Increasing budgetary pressures, rapidly evolving new technologies, shifting user behaviour and needs in combination with significant sector and institutional changes required Deakin Library to reconsider our approach to collection assessment and development.
Over the last couple of years, Deakin Library has developed a fundamentally different approach to collection evaluation to ensure that our resources meet the evolving needs of our communities while aligning and advancing with the University’s strategic direction and vision of creating a vibrant, rich and inclusive ideas eco-system and contributing to the creation of a more informed, progressive and socially-just society globally.
We found that with many of the traditional approaches to collection assessment which often rely on quantitative metrics and scorecard approaches, such methods often lack the nuance required to address diverse collection formats and do not adapt well to niche subjects and multi-disciplinary areas or worked only for certain types of collections (i.e. electronic collections but not physical). These concerns were exacerbated due to our previous decision-making over-relying
on measures such as cost-per-use and year-on-year cost increases.
Our new Collection Governance Framework is now providing a values-based approach which was developed in close collaboration across all library teams, ensuring inclusivity, transparency and a feeling of ownership throughout the whole process. It reflects core library values and the values and vision of the University, and is supported by practical principles and a holistic and comprehensive collection evaluation rubric.
The rubric utilises a narrative-based approach that reflects the diversity of perspectives and insights contributed by all areas of Deakin Library, including the Strategic Leadership Team, Collections, Metadata & Discovery, Scholarly Communications and Research Outputs, Scholarly Services, Experience Design, Copyright, and Client Experiences in consultation with key
contacts across the University including Strategic Procurement, Office of General Counsel and others.
To ensure a streamlined and effective process, the Collection Governance Framework is supported by extensive documentation including process maps, work instructions and best practice guidelines. The whole process is facilitated through Jira, an agile project management tool that functions as a single source of truth for not only collection assessment but also approval workflows.
The information gathered through the evaluation process on Jira integrates both quantitative and qualitative insights and is analysed and visualised through a Tableau dashboard, allowing for benchmarking against various measures and identifying collection strengths and gaps.
The implementation of the Collection Governance Framework has been immensely successful and has provided a catalyst to address some of the fundamental questions about the future of scholarly communications, the role of vendors and suppliers regarding advancing our strategic goals and supporting our communities and considering the future shape and purpose of our collections. It has also strengthened our negotiating position with positive outcomes in both
budgetary terms and value alignment.
In our presentation, we will share the journey of developing the Collection Governance Framework, creating a rubric for collection assessment, and our key learnings. We will focus on the practical implementation of the collection evaluation process and application of the outcomes.
Learning Outcomes- Understand how narrative value-based rubrics can be used for collaborative collection assessment and ethical decision-making.
- Understand how to elicit input and collaboration from subject matter experts through a centralised platform.
- Understand how collection assessment can be seamlessly integrated into collection management workflows, supported by effective automation to reduce manual work.
- Understand basic data visualisation concepts to support collection assessment, benchmarking, as well as informing vendor relationships and negotiations.
