INFO 266-10
COLLECTION MANAGEMENT
FALL 2018 SYLLABUS

Joni Richards Bodart
E-mail
Phone: (408) 924-2728

Canvas Information: Courses will be available beginning August 21 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 be in my office by appointment, Clark Hall, 418H, and will be on campus some weekdays, however, without an appointment, there’s no guarantee I will actually be IN my office.

I will answer e-mail on a daily basis or as quickly as I can. I will also be posting email responses to the FAQs section of the discussion board when questions are asked that are of interest to the whole class.

If you need to speak to me by phone, I will do all I can to be available to you, but please schedule that call in advance, to make it convenient for both of us, and ensure that I have enough time cleared to respond to your questions or problems.

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.  Take a 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—it should answer most of your questions.  Come to the Introductions session on 1/24, 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 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.

ASSIGNMENTS

CLASS PARTICIPATION A—SMALL GROUP DISCUSSIONS (CLOs 1-9)

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 posting at least once on the main topic forums.   There will be five topics for the discussion boards that are listed below.

The class will be sorted into random small discussion groups.  Students MUST participate in the small group discussions.  These discussion groups begin immediately as soon as the class websites open up on 1/24.  Students in each discussion group will discuss the topic at hand, and post the articles and chapters they consider most important or valuable during the first week of discussion.  SDG members will look at article and give feedback on them, including which are most important/most valuable (1-2)  At the end of the week, each group will post a summary of the of the most important/valuable article or chapter to the main discussion board for that topic, and students in the other groups will comment at least once on these posts in addition to their small group posts.  Each small discussion group session and each whole class discussion will last one week.  I will be reading the small group forums, but most likely will not be commenting regularly on them. 

To summarize—one week you will discuss the topic of the week in small groups, and decide which resources were most valuable.  The next week the leader from each small group will summarize comments on most valuable resource and rationales for that choice and post that information to the general discussion board on that topic.  (The group leader has been randomly selected for the first topic of the semester after introductions/team formation, which is Acquisitions.  After that, each group will decide on a schedule for the rest of the semester.)  The whole class discussions will last a second week.  More information is available on the appropriately named forum.

Comments 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 easily the number of your original posts and responses to others’ posts. When responding to discussion questions, please do include the name of the person whose post you are responding to.

The discussion board topics and dates for small group (SGD) and whole class discussions (WCD) are as follows:

INTRODUCTIONS & TEAM FORMATION  1/24—UNTIL FINISHED

Acquisitions  SGD, 2/5-2/11  WCD, 2/12-2/18

Budgets  SGD 2/19-2/25  WCD 2/26-3/4

Weeding/evaluation/preservation  SGD 3/5-3/11,  WCD, 3/12-3/18

Merchandising  SGD 3/19-3/25,  WCD, 4/2-4/8

Censorship SGD, 4/9-4/15, WCD  4/16-4/22

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 1-2 to share with whole class.  Discuss with the whole class the articles you found most useful, and ask questions of the person/group who presented it if you have questions about it.  Discuss articles that pertain to your policy manual with your policy manual team, and use these discussions to inform your creation of various chapters in the manual.  Therefore, info will flow from small groups to whole class, then after whole class discussion will flow to the various 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. 

CLASS PARTICIPATION B--ZOOM SESSIONS (CLOs 1-9)
Lecture information will be given via Zoom classes. Synchronous attendance is optional but highly recommended, especially if you are unfamiliar with the topics under discussion or have questions about them. 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. I will also answer questions about assignments and other things you are confused about. All Zoom sessions will be recorded for asynchronous viewing.  Be sure to log into the class session at least 10 minutes ahead of time, so you can get any communication problems taken care of ahead of time, before class starts.  I am hoping to have a student assistant for the first session, to help you get started with the new technology.

There will be five Zoom class sessions. All are required, and all are asynchronous. They will all be recorded, and the links to them and the PowerPoints that go with each of them will be posted on the website. Dates and content for these sessions are below.   While some professors record their lectures and use them over and over, I do not.  I record the live sessions each semester and do not reuse them. 

PLEASE NOTE: Students who have taken this class previously recommend that you attend all Zoom sessions live, if at all possible. You will be able to ask questions if something isn't covered or if something isn't clear. (You will find information on their other recommendations on the Canvas site for this class.) I am sure you have questions about all of the above, and you can bring them with you to the first session, email me, or post a question on the FAQs forum.

You need to use a microphone and speaker for these sessions if at all possible. I suggest purchasing a headset with a mike attached since that will give the best sound quality and also leave your hands free for typing and mousing. If you are in a public area with background noise, you will NOT be able to hear/speak and be understood without a headset. In addition, your poor sound quality will become part of the tape, and make life difficult for everyone who listens to the recording.

You will need to get to all of the Zoom AT LEAST 10 minutes ahead of time, so you can make sure you can speak and hear. When this has been confirmed, you can then step away from your computer, and you don’t have to come back till 625. BTW, I have to do this too, to make sure my hardware is working properly as well.  You will be able to see that I am in the meeting before class starts, even if I am away from the computer.

Zoom Tutorials
San Jose State University uses Zoom for web conferencing. Zoom includes an instant message tool which expands communication options for students and faculty members. Take a look at the Zoom tutorials at http://ischool.sjsu.edu/current-students/technology-support/zoom.

Each student and faculty member has their own Zoom personal meeting “room.” This room can be used for meetings. Meeting participants do not have to be affiliated with SJSU nor do they have to have Zoom accounts to join a meeting. Recordings can be made in the Zoom meetings and saved to the host’s computer. Faculty members also have an option to record to the cloud. 

You should not set up an individual account at zoom.us. Always use sjsu.zoom.us for access in order to enjoy the benefits of the Pro account SJSU has provided you.

Topics for E sessions will be:

• 2/24—Q&A—this will NOT be a lecture, just Q&A and information. I will go over the syllabus in detail. If you have questions, especially about teams, it might be a good idea to stop by. This session will be from 6:30-7:30 only, unless there are additional questions or discussions.

The following sessions will be from 6:30-9:00 pm PT. Sessions may end earlier if there are few or no questions/comments.

• 2/1—Defining CM, Community assessment, Publishing Industry, Selection process
• 2/22—Acquisitions, Budgets, Fundraising, Weeding
• 3/8—Evaluation, Preservation, Resource Sharing, Serials, Marketing & Merchandising
• 4/3—Censorship, Intellectual Freedom, Reconsideration, Wrap-up

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

ASSIGNMENTS 2--POLICY MANUAL TEAMWORK (CLOs 1-9)
You must work as a team member with the others on 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 will be 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.

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:

1. Go to Introductions/Team Building forum, and introduce yourself as required, 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.  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. 

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, 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 member’s 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.

IF YOU HAVE TO DROP THE CLASS AT SOME POINT DURING THE SEMESTER, PLEASE LET ME AND YOUR TEAM MEMBERS KNOW RIGHT AWAY.  If you decide to “opt out” without formally dropping the class, please let your team members know.  It is very disconcerting to email and text someone who is still in the class but doesn’t respond.  If you have a nonresponsive team member, please let me know at once.  I will email the nonresponsive team member, 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 and was not done.  If you do not contribute to an assignment, your grade will be zero (not F) for that assignment. 

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—SMALL GROUP/TEAM EVALUATIONS (CLOs 1-9)

At the end of the semester, after you have turned in your policy manual, you will be required to evaluate your team members on their participation and the quality of work that they contributed to the project.  You will also evaluate your own performance so that every team member has an individual evaluation.  These evaluations will be incorporated into the participation grade. You will submit this document via the assignments dropbox. THIS IS AN INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT, NOT A TEAM ASSIGNMENT.  ALL CONTENT WILL BE KEPT CONFIDENTIAL.

Please note that there are two different sections to the evaluation paper, and both are informal and should be written in first person.  Both should include paragraphs on:

How the group/team worked together, and whether that process improved or deteriorated over the course of the semester

How roles in the group/team were assigned, and how those roles did or did not contribute to the group/team’s progress toward their goal.

One paragraph or more on each group/team member discussing their individual role(s) in the group, and how their contributions helped or hindered the group process.

ASSIGNMENT 4—SYNTHESIS AND REFLECTION PAPER (CLOs 1-9)

This assignment also has two parts.  The first 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 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?

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?  This is an informal paper, so there aren’t a lot of rules and requirements.  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? 

I don’t care about format, except that you need to include a cover sheet.  You can use first person and an informal style, but you still need to write at a graduate level.  

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 1/24/18. Week 2 is the following week, starting on Monday the 29th, 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.

SINCE YOU DON’T HAVE AN ASSIGNMENT DUE EVERY WEEK, DATES BELOW DO NOT INCLUDE EVERY WEEK IN THE SEMESTER.

• Week 4, 2/11
  Chapters 1-4
• Description of the Library Building and its Collection
• Collection Development Statement and Rationale
• Community Assessment Methods and Survey Results
• Types of Materials Available
• Week 6, 3/4
  Chapter 5
• Selection Procedures
• Week 7, 3/11
  Chapter 6
• Review Sources
• Week 8, 3/18
  Chapter 7
• Acquisition Procedures
• Week 9, 4/1
  Chapter 8
• Budget
• Week 10, 4/8
  Chapter 9
• Evaluation and Weeding Procedures
• Week 11, 4/15
  Chapter 10
• Merchandising and Promoting your Collection
• Week 12, 4/22
  Chapter 11
• Reconsideration Policy and Procedures
• Week 14, 5/6
• Informal paper
• Evaluations of my own policy manual team, and evaluations of Small Discussion Groups
   

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.

If you create a website for your assignments and send me a URL when they are due so I can look at them, and if I cannot open the link, I will let you know about the problem right away, and it MUST be corrected within 48 hours of my email, or your work will be counted as late. Please check your links, and make sure you have published or opened your site so I can examine your work, and check your email to see if I have let you know that there are problems.  The best way to resolve this problem is to send me the link ahead of time and verify that I can access your work.

ALL DELAYED OR LATE ASSIGNMENTS MUST BE IN TO ME WITHOUT EXCEPTION NO LATER THAN MIDNIGHT, 12 AM, ON MAY 8 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 WCD discussion forums 
• 50% Individual chapters of policy manual, averaged together (PM team assignment)
• 25% Class participation—small group evaluations, my team evaluations, and informal paper

COURSE ORGANIZATION (on Modules page)

A document detailing the workload for each week is on the course website.

A document giving detailed description of each assignment and its due date is on the course website.

Assignments will be listed on the course calendar on course website.

THIS SEMESTER I HAVE MADE MAJOR CHANGES TO THE SYLLABUS AND COURSE WEBSITE.  PLEASE ASK IF YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT I’VE DONE—I WANT BOTH OF THESE RESOURCES TO BE A CLEAR AND EASY TO READ AS POSSIBLE.

PLEASE NOTE THAT LOTS OF INFORMATION THAT CLARIFIES THE ASSIGNMENTS AND COURSE ORGANIZATION HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM THE SYLLABUS AND PLACED ON THE COURSE WEBSITE.  IF YOU SEE CONFUSING STATEMENTS AND/OR ERRORS, PLEASE LET ME KNOW SO THEY CAN BE CORRECTED.

I HAVE REWRITTEN SECTIONS ON COURSE ORGANIZATION, AND I HOPE YOU WILL LET ME KNOW IF THESE ARE NOT CLEAR.

top

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:

top

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:

• Albitz, B., Avery, C., & Zabel,D. (Eds.). (2014). Rethinking collection development and management. Libraries Unlimited. Available through Amazon: 1610693051

• Evans, G. E., & Saponaro, M.Z. (2012). Collection management basics. Libraries Unlimited. Available through Amazon: 1598848631

• Gragory, V.L. (2011). Collection development and management for 21st century collections. Neal-Schuman. Available through Amazon: 1555706517

• Wimberly, L., Loertscher, D., & Crompton, M. (2014). Collection development using the collection mapping technique (2nd ed.). Hi Willow Research and Publishing. Available through LMC Source

top

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.

Download Adobe Acrobat Reader to access PDF files.

More accessibility resources.