Q&A: A New College, a New Library, an Instant Collection
By Norman Oder Aug 18, 2010When students at Georgia Gwinnett College, Lawrenceville, return to school next week, they will have access to what Vicki Parsons, Head of Library Collections, calls "a robust collection, housed in a beautiful new building."
GGC, which opened in 2006, is a four-year public college serving about 5,000 undergraduates. It offers what it describes as "targeted baccalaureate degrees in areas such as biology, business administration, criminal justice, early childhood education, English, exercise science, history, information technology, mathematics, political science, psychology and special education, as well as teacher certification concentrations in biology, English, history, mathematics and political science."
GGC broke ground for its library three years ago, leaving the library squeezed into a building with space for only 35,000 volumes. Its new 90,000 square foot library has a capacity of 300,000 volumes. The collection is currently stands at around 70,000 volumes, with more than 20,000 of those ordered with the opening day order, according to Parsons.
Parsons took some questions about how the collection was built, including the work of vendor Baker & Taylor (B&T).
LJ: How was the opening day collection chosen?
VP: The opening day collection was selected, as all materials are at GGC, with the goal of supporting the school's academic and curricular needs. We placed a significant emphasis on continued development of the collection areas that support our degree programs, as well as establishing a strong general education collection.
Was this the collegiate equivalent of a public library opening day collection?
The basic principles are similar. As with any public library opening day collection, we looked at our user population and selected materials that would best serve their needs.
How did GGC work with its vendor?
We worked with B&T to establish very specific subject profiles based on our program guidelines and used those to generate rather large title lists. Using B&T's Title Source utility allowed us to review the titles quickly, check for duplication and place orders easily. We also worked with B&T's collection development staff to review and refine results throughout the process. Their help was invaluable.
GGC is not a liberal arts college—how did the academic focus shape the collection?
We like to think of our collection as a working collection. Our degree programs tend to require new and up-to-date titles and resources. With that in mind, we limited our development efforts in several relevant subject areas. For example, we kept the pub dates within the last five years in most subjects and within the last two years in Information Technology materials. Prior to beginning the opening day process, we had made a concentrated effort to identify and purchase classic titles in our degree programs, so we wanted the opening day titles to represent the most current information available.
How is collection development linked to the written curriculum plan?
We felt this was an unprecedented opportunity for an academic library, to build an academic collection in concert with the development of a curriculum. The Library could anticipate rather than react to the development of new courses and programs. A specific collection development policy was developed for each of the initial degree programs, incorporating language and information from their curriculum into the guidelines for the selection and growth of the collection. This approach served several purposes:
• To create an up-to-date collection consistent with the curricular, instructional, and informational needs of the GGC community.
• To insure a direct link between the collection and the instructional needs of each program.
• To provide consistent and meaningful direction to those requesting materials as well as those selecting materials.
To what extent is the library expected to support faculty scholarship? What about resource-sharing groups?
Although the primary purpose of the GGC library is to support the curricular needs of the college, the library is responsive to the research and professional needs of our faculty. If the material they require falls outside the scope of our collection, we make every effort to obtain it from one of our consortia partners or through the traditional ILL process. In addition to the GIL [GALILEO Interconnected Libraries] consortium, which makes materials from all University System of Georgia schools available to students and faculty at member institutions, we are active members of GALILEO, ARCHE (Atlanta Regional Council for Higher Ed) and we have a reciprocal use agreement with the local public library system, Gwinnett County Public Library.
How do you balance print and electronic collections?
In the past three years we have spent slightly more on print resources. In FY 10, GGC Library received a supplemental allocation of one million dollars to spend on the opening day print collection. Our aggressive efforts in acquiring print materials will continue throughout FY 11, and possibly FY 12, but will begin to stabilize after that.
And after that?
As we grow, the allocation will likely shift toward more dollars in the electronic resources column. Since both the number of degree programs offered and our student population continue to increase, we will likely see significant increases in the price of our current electronic resources as well as a demand for additional electronic resources.
