I had an interesting question today from a colleague, who just got a job as a director of a small academic library. Their budget for acquiring new books is very minimal, and they do not have the resources to buy into a library approval plan.

The director asked whether I knew of any good selection tools for choosing new books. I just know the tools I learned in library school — Worldcat.org, Books in Print, and Choice Reviews. This particular library is moving to a subject liaison model. My suggestions to them included asking the faculty what they study, what research topics they are assigning to their students, and what search terms they use to research their topics.

Then, I suggested that they also take a look at the LC call numbers to match topics to subject areas, and get other ideas for potential subject headings. Then start searching Worldcat.org to find books that match those subject areas and have current publication dates. This still might not be the best way to develop a collection, but since worldcat is free, it was the easiest thing I could think of to use for this situation, where the library is on a tight budget.

I then also mentioned that people can create lists and tag books in worldcat, and share the book lists with others. If my colleague’s librarians set up accounts and start creating lists, they could share these lists with their faculty members and use it as one method of developing their collection.

Of course, there are also probably a lot of ideas about how to develop a collection on a budget in the library literature. Anyways, just thought this would be a good blog topic, so there ya go. I’d be interested in hearing other ideas…