Collection Development
Liaison librarians are responsible forselecting, acquiring, managing, and deliveringlicensed, free, and researcher-generated data collections to support campus research and scholarship.
As of March 2020, the library is purchasing ebooks only. The Associate Dean of Research and Scholarship will announce when this policy changes.
The general workflow for developing collections is as such:
- Librarian uses domain knowledge ("Collection enhancement") or a request from liaison faculty ("Faculty request") to select books and ebooks.
- Librarian checks our ordering platform, Rialto, for accessibility and price, and to submitrequests.Please refer to the Ordering tab for specific steps.
- Tech Services receives request and evaluates for duplication and accessibility. If there are questions, Tech Services will notify the librarian.
- If an individual item costs more than $500, Tech Services forwards the selection to the Associate Dean of Research and Scholarship for approval.
- Tech Services informs you when the item has arrived. The librarian should verify the permalink and then share with interested parties.
The tabs on this guide will walk you through each step of the process.
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What's Your Coverage Area?Use the document "Liaisons by Call Number" to see your assigned coverage areas.
Librarians enhance their collections based on their own knowledge and experience. It takes place at designated times, when the Dean of Research and Scholarship or the Faculty Directors make an announcement, usually with a time frame, such as "We are open to collection enhancement at this time; please place orders no later than May 1st." You will use Rialto to place your collection enhancement requests.
For collection enhancement, you may wish to use some of the following resources, as well as journals, reviews, and materials you find on your own:
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Choice Reviews This link opens in a new window
Short, critical evaluations of new current scholarly books and electronic media of interest to people in higher education and library science. New reviews are arranged by academic discipline and broad interdisciplinary topic.
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Book Review Digest Plus This link opens in a new window
With coverage back to 1983, Book Review Digest Plus indexes reviews of current fiction and non-fiction, and provides review excerpts and over 100,000 full text reviews. Includes children’s books as well as books for adults and young adults. 4 simultaneous users
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Gale Literature Book Review Index This link opens in a new window
The benchmark reference for reviews of every kind, the original print edition of Book Review Index provides quick access to reviews of books, periodicals, books on tape and electronic media representing a wide range of popular, academic and professional interests. Includes more than 5.6 million book reviews, allowing users to conduct research in numerous disciplines, including literature, history, education, psychology, and more.
Occasionally, your faculty will contact you requesting access to specific materials. In turn, you can review their request, ascertaining that we don't already have access to the materials. If the material is not a duplicate, you can select the item in our ordering platform,Rialto, and submit the request. A general workflow for Faculty Requests;
- Faculty asks librarian for specific item, usually by email.
- Librarian checks to see if we already have the item in OneSearch. If so, share the permalink with the faculty.
- If we don't have the item, check our ordering platform,Rialto. Is the item available in the. U.S.? If it's an ebook, are there restrictions to how many users may access? Is the item under $500?
- Submit the order within the ordering system. Since most faculty requests are considered rushes,email Technical Services to indicate the rush.
- Technical Services or Electronic Resources will email you when the item is available. Verify link and share with the faculty.
When you place an order for books or ebooks,you will want to use Rialto, which is our current vendor.
Please use the following resources, which contain directions ad screenshots,to place orders.
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Rialto for LibrariansUse this documentation to place orders in Rialto.
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Fund CodesEach of your coverage area bills to a specific fund code. To access the fund codes, which you need to enter in Rialto, please refer to this document.
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Journal Subscription RequestOccasionally, you'll be asked to select a journal. Use this form as a guide.
Reading List by Leganto is a tool used to create reading lists and integrate your list in Canvas courses. Librarians and instructors can add electronic articles, streaming media, digitized content, physical materials, and more into a single list so students can access all their course materials in one place.
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Collection Development @ SJSU LibrarySJSU Librarians regularly assess the Library’s collections for quality, accessibility, and relevance. Quantitative and qualitative methods to evaluate the collection include benchmarking, list-checking, usage statistics, and citation analysis. Periodic evaluation of the print collection is conducted to determine whether the collection is supporting curricular changes and developing research by faculty and students. Withdrawal of titles is subject to procedures outlined in the Academic Senate Library Policy S15-10 sec. 7.2.
We have multiple tools and resources to help you analyze your collection. In general, you do not need to analyze your collection unless a special project is assigned.
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InterLibrary Loan ReportsSJSU users place their own ILL requests using the ILL tab on our homepage. To review what users have been requesting in your collection areas, contact:
Danny Soares, Head of Document Delivery Services, danny.soares@sjsu.edu or
the ILS team at library-ils-group@sjsu.edu.
Specify date ranges in your request. -
Alma Analytics TrainingWe use Alma Analytics to generate reports on library usage. You can gather very specific information on your collection but the interface can be challenging. This document walks you through some of the most common Analytics reports for liaisons. Contact Tech Services for more information.
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Alma Analytics RequestAlma Analytics can be challenging to learn; you may wish to ask Tech Services to generate a report for you. Instructions for how to do that are in this document.
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More Analytical ToolsTech Services has put together a directory of useful training documents, screen shots, and forms for analyzing your collection
VHS/DVD policy
The library collection policy is to not buy or hold any physical VHS, DVD, or cassette tape media. Institutional streaming options are the way to add most films and audio to the collection.
The library does still have collections of audio on Vinyl and CD, but is not adding to these collections except in special circumstances.
IRC resources
** After careful review by student assistants for streaming availability of each title in the inventory (see Google doc), and a two-year waiting period in which library employees assessed remaining usage of items in the collection, the decision was made to DEACCESSION the majority of these items. They will be offered-up and recycled as is standard for de-accessioned items.
BACKSTORY
IRChad about 3,500 DVD and VHS titles available for loan. Last summer, prompted by space issues in their building, theIRCteam boxed up all of this inventory and moved it to the library. The majority of the content is still in Tech Services as I am slowly going through it to determine usability (i.e. physical condition), alternate availability, and duplication by title. All of these items are inventoried in Alma, but currently most are suppressed from OneSearch because they are not publicly accessible, being in TechServices.
COURSE RESERVES
We pulled out all the DVD's and VHS's with recent loan history fromIRCand made them accessiblein the Course Reserves area. This subset is discoverable in OneSearch. They all have call numbers starting with letter X (view in OneSearch).
HOW TO HELP TEACHERS
If you get a request from a professor looking for a DVD or VHS they historically showed in class and now cannot find throughIRCor need to make available asynchronously, please work with them to
- Check if the video is in library Course Reserves already
- Email the libraryacquisitionsteam to help find streaming options
- If there is no streaming option for the title, I recommend: a) request a physical copy be ordered and placed in Course Reserves ; or b) check if SJPL has the DVD (they have a large circulating, video collection)
ADDED NOTES
We arenotplanning to have any video materials available in the open stacks. Any videos for physical circulationthrough SJSU will be in Course Reserves in future.
Please reach out to Jill Strykowskiif you have questions aboutthe processing of IRCresources.
-- Jill Strykowski (1 Feb. 2025)
Condition assessment of physical items
1. Items brought down by Access Services
In the process of re-shelving and loaning books, various members of the Access Services team find books that have damage.
Examples of damage AS looks for:
- Hardback book with a broken or damaged spine
- Paperback book with missing or loose pages
- Audio CD with broken jewel case
- Audio LP with a crack or scratch
- Book with water damage
- Book with very heavy mark-ups and underlining or writing
- etc.
Theses items are brough down to Technical Services (L-35) for assessment and potential repair.
These books are reviewed for repair based on the following
- Whether a repair is at all possible.
For example, sometimes books come down missing whole chapters or with severe water damage, or very heavily written on withpen and highlighter. These things cannot be fixed. - How many copies are held within the CSU consortium
If we have the only copy in the 23 campuseswe will allow time and materials for more extensive repairs - How long the repair is likely to take
If the repair can be done quickly, the team will do it without considering the rarity of the book. If the repair is extensive, and looks like it will take a long time, the team will only do it if the book is of same rarity, based on holdings information in the CSU OneSearch and OCLC WorldCat.
2. Deselected items
Items chosen by selector librarians and approved by relevant teaching faculty for deselection are brought down to Technical Services (L-35) for condition assessment, offer-up and donation.
Lists of items approved for deselection are brought down to L-35 to be inspected for condition.
Items which have the following damage will be discarded as not eligible for donation to another institution:
- Heavy notation, highlighting or underling in pen
- Missing or heavily torn pages
- Broken spines or covers
- Water damage or stains
Based on guidance from Academic Senate, items being removed from the library collection must be offered-up to the other libraries in the consortium. Other CSU libraries are informed of the offered titles, via the listserv for the Unified Library Management System's (ULMS) Technical Services forum. The other CSU libraries are given forty-five (45) days to claim any titles.
Any unclaimed titles are donated to the San Jose Public Library, which sends qualified books to Better World Booksfor resale (seeBWBacceptance criteria). Any proceeds from these sales, are keep by SJPL as donated funds.
-- Jill Strykowski (1 Feb. 2025)
I've had a few questions recently from people asking about ways to dispose of personal books and media (i.e. VHS, DVDs, CD's). So, I thought I'd just send the information Ihave to thewhole library.
- Books in GOOD condition- Most books ingood conditioncan go to Better World Books (see BWB acceptance criteria). I keep an open drop box near the liaison shelves inL-35:Tech Services (see below map) . When this box is full, I add them to the pallets that go out for SJPL. Any proceeds from the resale of these books goes directly to SJPL as donation funds.
- Books in BAD condition -Technical services has a system for recycling damaged, unrepairable books through campus waste management. I keep an open dropbox for these to the right of the entryway toTech Services (see below map) , which can be identified by the attached, pink disposal slip
- Friends donation- While we do not currently have a 'Friends of the King Library' group that will take donated items for this public library branch, there are Friends groups associated with other SJPL branches. You canlook on the SJPL website here to see what the donation rules are for the branch group near you. There are a few places that will accept old magazines, encyclopedias, textbooks, CD's, DVD's, LP's, etc. No one takes VHS (or other old magnetic media) or damaged items.
- VHSs, floppydisks, CD-roms,etc.- Unfortunately, these outmoded electronicmediums have no resale value except in rarecases. In most cases the best thing you can do is recycle them. Checkrecyclestuff.org to find recyclers near you for these items.
- Vinyl records, and CDs or DVDs with some resale value- I am partial to taking these into Amoeba music since I live near the store in Campbell. But places like Amoeba are very particular about what they accept. If you don't think your items will have resale value with them, checkrecyclestuff.org to find someplace near you to recycle them, or check theFriends donation list. Some of the groups will take these.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Note: I got almost all of my information on materials donation and recycling from my pals in SJPL tech services. SJPL has a robust media donation and recycling program. Thank you Public Library!
-- Jill Strykowski (1 Feb. 2025)
Alma
Alma, which is owned by Ex Libris, is a unified libraryservices platform. It is the backend of OneSearch.
Alma Analytics
Alma Analytics is a tool used for analyzing your collection. SJSU staff has created templates for common reports. Please see the Ordering tab for specific instructions.
Leganto
Leganto is a software program that offers Reading Lists. It integrates with Canvas so that faculty instructors can create reading lists in their courses with links to electronic sources in the library.
OneSearch
OneSearch is the library's forward-facing online catalog, or discovery service.
Rialto
Rialto is an ordering interface that is integrated with Alma. See the Ordering tab for instruction on how to use.
Tech Services
Tech Services refers to the library team which manages orders. When contacting Tech Services, you may wish to email both Bernadette Humphrey,Head of Resources & Analytics, bernadette.humphrey@sjsu.edu, and ElenaSeto,Acquistions/Contracts Analyst,elena.seto@sjsu.edu.