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Collection Management
Spring 2022 Syllabus

Joni Richards Bodart
E-mail

Canvas Information: Courses will be available beginning January 26th at 6 am PT unless you are taking an intensive or a one-unit or two-unit class that starts on a different day. In that case, the class will open on the first day that the class meets.

You will be enrolled in the Canvas site automatically.

Course Description

Study of collection management in all types of libraries and information centers. Includes analysis of information needs, criteria for selection, collection use evaluation, and resources for collection development.

Course Requirements

Office Hours
I will set up office hours from 6:30-7:30 pm/PT on Tuesday evenings.  Office hours are not set up separately for each class I am teaching, so when you come in, some of the names/faces may not be familiar, and questions not necessarily germane to the class you are taking from me. I will do my best to answer questions in the order they were asked. When your question has been answered, you are welcome to leave the session. The session will end when all questions have been answered. COMING TO OFFICE HOURS IS NOT REQUIRED. IT IS FOR ANSWERING QUESTIONS AND RESOLVING PROBLEMS ONLY. The dates and times of Office Hours session and links to them will be in the Office Hours module on the class website.  If no one has shown up by 700, I will end office hours early. If the questions last past 730, I will not close office hours until all the questions have been answered.

If your PM team needs to talk to me, I will be happy to set up a private Zoom session for you.

DISCLAIMER
I make every effort to proofread the Syllabus and the Canvas website, but errors can occur. Please contact me with any errors you see or any questions you may have so I can correct or explain them.

Instructional Philosophy
I want each of you in this course to succeed, and I will do everything I can to help you do so, but this is a partnership. Please make sure that communication is your top priority during the semester. Ask questions when you have them, seek clarifications when you need them, and take responsibility for understanding all expectations, content, and assignments for the course. You are responsible for your own learning experience. I do not make you succeed. YOU make you succeed. You also make you fail. Understanding the contents and expectations explained in the Syllabus is critical for a student’s success in the class.

The Canvas Site
Please check the site regularly for announcements, discussion board questions, and so on. As soon as you are enrolled, go to the site, read my welcome message, then go to the discussion board and introduce yourself, both professionally and personally. I will give you a format for each part of your introduction. If you read someone’s introduction and think that you would like to work with them on a team, you are welcome to contact them either on that forum or privately and form your team immediately. The purpose of these introductions is to allow you to see who else is in class and if anyone wants to write about the same kind of library or library/team of customers that you would like to work on, making the process of creating teams easier and shorter.

Explore the various forums for other information I think might be helpful to you, such as resources and links to sites you will find useful, and survival tips from previous classes. And make sure you take a look at the policy manuals given as examples. I have posted advice/survival tips from previous classes under Course Information. Please take a look at it, as I think it will be helpful. I will ask you to add to these tips at the end of the semester, and your comments will be very valuable to me and to future students as I continue to develop this course. Tips about your experience with the asynchronous format will be very important to future students.

IF YOU ARE FEELING OVERWHELMED

Feeling overwhelmed when you read this syllabus is normal.  Look at some of the survival tips and final papers/reflection papers and discover that you aren’t the first person to feel this way. 

You have a huge job to do, putting together a whole policy manual, but you will not be working on your own.  Your team will work with you, and you will all support each other.  I am available to help you in any way I can. 

Go over this syllabus carefully and slowly—it should answer most of your questions.  If you read it quickly, you will miss important details.  Come to the Introductions session on February 1, so you can ask your questions in person, and meet some of the people you will be working with on teams and in groups.  Get your introduction posted on the appropriate discussion forum as soon as possible, and then respond to others’ posts so you can get onto a team as soon as possible, and start creating your library.  Once you realize that your huge project is divided into more easily digestible sections, and then you can figure out how to work most effectively with your small discussion group and your policy manual team, you will begin to see the big picture, and it won’t feel so huge and overwhelming any longer. 

For confirmation of all this, please take a look at some of the reflection paper examples, where student after student says they were lost when class began, and almost dropped it because they were afraid it would be too much work.  They all said that once they began to work on the policy manual with their team, and got things planned out, they realized that they could do it, and succeeded.

PLEASE NOTE:

Some students have complained that my Canvas site and my syllabus “do not look like what other professors provide.” This is something you can use to your advantage rather than complaining that you want one template/style for all of your classes.  Remember, you will be working for different people in your careers, and different people have different styles, based on how they see themselves, their classes, their jobs, their employees, and their students.  You will need to become used to these differences before you have to confront them on the job because I guarantee you that the people you work for will all want something slightly different, even if overall, they all want the same processes to happen. This is why I think my website being different is a good thing.  It helps you to learn to respond to different stimuli.

Therefore, I have written my course information based on how I see the class, and in the Introductions class, I will do my best to explain it to you.  One reason why it’s important to come to and participate in that class, is that if I don’t know you are confused, I can’t clarify my instructions. While I choose not to format the website entirely based on what to do every week, that information is available in the course organization document on the website. Overall, 98% of the questions people have and the revisions they request at the end of the semester in their reflection papers are all answered by the syllabus. 

As a professional author who has published over 20 books, I write densely, trying to get as much information into as small a space as possible without leaving out anything I think needs to be there.  When I say read the syllabus and the modules carefully, that is exactly what I mean.  If you skim, you will miss things, and get confused and frustrated, and blame those emotions on me.  You will be able to avoid that if you read the syllabus and modules carefully and slowly, because the information is there. And if you still have questions—let me know!!

I respond very well to questions, and am happy to explain more than once what I am looking for or where something is located. Please do not hesitate to email me and ask for whatever I need.

Similar questions will make the introduction session longer, if it is necessary to explain the same thing more than once. This happened recently, when I had a third grade teacher who had to watch the recording, since she could not make it to the class, comment that she would never have been so patient with her students about answering the same question over and over. She watched about half of the class, which was repetitious, because everyone wanted their own answer to similar questions. I didn’t mind it, because I want to make sure everyone understands what I want and am looking for.  Repetition isn’t always a bad thing. However, since she didn’t listen to the rest of the recording, she missed some valuable information given later in the recording, which was much less repetitious, and was a bit embarrassed when she asked me and I pointed out that it was in the Introduction session. That was when she confessed she had not listened to the whole recording.

LECTURE INFORMATION—ZOOM RECORDINGS

Lecture information will be given via Zoom lectures. I will be doing a mini-lecture, 30-45 minutes, on each of the chapters of your policy manual, to let you know what I think the most important concepts are. These lectures include information not in your texts. While several of the lectures include more than one topic, you are welcome to view them one topic at a time. Just make a note of where you stopped the recording.

The live Introduction/Information session will be the only synchronous session. This session will include Q&A, introduction to the course, information about the syllabus, the class website, and changes in the format of the class, will be on February 1, from 6:30-9:00 PM, Pacific time. It will be recorded and the link provided on the website in the Zoom module. You will be able to watch the other lectures at your convenience. All lectures are required, and do contain content not included in your textbooks. You will be responsible for their content, just as you are the content of your textbooks, and will use them to help your PM Team to create your policy manual. Students from previous classes have strongly recommended that you make every effort to be present for this introductory session, so you can ask your questions and make sure that they have been answered to your satisfaction. Since this is the only synchronous meeting we will be having, I think it’s really important to be there in person. This may be your only chance to see each other and me in person and to communicate with more than just your words—facial expression, body language, personality, and so on. These things can give you lots of clues about the people you will be interacting with during the semester.

This scheduling and the due dates for assignments should inform your reading of the texts, listening to lectures, articles on the Canvas site, and outside readings. There is also a class organization document in the first module on the website with information on what you should be doing week by week.

The first two assignments are for group work. You will need to schedule at least one zoom session for each group and each team, early in the semester, to help you get acquainted and solidify the group. This session should be during your first topic for the Small Discussion Groups, or SDGs, and during the creation of chapters 1-4 for the Policy Manual or PM teams. Seeing other’s faces and listening while they talk will help you see them more clearly as individuals and as people, rather than just words on a computer screen. As a result, you will have a more highly cohesive group tending toward a higher level of interaction and satisfaction. In previous semesters, teams and groups who chose to have weekly or regular Zoom sessions reported that they got a great deal out of those sessions, enhancing work flow and also enhancing the communication and connections among team members, making them to cope more easily with unexpected crises. Several teams chose a time for weekly meetings that was likely to have the fewest conflicts, such as Friday afternoons or early evenings, or Sunday morning or afternoons. The time is up to each group and each team, based on their schedules.

ASSIGNMENTS

ASSIGNMENT 1—CLASS PARTICIPATION—SMALL GROUP DISCUSSIONS (CLOs 1-9)  THIS ASSIGNMENT IS WORTH 25% OF YOUR GRADE. See Grade Allocations on the last page of this syllabus.

Read text and participate in class discussions on discussion boards. While I may comment from time to time, these conversations are student-driven. However, I will be keeping track of them to record your participation. Participate is defined as participating and contributing your ideas and opinions on your small group discussion forums, and reporting back to your Policy Manual (PM) Teams those that you think would be valuable resources for your Policy Manual. SDG members are required to share the most relevant articles/book chapters with their PM Teams.

MANY STUDENTS REPORTED THAT THIS ASSIGNMENT WAS THE MOST VALUABLE, HOWEVER, THE AMOUNT OF BENEFIT YOU RECEIVE IS DEPENDENT ON THE AMOUNT OF WORK YOU PUT INTO IT. The class will be sorted into random small discussion groups (SDG). Students MUST participate in the small group discussions. These discussion groups begin immediately as soon as the class websites open.  Students in each small discussion group will discuss the topic at hand and post the articles and book chapters they consider most important or valuable during the first week of discussion on each of the topics below. During the second week of discussion on each topic, SDG members will look at articles and give feedback on them, including which are most important/most valuable (1-3) and vote on which to include in the group leader’s post to the whole class. At the end of the week, the leader of each group will post a summary of the of the most important/valuable article(s) or chapter(s) to the main discussion board for that topic, so that everyone in class will have access to the resources considered by each of the groups to be the most valuable for each of the five topics that will be discussed. Some groups may end up choosing the same resources as the most valuable ones, and therefore information on them will be posted from more than one group. That is fine, and should alert you about the importance and usefulness of that resource.

To summarize—one week you will discuss the topic of the week in small groups, each group member presenting the resources they consider to be the most important/valuable.  The next week, the group will discuss the resources submitted, and decide which one or ones (1-3) are the most valuable/useful.  Then the leader from each small group will summarize the group’s comments on those resources, including rationales for that choice, and post that information to the general discussion board on that topic.  (I will assign the group leader for each of the topics.  Look at the People page on the website to get the lists.) 

SDGs that reported having effective interaction during the semester were the ones that had taken time at the beginning of the semester to get organized, and also scheduled regular Zoom meetings. They scheduled a first meeting immediately after the Introductory Zoom session and noted the leader for each topic, and the procedures the group would use during the whole semester. Students who contributed the most to these groups were the ones who got the most out of them. 

These groups are randomly formed, and heterogeneous, in direct contrast to the PM teams, which are homogenous in terms of type of library or area of interest. SDGs are designed to give each student a chance to discuss course materials with a small group of people with more diversity than the PM teams give, and see resources from the perspective of someone working in a different kind of library/archive/museum/or other kind of organization. You will need to go beyond your textbooks to find recent articles or book chapters that you feel are valuable to draw to the attention of the SDG.  Using your textbooks is not appropriate for this assignment.

Comments on the resources discussed in the SDGs should be thoughtful and insightful, adding to our mutual learning process, and should NOT recapitulate what others have said. And while you do need to keep on top of the discussion boards, it is fine if you have a lot to say about one topic, and post more than the required number, and then have less to say on the next one, and do fewer. I will be looking at the average numbers over the semester. But if you regularly don’t post or post too few, I will notice. Please note that Canvas allows me to access statistics for students, and I’ll be able to count the number of your original posts and responses to others’ posts very easily. When responding to discussion questions, please do include the first name of the person whose post you are responding to in order to give your response a context.

Here is a tip from a former student, commenting on how his group was able to heighten their efficiency, and their enjoyment of the way the group worked together.

Our small discussion group had 4 basic principles that guided our group:

• each member would value other member’s time
• each member will put forth effort
• each member will be prepared and
• everyone will respect each other

Each member contributed consistently, reliably, was flexible, open to communication, trustworthy, and enjoyable to work with.

The discussion board topics and dates for small group (SDG) discussions are as follows:

INTRODUCTIONS & PM TEAM FORMATION  WEEK 1—UNTIL FINISHED.  These involve the whole class participating in the “Sorting Hat Game” until all the teams are filled. This discussion forum is separate from the SDG forums and discussions given below.

Weeks 4 & 5 Acquisitions Week 4, SDG members do research on Acquisitions and begin discussion of articles posted to the group.  Week 5, Discussion of articles continues, group votes for top articles, and leader posts summaries and/or rationales of each group’s top choices.

Weeks 6 & 7 Budgets Week 6, SDG members do research on Budgets and begin discussion of articles posted to the group.  Week 7, Discussion of articles continues, group votes for top articles, and leader posts summaries and/or rationales of each group’s top choices

Weeks 8 & 9 Weeding/evaluation/preservation Week 8, SDG members do research on Weeding/evaluation/preservation and begin discussion of articles posted to the group. Week 9, Discussion of articles continues, group votes for top articles, and leader posts summaries and/or rationales of each group’s top choices

Week 10 Catch up week to finish Weeding, start early on Merchandising, or just take a break!

Weeks 11-12 Merchandising Week 11, SDG members do research on Merchandising and Displays, both real and virtual, and begin discussion of articles posted to the group.  Week 12, Discussion of articles continues, group votes for top articles, and leader posts summaries and/or rationales of each group’s top choices

Weeks 13 & 14 Censorship Week 13, SDG members do research on censorship and Intellectual Freedom and begin discussion of articles posted to the group.  Week 14, Discussion of articles continues, group votes for top articles, leader posts summaries and/or rationales of each group’s top choices

Week 15   FINAL DISCUSSION THREAD—POST TO WHOLE CLASS--Insights, success tips, most/least valuable parts of the class.

You will note that the discussions will take place before the chapter on each topic is due, so you will be able to incorporate information from your discussions into the chapter on that topic.  Not all chapters will have discussion topics on them. 

The flow of these groups should look like this:  research, read, and discuss articles/chapters on the topic at hand in your small groups. Select 1-3 to share with whole class, as above. Individuals will take back to their PM Teams the resources they consider most valuable for their PM Team, and use these discussions to inform the team’s creation of various chapters in the manual. Therefore, info will flow from small groups to whole class, as articles from each SDGs are posted to the main forum on each topic, and then flow to the various PM teams listed on the Google doc.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE FAQS FORUM IS AN EXCEPTION TO THIS, AND I WILL BE KEEPING TRACK OF IT.  IF YOU WANT A RESPONSE AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE, PLEASE EMAIL ME DIRECTLY, AND I WILL GET TO IT AS PROMPTLY AS I CAN.  Students are also welcome to respond to FAQs when they know the answers.  If a student’s answer to the question is correct, I will not comment further.

ASSSIGNMENT 2--POLICY MANUAL TEAMWORK (CLOs 1-9)

PM TEAMS ARE DIFFERENT FROM SDG’s AND HAVE DIFFERENT FUNCTIONS. YOU WILL BELONG TO BOTH A GROUP AND A TEAM. SDGs do the research and discussion of the materials you will use to build your policy manual. PM teams create the library or information organization and write the actual policy document you will be working on during the entire semester.

You must work as a team member with the others in your team, using email, your discussion board, Google Docs, Google Hangouts, or other software. You are welcome to meet f2f if that is possible, but it is not required. You are REQUIRED to be a member of a team for this class. Teams are made up of 4-5 members, but additional members may be added to ensure that everyone in the class is on a team studying the type of library or information organization that they prefer.

Do not assume that if you do nothing, you will somehow magically end up on a team. During  previous semesters, students did not join a team, and I didn’t notice that they hadn’t. About the time teams were working on Chapter 6, 7, 8 or 9, they asked me about getting onto a team. At that point, it was far, far too late to do anything about that. If you do not contribute to a chapter in some way, your grade for that chapter will be zero.

Getting onto a team is something each of you must do yourselves, during the first two weeks of the semester.  That is defined as:

• Introducing yourself on the Introductions forum, according to the specific instructions I have given on that forum
• Thinking about the kind of library you would like to write about
• Reading introductions to see what people you would like to work with, and who is working on the type of library you would like to write about
• Contacting those people and saying “Can I be on your team?” or “I would like to write about this kind of library or museum collection, or archive, and wondered if you would like to work with me.”
• If you get a negative response, continue to continue to talk to people until you find a team that you can join
• STAY IN TOUCH WITH THAT TEAM
• Understand that this is not something I do for you. You are responsible for joining a team and participating on it.
• You CANNOT take this class without being an active member of a PM team. Joining a team, and then ghosting them, will not work. 

Be sure to look at the Detailed Information on Collection Development Policy Manuals document in the modules section. It is the most specific document on how to create your library, and you will be referring to it throughout the semester. If you have a question that cannot be answered from the syllabus or from this file, please ask it on the FAQs forum, or just send me an email, and I will give you the information you need, and add it to the file as well.

Teams will be formed during the first two weeks of the semester, using a discussion forum and a Google doc to which each team will contribute. Classes vary from one semester to another in both size and personality, so please be aware that it may or may not go completely smoothly. Your patience is greatly appreciated. These are the steps I would like you to follow: (Yes, I know this is more or less what I said just above.  Perhaps you didn’t catch it then, and this time I have used different words.  It’s not a mistake.  It is deliberate.)

1. Go to Introductions/Team Building forum, and introduce yourself as described, and give some details about the kind of library (public, school, college, university, archive, museum, law or other special library) you would like to write about and how you function as a team member, including strengths and weaknesses.
2. Read the introductions, and contact anyone you would like to work with or anyone who is interested in writing about the same kind of library you are interested in working on. You may do this either privately or on the discussion forum. It will be easier if you are all proactive about this, rather than sitting back and waiting to see what happens.
3. Once you have agreed to work with one or two other people, post the information about your team on the Google doc set up for that purpose. There is a link to the doc on the website under Modules. Once you have posted that information, you will officially be a team, and so noted in my records. You will need to include in your post to the Google doc: team number, type of library, name of library, team members’ first and last names, and the name of the team member who will be submitting the different parts of your policy manual.  All the chapters in the policy manual will be submitted by the same person in each team. This information does not have to be submitted all at one time. You can continue to add members until you have either 4 or 5, or 6 if necessary. You need to add your team number, team members, and type of library as soon as your team forms, to make your team official, and then you can go back over the next few days and add the additional information as your team makes decisions about their process and content.  PLEASE NOTE THAT YOU MUST HAVE ALL TEAM INFO COMPLETED BY FEBRUARY 13!!!

Some of you have probably done team projects before, and have not enjoyed them. I highly recommend that you take a look at Dr. Haycock's presentation on working in virtual teams. (There is a link to it under the Course Documents section of the Content area.) This will give you lots of hints on how to create a successful virtual team. You will also find suggestions from previous classes under Course Information.

Finally, I am happy to report that negative team experiences in this class are definitely in the minority. If you do your prep, follow the student suggestions about creating a successful team, take a look at the video, and stay in close touch with your teammates, it is very unlikely that you will be part of that minority. The key here is regular and open conversations about what is going on in team members’ lives that could impact your progress. Share problems, share joys, and work together. You also need to communicate about your manual, in order to take care of problems while they are small, and ensure that everyone gets a chance to express their ideas. THE KEY TO A SUCCESSFUL GROUP EXPERIENCE IS CONSTANT AND CONSISTENT COMMUNICATION ABOUT YOUR PM PROJECT AND ABOUT WHAT IS GOING ON IN YOUR PERSONAL/NONSTUDENT LIFE THAT COULD INTERFERE WITH THAT PROJECT. PLEASE DO NOT INSULT YOUR GROUP OR TEAM MEMBERS BY GHOSTING THEM. If you do not contribute to an assignment, you will not get credit for it. Your grade for that assignment will be zero, not an F.

IF YOU HAVE TO DROP THE CLASS AT SOME POINT DURING THE SEMESTER, PLEASE LET ME AND YOUR TEAM MEMBERS KNOW RIGHT AWAY. It is very disconcerting to email and text someone who is still in the class but doesn’t respond. I will not ask for explanations about why you no longer want to contribute—that is your prerogative. But it is polite to let your colleagues and me know of your decision. If you have a team member who is ghosting the group/team, please let me know at once. I will email that person, and check on what is going on. If I get no response, I will instruct the rest of the team to continue on without them, noting which chapters they contributed to, and when they stopped participating. Grades will be based on how much work was or was not done. If you do not contribute to an assignment, your grade will be zero (not F) for that assignment.  Why?  Because F translates to 65 points.  If you did nothing, you do not deserve 65 points that you have not earned.

It is up to the members of each team to work out interpersonal problems. I am available for advice and consultation, but it is ultimately up to the team members to figure out how to work together successfully and ensure that everyone contributes equally. You will spend a good part of your professional life as part of one team or another, and knowing how to be a good team player, both in contributing and convincing others to contribute, is essential. This semester will give you a chance to practice that.

ASSIGNMENT 3— SYNTHESIS AND REFLECTION PAPER (CLOs 1, 2, 4, 6, 9)

This assignment has three parts. DO NOT COMBINE THEM!  Each section needs to be about 5 pages or less, so you will be turning in a maximum of 15 pages for the whole assignment, not including cover sheet, references, and other non-text pages. Please note that a 3-page paper can make the same grade as a 5-page paper. It’s not the number of pages you submit, but the quality of the content of those pages. The max length is simply to keep you from writing on and on forever. Writing succinctly and submitting fewer pages is much preferred. Remember, these days, most people don’t like to read more than an executive summary.

Rather than focusing on the five topics discussed in the SDGs, remember that there are 11 chapters in your PMs, and therefore at least that many topics that were covered in this class. You will want to either highlight the ones you feel were most important or discuss each of them to some extent. You will want to include not just a summary of the topics, but also discuss how they work together and influence each other. You should respond to the questions I have posed online to frame and shape your discussion and summary.

SYNTHESIS

The first section is a chance for you to look back on the ideas and theories you have studied this semester, and how they affected your thinking and philosophy concerning collection development/management. What are the basic tenets/ideas/philosophies of your theory of collection development/management? What ideas are most/least important to you now? What new ideas have you espoused? Which old ideas have you moved past or enlarged on or rejected as no longer fitting you? Are there differences between how you define and conceptualize CD/M now and how you did so before taking this class? Which concepts are most/least important to you now?

REFLECTION

The second section is to reflect on the semester and what you gained from it. You have already explained what CD/M means to you and how you conceptualize it.  Now I’d like you to look at how you have changed at a deeper level.  What do you know about yourself that you didn’t know when the semester started? What parts of the class were most useful to you? Least useful? Most/least fun? Most/least creative? What were your fears and expectations when the class began and did they play out? I have reworked a number of the assignments—did you find any that seemed to be more/less effective? I want you to reflect on this semester, just like you will need to reflect on your whole program when you do 289. Do you feel differently about collection management than you did at the first of the semester? What have you learned? How have you changed?  How will you apply the knowledge you gained during the semester? You will need to do this reflection process for each class you took in your program, as you prep for taking 289. This assignment gives you a chance to practice that.

INSIGHTS

The third section is a chance for you to “travel in time,” and speak to the students taking this class in 2022 and beyond. What advice do you have for them about working in groups in this class? What worked and what didn’t in your SDGs, and why? How could that experience/assignment be improved? What were the activities that were most helpful to your PM team? What were the least? How could your PM have been improved as you look back on the experience? What sage suggestions could you give future classes that would enhance their experiences in these two groups?

This is an informal paper, so there aren’t a lot of rules and requirements. You may write in the first person, and in an informal style, but you still need to write at a graduate level. The page numbers above are only suggestions. If you write densely, saying a lot in a small space, you will write fewer pages.

ASSIGNMENT 4—REVISED POLICY MANUAL (CLOs 1-9)

You will need to revise your policy manual at the end of the semester, correcting any major errors. You are not required to revise your work and may choose to collect the chapters and appendices and submit them as one document. However, revising your work may result in a higher grade. 

The grade for this assignment will be an average of the grades for all of your chapters in your PM, whether or not you revised a lot, a little, or not at all. It will be a part of the final 25% of your grade, along with your evaluations and synthesis/reflection papers. The grades on the chapters submitted individually will not change.

Many of you will be using your PM as part of your evidence for your e-ports, and will want to have everything collected into one complete file in order to do that. This assignment will allow you to do that, and to revise/correct any chapters you are dissatisfied with as well.

When you are considering whether or not to revise your manual, please remember that revising your work may not produce a significant change in your final grade. It may make only a 1or 2 point change in your final grade, which may or may not make a difference in your letter grade. Make sure you balance the amount of work you do with the amount of change in your grade that will be the results of that work. In other words, is a one- or two-point difference worth the time and energy it will take you to do revisions? Do you want to revise a chapter that got 95 points? That decision is up to your team.

Finally, if I ask to use your policy manual as an example for future classes, I WILL ask you to revise it, so it's as close to a perfect example as possible. If I've said anything in my feedback that indicates I might be doing that, doing revisions before I ask formally for permission from your teams to use your work, will be easier than trying to do them afterward when the semester is over and you are focusing on different things.

ASSIGNMENT DUE DATES 

All assignments are due on Sundays before midnight. This means the midnight between Sunday and Monday, not between Saturday and Sunday. Week 1 is the first week of the semester and is not a full seven days, and begins on Wednesday. Week 2 is the following week, starting on Monday, and so on. Weeks always start on Mondays, so the Sunday for each week is at the end of the week and is followed by Monday of the NEXT week. This means all your assignments are ALWAYS due at the end of the week.

COURSE ORGANIZATION (on Modules page, after the syllabus for this semester)

This document

• THIS IS THE MOST COMPLETE AND DETAILED LISTING OF YOUR ACTIVITIES DURING THE WHOLE SEMESTER—WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO EACH WEEK OF THE SEMESTER
• Informs you about what you need to be doing each week, and details the workload, including textbook chapters, topics for SDG, and PM chapter due dates
• gives a detailed description of each assignment and its due date
• includes a schedule for SDG topics, and what members of each group will be doing each week

I am willing to be flexible about due dates and will always give you extra time when you ask for it. However, any assignment that does not come in on time when no extension has been requested will be penalized one letter grade for lateness. When in doubt, ask for more time, just in case. You have a huge project before you, and my due dates are designed to keep you caught up, so you don’t have too many things overwhelming you at the end of the semester.  However, since I don’t know your personal schedules, or the assignment schedules for other classes, I have not taken them into account, and overlapping may occur.

You will also need to be sure that links work, that you have submitted the correct file and that I can access your work. This is ESSENTIAL at the end of the semester, when I must meet the deadline for grades to be submitted, and cannot give any extensions.

ALL DELAYED OR LATE ASSIGNMENTS MUST BE IN TO ME WITHOUT EXCEPTION NO LATER THAN MIDNIGHT, 12 AM, ON 5/19 IN ORDER TO SUBMIT GRADES ON TIME. I am willing to be as flexible as I can, but the due date for grade submission MUST be met.

GRADES ARE NOT ROUNDED UP. This means that if you get 95.7, your grade is 95. 

Grading Allocations

• 25% Outside readings and web work used in SDG group assignment and posted on SDG and discussion forums 
• 50% Individual chapters of the policy manual, averaged together (PM team assignment)
• 25% Class participation—small group evaluations, team evaluations, revised PM, and informal synthesis/reflection/suggestions paper

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Course Workload Expectations

Success in this course is based on the expectation that students will spend, for each unit of credit, a minimum of forty-five hours over the length of the course (normally 3 hours per unit per week with 1 of the hours used for lecture) for instruction or preparation/studying or course related activities including but not limited to internships, labs, clinical practica. Other course structures will have equivalent workload expectations as described in the syllabus.

Instructional time may include but is not limited to:
Working on posted modules or lessons prepared by the instructor; discussion forum interactions with the instructor and/or other students; making presentations and getting feedback from the instructor; attending office hours or other synchronous sessions with the instructor.

Student time outside of class:
In any seven-day period, a student is expected to be academically engaged through submitting an academic assignment; taking an exam or an interactive tutorial, or computer-assisted instruction; building websites, blogs, databases, social media presentations; attending a study group;contributing to an academic online discussion; writing papers; reading articles; conducting research; engaging in small group work.

Course Prerequisites

INFO 202, INFO 204. 

Course Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

1. Exhibit familiarity with the theoretical and practical issues of resource selection and collection management for libraries and information centers.
2. Describe the role and value of collection management and its relationship to other library functions.
3. Describe the major forms of cooperative (shared) collection development.
4. Develop a rationale for planning the development and management of a collection.
5. Assess user information needs in the context of collection management.
6. Identify and evaluate literature and other resources pertinent to materials selection and collection management.
7. Apply methodologies and skills for selecting resources and evaluating and managing a collection.
8. Create and evaluate collection policies.
9. Identify the challenges and issues of collection management, such as ownership and access, cultural sensitivity, copyright, and censorship.

Core Competencies (Program Learning Outcomes)

INFO 266 supports the following core competencies:

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Textbooks

Required Textbooks:

• Disher, W. (2014). Crash course in collection development (2nd ed.). Libraries Unlimited. Available through Amazon: 1610698134

• Johnson, P. (2018). Fundamentals of collection development and management (4th ed.). ALA. Available through Amazon: 0838916414

Recommended Textbooks:

• Evans, G. E., & Saponaro, M.Z. (2019). Collection management basics (7th ed.). Libraries Unlimited. Available through Amazon: 1440859647

• Gregory, V. (2019). Collection development and management for 21st century library collections: An introduction (2nd ed.). ALA. Available through Amazon: 0838917127

• Loertscher, D., & Crompton, M. (2018). Collection and connection development using the collection mapping technique: A guide for librarians (3rd ed.). Learning Commons Press. Available from publisher LMC Source

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Grading Scale

The standard SJSU School of Information Grading Scale is utilized for all iSchool courses:

In order to provide consistent guidelines for assessment for graduate level work in the School, these terms are applied to letter grades:

• C represents Adequate work; a grade of "C" counts for credit for the course;
• B represents Good work; a grade of "B" clearly meets the standards for graduate level work or undergraduate (for BS-ISDA);
  For core courses in the MLIS program (not MARA, Informatics, BS-ISDA) — INFO 200, INFO 202, INFO 204 — the iSchool requires that students earn a B in the course. If the grade is less than B (B- or lower) after the first attempt you will be placed on administrative probation. You must repeat the class if you wish to stay in the program. If - on the second attempt - you do not pass the class with a grade of B or better (not B- but B) you will be disqualified.
  
• A represents Exceptional work; a grade of "A" will be assigned for outstanding work only.

Graduate Students are advised that it is their responsibility to maintain a 3.0 Grade Point Average (GPA). Undergraduates must maintain a 2.0 Grade Point Average (GPA).

University Policies

Per University Policy S16-9, university-wide policy information relevant to all courses, such as academic integrity, accommodations, etc. will be available on Office of Graduate and Undergraduate Programs' Syllabus Information web page at: https://www.sjsu.edu/curriculum/courses/syllabus-info.php. Make sure to visit this page, review and be familiar with these university policies and resources.

In order to request an accommodation in a class please contact the Accessible Education Center and register via the MyAEC portal.

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