scholarly journals Cultivating Resilience in the Biodiversity Heritage Library During the Global Pandemic: Improving access to existing content

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colleen Funkhouser ◽  
Constance Rinaldo ◽  
David Iggulden ◽  
Kelli Trei ◽  
Martin R. Kalfatovic ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Development Policy ◽  
Strategic Plan ◽  
Natural Ecosystem ◽  
Collection Development ◽  
Institutional Collaboration ◽  
Technical Developments ◽  
Work From Home ◽  
Text Searching ◽  
Justice Movements

The events of 2020, including the COVID-19 pandemic and social justice demonstrations around the world, helped the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) refocus our priorities for implementing our 2020–2025 Strategic Plan, which was adopted in April 2020. BHL’s natural ecosystem relies on virtual coordination across our global community. For this reason, much of the work of the consortium could continue during lockdowns and telework mandates at many of our partner institutions. Though most digitization projects were placed on hold, staff were able to shift priority to metadata enhancements to improve access and discoverability of existing content. Long-planned improvements in the use of persistent identifiers were pushed to the forefront of technical development. Improvements to the data model and user interface to better support born-digital content and articles were also prioritized in the 2021 Technical Priorities. Back-end improvements to the BHL website, currently under development, will also facilitate easier metadata import and updates, making it faster and easier to add article-level metadata, which will improve search and discoverability for articles within the collection. These technical improvements will continue to define BHL as a tool to connect biodiversity data. Part of our collaborative resilience is our ability to adapt and adjust to changing priorities. Over the past year, BHL has been working to review and update our Collection Development Policy. Social justice movements and discussions concerning the harmful content in BHL’s collection are helping to inform the review of our collection development policy in ways we wouldn’t have anticipated prior to 2020. Our review now includes strategies to identify gaps in and improve representation of biodiversity information from underrepresented regions, languages, cultures, and perspectives. We are also working with colleagues to support larger efforts within the library profession to improve and broaden metadata such as subject headings. We will continue to address the problematic historical legacy of natural history collections through actions defined in our strategic plan. The isolation and work from home orders of 2020 and early 2021 provided opportunities for some to expand into deep research and contribute to collaborative projects as work assignments became digital and thus more versatile. For example, transcription projects were accelerated because staff had more time to contribute to these resource-intensive activities. One result of this work is that more handwritten materials such as field notes and correspondence are now available for full-text searching and taxonomic name recognition within BHL. Another strategic goal of BHL is to grow consortial partnerships and alliances to foster cross-institutional collaboration. BHL sought new partnerships that would integrate BHL data into existing and emerging biodiversity projects. This cross-institutional collaboration is another way to cultivate resilience and sow the seeds of sustainability. In this talk, we will describe how BHL shifted its focus to reflect on and respond to global events of 2020. We will share discussions around acknowledging and addressing the harmful legacy content in BHL collections, new technical developments, and examples of collaborative telework projects.

scholarly journals The Embedded Curator: Reexamining the Documentation Strategy of Archival Acquisitions in a Web 2.0 Environment

2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-48
Author(s):  
Lynne M. Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Web 2.0 ◽  
Development Policy ◽  
Strategic Plan ◽  
Collection Development ◽  
Special Collections ◽  
History Of ◽  
Virtual Presence

An embedded curator uses his or her physical and virtual presence within a selected community to document that community while simultaneously serving as a resource to it. While the “embedded curator” term may be relatively new to the profession, the practices that inform its implementation are not. Collection development for special collections, particularly for archival materials, has a robust history of debate about the best methods for encouraging and managing gifts.1 Embedded curators require a pragmatic and flexible written collection development policy that values occasional serendipitous acquisitions, as well as a strategic plan to build ongoing collections that focus on . . .

A Conceptualization Framework of Allyship: Bidirectional Allyship Between Black Heterosexual Women and White Gay Males

2021 ◽  
pp. 153270862110353
Author(s):  
Peter Scaramuzzo ◽  
Michael Bartone ◽  
Jemimah L. Young
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Black Women ◽  
White Men ◽  
Gay Males ◽  
Social Justice Movements ◽  
Discursive Analysis ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Heterosexual Women ◽  
Complex Dimensions ◽  
Justice Movements

Allyship is a complicated idea laden with multiple, layered assumptions. One should not presume that allyship conceptually permeates all social justice movements. One should not presume that allyships develop to combat or dismantle a predefined socially constructed ism. A critical interrogation of allyship and allyship constructions necessitates recognition of broader, universal tenets of allyships anywhere. This must go further to embrace the nuanced, situated, dynamic, critically problematic, and complex dimensions rooted in individual lived experiences intersecting multiple marginalizations which contribute as praxis toward an actualizing of individual allyships. Although we will blur constructed distinctions as we progress, here, we endeavor to surface and deliberate upon the derivations and functions and shapes of allyships between two demographic categories, made arbitrarily distinct here for the purposes of engaging in discursive analysis: cisgender heterosexual Black women and cisgender gay White men. In short, we are proposing a way to view this allyship as bidirectional allyships, grounded in social justice frames of existing: a way to see each respective group as traveling within their own lane down a collectively traveled highway. Each traverses the space along their own course, traveling down “their own road.”

scholarly journals A Survey of Weeding Practices in New Zealand  Academic Libraries

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Angus Johnston
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Academic Libraries ◽  
Development Policy ◽  
Academic Library ◽  
Time Constraints ◽  
Collection Development ◽  
Research Needs ◽  
Academic Curriculum ◽  
The Future

<p>Weeding is the removal and disposal of materials from a library’s collection that meet criteria set out in the collection development policy. Weeding the print collection of an academic library should be viewed as a means of continuously improving the quality of the collection, reflecting changes in the university’s academic curriculum and meeting patrons’ research needs (Dubicki, 2008). Weeding is often neglected however because of time constraints, a desire to maintain the size of a collection, and the belief that a book may be needed some time in the future ...</p>

scholarly journals A Survey of Weeding Practices in New Zealand  Academic Libraries

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Angus Johnston
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Academic Libraries ◽  
Development Policy ◽  
Academic Library ◽  
Time Constraints ◽  
Collection Development ◽  
Research Needs ◽  
Academic Curriculum ◽  
The Future

<p>Weeding is the removal and disposal of materials from a library’s collection that meet criteria set out in the collection development policy. Weeding the print collection of an academic library should be viewed as a means of continuously improving the quality of the collection, reflecting changes in the university’s academic curriculum and meeting patrons’ research needs (Dubicki, 2008). Weeding is often neglected however because of time constraints, a desire to maintain the size of a collection, and the belief that a book may be needed some time in the future ...</p>

Factors influencing collection development process at the University of Nairobi Library

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Grace Wambui Kamau ◽  
Aggrey Luyiya Elegwa
Keyword(s):  
Development Policy ◽  
Development Process ◽  
Research Output ◽  
Background Information ◽  
Collection Development ◽  
University Libraries ◽  
Content Type ◽  
University Library ◽  
Factors Influencing ◽  
The University

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to investigate the factors influencing the collection development process at the University of Nairobi library and suggest ways for improvement.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative approach was employed to collect, analyze and interpret data from collection development librarians at the University of Nairobi purposively selected. Data were collected through structured interviews and documentary review. Data were analyzed using content analysis and descriptive statistics.FindingsThe study established that the library has a written collection development policy which was revised in 2014 and is strictly adhered to. However, the policy has a gap on the role of faculty as stakeholders in the selection process. In addition, the criteria for selection are not explicitly stated. Findings also indicate that budget allocation, collection development policy, user demands, quality of staff, library consortium and the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act of 2015 influence the collection development process at the University of Nairobi Library.Research limitations/implicationsThe study was conducted in one public university library in Kenya. However, the findings may be applicable in similar university libraries in the country.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study may benefit students and faculty in the University of Nairobi from improved collection development process that would ensure that their information needs are met in a timely manner. This would lead to improved research output by students and faculty and ultimately improved research output by the university. University library management may also benefit in improving the collection development process, thereby making it more economical. The findings may also be useful in decision-making and policy development on matters pertaining to collection development at the University of Nairobi and other universities. Furthermore, the findings may be used by researchers to provide context and background information for future research on collection development in public universities locally and regionally.Originality/valueThis paper fulfills the need to make the collection development process in university libraries more efficient by proposing ways of addressing the challenges experienced.

Collection Development Policy for E-resources in University Libraries: A Study

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-68
Author(s):  
Sajini Priya Natarajan
Keyword(s):  
Resource Sharing ◽  
Development Policy ◽  
Collection Development ◽  
University Libraries ◽  
Electronic Resources ◽  
Development Policies ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
Selection Tools ◽  
Library Collections

This article describes about the Collection Development Policies in University libraries. Collection Development Policy included for Electronic Resources in University libraries, Major Roles in the Selection of Library Collections and the important Selection Tools for Print and Electronic forms, Criteria for Selecting the Book suppliers and Order of Books and Details of the collections in the library for the preceding five years. The Inter library lending/ resource sharing facility for books with other and Subscribe to e-resources.

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