A dual approach to assessing collection development and acquisitions for academic libraries

With a growing interest in evaluating the effectiveness of libraries, it is increasingly important that libraries find efficient ways to evaluate the collection development and acquisitions process. This requires a dual approach to explore both what was collected and actually used and also what was not collected which should have been. This study presents a way that both of these areas can be studied for smaller academic libraries and suggests ways these results can be interpreted and used to reallocate scarce budgetary resources or provide evidence for more funds for further developing the collection.

► Assess collection development with two separate studies.
► Acquisitions data with circulation statistics determine what was actually used.
► ILL data reveals items that were not acquired, but should have been.
► Suggestions for future budget and acquisitions are based on this assessment.
► A dual approach gives a more accurate evaluation of collection development.