Patron Knows Best: Why We Should Put the Patron in the Driver's Seat Rick Anderson Associate Director Scholarly Resources & Collections

J. Willard Marriott Library Two Broad Categories of “Collection” Unique/Curatorial (Special Collections)  Orientation: Global General/Functional (Circulating Collections)  Orientation: Local

J. Willard Marriott Library Why Do We Build Collections? Access

J. Willard Marriott Library How Do We Build Collections? Guessing what patrons will want Buying documents based on those guesses Describing the documents (proxy docs) Organizing them

J. Willard Marriott Library Alternatives Share. (Ugh.) Books: expose [everything we can] and buy only when the patron points  Ebooks (MyiLibrary, NetLibrary, EBL, Ebrary, etc.)  Print books (LightningSource, OUP, etc.)  Print books (Espresso Book Machine) Journals: by-the-drink purchasing  Remember: patrons don’t need journals; they need articles  This is the opposite of the Big Deal: it’s the Tiny Deal  Problem: publishers don’t want to sell that way

J. Willard Marriott Library The Unattainable Ideal (“North Star” Approach) Every book ever published is easily and immediately findable Any book ever published can be purchased by library for patron immediately upon realization of need (purchase or borrow) Every article... Every data set... This ideal does not have to be attainable in order to be useful.

J. Willard Marriott Library Problems Budget management “Every book”? Come on. What if they select garbage? What about my job?

J. Willard Marriott Library Contact: Rick Anderson University of Utah