1. FINE TUNING OUR COLLECTION AT THE CLAIREMONT BRANCH OF THE SAN DIEGO PUBLIC LIBRARY Acquisitions & Collection Development

2. Creating the Highest Quality Collection Looking at the demographics of our local community, it is clear that homeowners make up of a significant proportion of our library patrons.

3. At the present time it would appear that the library would benefit by expanding the current collection of Gardening books.

4. For the branch locations of the San Diego Public Library (SDPL) collection development involves the use of multiple resources.  Acquisitions  Dollar-matching funds  The Friends of the Library groups  Patron Donations

5. Selection Criteria Selection criteria for new material will involve:  Consultation with other branches/central to determine which titles, that are currently missing from the branch collection, in the SDPL OPAC have the highest circulation.  A review of Amazon book sales and customer reviews of items in the Gardening section. Four and five star items will be added to our list of considerations.

6. Resources for Evaluation The primary resource for evaluation that will be used to assess the materials in the consideration file will be the ALA’s Booklist. Secondary sources of evaluation

7. The Acquisitions Process The Acquisitions process, as mentioned previously, involves a number of different approaches. For the purpose of developing this one topical collection, the primary source of new materials in the immediate future would be the Friends of the Library group.

8. Longer term acquisitions activities focusing on this one topical collection would utilize the dollar- matching program currently in place. Donations from the Friends Group + City Dollars = Fast, Easy Collection Development

9. Preparing New Materials Ready for Circulation In order to prepare new materials for circulation, branch staff will stamp, label and enter items into the library’s database. Because this collection will continue to be relatively small, and built over the course of a year, time can be taken in preparing the new materials for circulation.

10. Working the System As discussed above, the development of this topical collection will involve a two-pronged approach in which resources from both the Friends group and the city are utilized. This will provide patrons with new materials throughout the year while simultaneously expanding the collection.

11. Assessment of the Process This is, unofficially, how current collection development often takes place. The current system is better than many, but having other resources for collection development available, certainly would improve things.

12. By utilizing other resources different branches are able to circumvent the limits imposed by the city both in terms of the addition of new items and the timeliness of their receipt.