Rightsizing the Academic Library Collection

Book excerpt: Honored with many accolades, including a starred review in Library Journal, the first edition of this book demonstrated the power and flexibility of “rightsizing,” an approach that applies a scalable, rule-based strategy to help academic libraries balance stewardship of spaces and the collection. In the five years since Ward’s first edition, the shared print infrastructure has grown in leaps and bounds, as has coordination among programs. With this revision, Miller addresses new options as well as the increasing urgency to protect at-risk titles as you reduce your physical collection. Readers will feel confident rightsizing their institution’s own collections with this book’s expert guidance on the concept of rightsizing, a strategic and largely automated approach that uses continuous assessment to identify the no- and low-use materials in the collection, and its five core elements; crafting a rightsizing plan, from developing withdrawal criteria and creating discard lists to managing workflow and disposing of withdrawn materials, using a project-management focus; moving toward a “facilitated collection” with a mix of local, external, and collaborative services; six discussion areas for decisions on participating in a shared print program; factors in choosing a collection decision support tool; relationships with stakeholders; how to handle print resources after your library licenses perpetual access rights to the electronic equivalent; and future directions for rightsizing