by
the naked eyes.
 AUDIO-VISUAL MATERIALS: this comprises of all sight and hearing aids. They
serve both as teaching aids and to meet information needs of special groups
like the impaired and children.
 VERTICAL FILES: This is a collection that is meant to augment other library
collections by providing quick and easy access to pamphlets, clippings, fliers
and other ephemeral materials.
 MACHINE-READABLE MATERIALS: are collections a]of information held in
some forms of computerized or electronic format e.g. CD-ROM

7.  SELECTION is the act of choosing relevant materials that would satisfy the
information needs of users of the library.
 TOOLS FOR SELECTION: This include but not limited to?
1. Current awareness and book selection aid
2. Subject guides to forth coming books
3. Bibliography
4. Books-in-print
5. Book review
6. UN document Index
7. African book publishing record
8. Cumulative book index (CBI)
9. Trade annual list
10. Database directory
 SELECTION CRITERIA:
1. Author’s reputation

8. 2. Aims
3. Relevance
4. Accuracy
5. Currency
6. Scope and depth of coverage
7. Style of writing
8. Specific Features
9. Formant
10. Cost
 Its noteworthy that the above are general criteria applicable to most types
of library materials. But there are also other specific criteria that are
applicable to some particular types of materials.
COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT POLICY
 Collection development policy (CDP) could be written or unwritten
 A written collection development policy is a document that sets out
guidelines for systematically building up a library’s stock or collection

9. ADVANTAGES OF COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT POLICY
 Identification of user’s present and future needs (it is user centered)
 Judicious allocation of the limited financial resources on priority areas that
will maximize the institution’s potential.
 Ensuring uniformity of practice in spite of staff turnover
 Reduction of personal bias in selection
 Pointing out the best and cheapest sources of book supplies
 Serving as a useful document to persuade budget authorities to allocate
more money to the library.
SOME CONTENTS OF THE CDP
 Functions of the parent institution and objectives of its library
 Clientele to be served and their levels of information needs
 Types of materials to select- print and non-print
 Scope of materials- comprehensive versus selective
 Selection criteria including policies by formant
 Participants in the selection process
 Sources of supply
 Stamp of authority for the document

10. BOOK ACQUISITION PROCEDURES
 PREPARATION OF ORDERS: publishers’ catalogue, booksellers’ stocklists, review
journals, announcements, new title advance information slips, weekly national
bibliographies, accession list from libraries and other book selection aids are used
and are forwarded with a routing slip to the book selectors.
 ORDERING AND RECEIVING: An order is sent out in the following ways:
1. By telephone
2. By handwritten slip
3. Using supplier’s order forms
4. Using multiple order forms among others
 FINANCIAL RECORDS: At this stage all Invoices received are usually stamped with
date of receipt and all financial clarifications made
METHODS OF ACQUISITION
1. Purchase
2. Periodical Subscription
3. Legal deposit
4. Exchange
5. Gifts

11. 5. Membership of professional association
6. Bequeathal
7. Grants
DONOR AGENCIES
 One of the problems of collection development is inadequate financial support.
This section addresses the issue of donor agencies that give grants and donate
informational materials to supplement regular annual book subventions
 This would include National and International donor agencies.
 National donor agencies includes:
1. Education Trust Fund (ETF)
2. Extra budgetary grants from governments, organizations and individuals.
3. Open society initiative for West Africa (OSIWA)
 International donor agencies includes:
1. Adventist development and relief agency (ADRA)
2. BMA- BMJ information fund
3. Book aid international
4. Books for Africa (BFA)
5. International book bank (IBB)
6. Brother’s Brother Foundation (BBF)

12. WEEDING
 While acquisition seeks to constantly add new titles to the collections,
weeding is the process of removing from the shelves some materials which
are of little value in terms of current needs.
 Several reasons has been ascribed to weeding and these includes:
1. Change in community needs and institutional objectives
2. Out-datedness of materials and information
3. Physical appearance of books, costs of storage and presence of several
duplicate copies of the same title on the shelf.
4. Fosters organization of library materials.
 The ultimate aim of weeding must be to increase accessibility, to improve
efficiency and reduce cost.
 Criteria worthy of note in weeding will include:
1. Logically sound and statistically valid assumptions e.g. self life time
2. The recommended method should be simple and practicable
3. The results should be more likely to be useful than other techniques
4. Physical appearance of the material
5. Relevance in terms of content and Recency in terms of editions.

13.  What is done to weeded materials:
1. It could be sent to a storage facility for little-used items.
2. Transference of ownership to another library
3. Disposal by sale
4. Inter library exchange
 The joint nature of the responsibility for book selection also extends to
weeding.
 COLLECTION MANAGEMENT IN A DIGITAL ENVIRONMENT
 The advent of ICT and thus electronic publishing has become important to
libraries because of the escalating cost of print materials. Thus the digital
environment has added another dimension to collection management.
 Most library collections are now in non-print formant and libraries now have
access to a large spectrum of online information contents by the virtue of
ICT.

14.  Also, it is pertinent to state here that most collection management activities
(including preparation of orders, ordering and receiving among others) are
now aided by ICT tools.
CHALLENGES OF COLLECTION MANAGEMENT IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
 Inadequate financial support
 Foreign exchange rate in terms of foreign published materials
 Discontinuity of the collection development policy in the event of change in
library head.
 Creating a collective development policy that is free from bias and personal
interest.
 Difficulty in tracing regular government publication as only few copies of
government publication are usually printed.

15. CONCLUSION
 There is now however a shift in paradigm of libraries from what they can
acquire to what they can give access to. Hence joint ownership of materials
through consortium, digital library and services like inter library loan (ILL) are
recently taking central place.
 In a bid to have a balanced collection, libraries of all types should strike a
balance between there acquisition and weeding in a bid to provide relevant
materials and easy access, saving the time of the user.
 Libraries are for use. Hence the library should not loose sight of the changing
information needs of the community they serve. Thus, community needs
assessment/analysis should be done at regular interval for collection update.
 Libraries should take advantage of all national and international donor
agencies that would assist her in building a myriad of collections.

16. REFRENCES
Aina, L. O. (2004) library and information science text for Africa. Third World
information services limited: Ibadan.
Edoka, B. E. (1992) library funding exploitation, the potentials of alternative
sources. Nigeria Library and Information Science Review. 10(1&2):27-31.
Ifidon, S. E. (2006) modern theory and practice of library collection
development. The department of library and information science, Ambrose
Alli University: Edo.