The Future of Collections in Washington County Libraries
When you think about libraries, one of the first things that comes to mind is probably books! What you may not be aware of is how books get onto library shelves for your use. Washington County libraries will be going through a change in how we get the books to the shelves, making the process more efficient and allowing libraries to direct their increased resources to other service priorities. These changes will benefit library users, who can expect:
- Faster turnaround time and reduced wait times for holds
- Improved quality of collections access across the system
- More efficient use of tax dollars
What is collection management?
Library collection is the term we use for the books and other materials available to users. Collection management in libraries is the process of selecting, purchasing, receiving, and cataloging library materials for the collection. Collection management also includes removing items from the collection when they are no longer relevant, useful, or damaged and replacing them with other titles as needed. A library’s collection development policy outlines what factors and considerations are kept in mind when the library makes collection management decisions, including the freedom to read.
What is changing?
Currently in the cooperative system, each partner does collection management independently for physical library materials. WCCLS already manages the countywide digital collection centrally. As part of the Writing Our Future process, partners identified opportunities to reduce the cost of delivering services by finding efficiencies and agreed with analysis that centralizing book purchasing improves the financial sustainability of the library system. Centralizing collection management will reduce the amount of duplicate work happening at each library. It will also reduce staff costs for our partners that operate libraries, because this operational shift will reduce the number of positions required locally across the system to select, acquire, and catalog physical books on shelves in libraries. Each partner will manage this shift based on local resources and priorities, and partners have two years to manage any potential position reductions.
How are library collections used?
Libraries have always evolved our services to meet the needs of our communities, and in recent years, community members are using library spaces and services in different ways. Usage of digital collections continues to grow by 20% to 30% year over year, and demand for physical collections is slowing. Digital and physical checkout statistics for each library, and for the entire system, are shared below.
Commitment to shared success
As careful stewards of public resources, WCCLS is glad to support this change to improve cooperative efficiency. This is a significant operational adjustment for the cooperative and WCCLS is counting on the professional expertise of library staff across the system to develop this new operating model. Partner libraries will work with WCCLS on the collection development policy and strategy, and partner library staff will have mechanisms for giving input on the materials selected by WCCLS. While roles and responsibilities for this service will shift behind the scenes, the quality of collections will be maintained. Library collections are built and managed to serve community needs, and community input will be a critical part of what goes into the collections available at libraries.
Timeline
The goal is for centralized collection management to begin in July 2027, and the collaborative work with our partners to develop a new model is currently underway. For more details about the project scope and timeline, see the request for proposals.
Collection usage data
