Lives of Noisy Desperation: A Year's Work in Collection Development, 1989.

Abstract

Lives of Noisy Desperation: A Year's Work in Collection Development, 1989 development literature of 1989 shows how well the profession is coping with declining budgets, spiraling costs, and new technologies. A selective number of articles and books on the following topics are reviewed: general works on development; financing; serials; new technology; evaluation and measurement; automation; cooperative arrangements; selection and review; preservation, storage and size; vendors and acquisitions; and education and training. literature suggests that librarians in charge of development must continue to deal with financial burdens and an expanding list of demands for new materials in all formats. The mass of men, wrote Henry Thoreau, lives of quiet desperation.[1] For those involved in development and management activities these days, there is little time for the luxury of quiet. Collection managers have fallen on desperate times, their work a reflection of a dizzying display of declining budgets, spiraling costs, and new technologies. development literature of 1989 shows how well the profession is coping with these trends after the whiplash of 1987 and 1988. Included in this literature review are a selective number of articles and books produced during 1989, listed under a dozen topics of general concern to the manager. Two topics, preservation and matters relating to acquisitions as an adjunct to development, are touched on only briefly. A number of substantial works appeared this year, including full-length texts and a reprise of important pieces published years before. range of publications shows the growth of this sector of librarianship and the positive responses to the problems facing our collections. General Works Two important texts appeared, providing comprehensive overviews of the work of management. Wortman's Collection Management: Background and Principles treats all aspects of management in a way that is beneficial to both the student and the practitioner. Shoemaker's Collection Management: Current Issues is a of in-depth essays that document the state of the art of development as we understand it today. A shorter treatment of this general area is found in the Association of College & Research Libraries' CLIP note Collection Development Policies for College Libraries, which details policies for college libraries. need to shift our focus from documents to content and from collections to individuals is the focus of Drake's article, while Schwartz provides an extensive review of the decision-making process of book selection. Atkinson puts the role of development in a historical setting to develop a systemized approach to the problems in the field, similar in some respects to the arguments posed by Buckland, who examines the scope of development and suggests that we begin regarding development much as we regard file organization with a computer system. This approach allows the development librarian to see how files are used, as opposed to looking solely at the substance of the file. Bucknall discusses the problems and promises of organizing activities in one centralized area as opposed to a coordinated but decentralized approach. often-unspoken politics of development are the theme of Bullard's editorial, in which he discusses the political overtones of writing a policy statement and engaging teaching faculty and administrators in the process. An overview of collection development in action is provided in the lead essay by Fiste from a day-long workshop at the University of Toledo. Atkinson provides a scholarly essay on referential abstraction in bibliography and the ways in which bibliography is used in library selection. …