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Library Management System Evaluation Committee

Collection Development

David Block

CDExec Standing Committee

Collection Development relies on the system for verification (just as Acquisitions Services and Public Services do); for fund information (just as Accounting does); and for reports on the collection (which in NOTIS are invariably submitted to the Systems folks as regular or custom-made jobs).

5.1 Basic Functionality

We must have what we have now. That is, we cannot move to a system that is less stable than NOTIS, that does not allow searching by established headings and keywords (enabling keyword searching in staff mode was mentioned as a need) or that does not give the level of fund accounting information that we have now (balances, encumbrances, category breakdowns (class and L3 are the NOTIS operators). We also need "acquisitions" records with payment histories, action dates, receipts for our review in problem solving activities.

5.2 Management Reports

We now need, and will likely need even more in the future as moving materials to offsite storage becomes a regular part of our activities, the ability to design reports that examine the collection-- its current size, its growth over time periods, its distribution by language and within subject and area of the world. We want to see how the collection is used, again within a subject, a language, an area of the world. We are also interested in cross tabulating use with expense; for example how much use do journals above a certain price threshold receive?

Finally, we want reports that can be designed and executed by collection development staff and the ability to mark records in a way that decisions are archived for future action (e.g. books that match certain criteria are marked for future movement offsite).


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d.b.

rev. 7/24/97 dih