The many adventures of Wild West Sheriff Walt Longmire, as created by author Craig Allen Johnson, are in particular demand at some of Tulsa City-County Library\u2019s 24 branches. The challenge for library staff is to make enough copies \u2013 and no more – available at locations that serve communities, each with their own character. In fact, collection management at today\u2019s public libraries can be a bit like the Wild West. Libraries are into new territory where collection spending has to be as targeted and efficient as possible. Meanwhile, the landscape keeps changing, as new materials become available and patron tastes change from month-to-month, year to year.<\/p>\n
Amanda Owens, Materials Selector at TCCL, takes the utmost care in her role at the Library: \u201cI want to send certain genres and specific titles to locations with the highest demand. For example, I send zero new Westerns to some locations because the demand doesn\u2019t justify the purchase and customers at those locations can request them from other ones. Recently, I ordered a couple of Craig Johnson books on CD because there were holds on them and all the copies were missing or overdue.\u201d<\/p>\n
“We get\u00a0 most of the quantitative data we need from Decision Center and combine it with knowledge of the communities, feedback from branch staff and ongoing discussions between all stakeholders.”<\/em><\/p>\n –Amanda Owens, Materials Selector Staff at TCCL are working with a smaller budget than in previous years and are constantly looking for ways to make smarter and more strategic purchasing decisions.\u00a0 As a user and development partner for Decision Center, Innovative\u2019s collection management tool, staff at TCCL have the strategy to succeed in this environment.\u00a0 For effective collection development, simple reporting or \u2018circ numbers\u2019 may not be enough to make service and budgeting as good as they can be. Libraries need to track demand through time, get items into patron hands more quickly; and optimize what they collect, and where, to make service and budgeting more effective.<\/p>\n With Decision Center, library staff can implement their strategy of buying fewer copies initially and then add copies for titles in high demand. Decision Center goes beyond a snapshot of \u2018inventory\u2019 and shows how customer needs meet library budget through time. \u201cOur goals with the branch profiles we create\u00a0 with Decision Center are to reduce wasteful spending on items that will not perform well, maximize use of the existing collection and make smarter, more strategic purchasing decisions in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n Collection management data provided by library technology needs to be \u201cdirectly applicable to buying,\u201d says Owens, rather than a generic system or branch circulation number. \u201cFrom traditional reports we see that a certain location has a high demand for Western books. But maybe a couple of years down the road, the demand for the Western genre has declined significantly,\u201d she says. “If we don\u2019t take the time to look at the reports we would continue buying lots of Western books for a given location indefinitely. I think this is a good example of the intelligent reporting Decision center gives us.\u201d<\/p>\n Decision Center gives new insight into the traditional aim to get popular titles into the hands of users as quickly as possible. TCCL staff use the Popular Authors display in Decision Center, which provides a ranking of the most popular authors at a specific location in recent months. Popular Titles also gives staff a purchase recommendation based on the performance of that author\u2019s previous titles. This allows staff to tailor purchasing decisions more precisely than ever before.<\/p>\n Owens says: \u201cWe get\u00a0 most of the quantitative data we need from Decision Center and combine it with knowledge of the communities, feedback from branch staff and ongoing discussions between all stakeholders. Decision Center provides the statistical foundation and recommendations, and the staff fill in the rest.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\nTulsa City-County Library (OK)<\/p>\n
\nStrategic Decisions<\/h3>\n
Applicable to Buying<\/h3>\n
By Popular Demand<\/h3>\n