What is it about?
Academic libraries have to provide resources for students and staff which support the university's academic endeavours. Choosing the most appropriate resources from the wealth of products available has traditionally been the task of 'subject librarians', but academic librarians now have an increasing range of tasks. The University of Manchester Library chose to change its staffing model, moving from subject divisions to functional teams. A major project was needed to explore the ways different data sources could be used to inform the curation of resources.
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Why is it important?
There is a tremendous proliferation of information sources and resources available for academic study. Students and researchers can become overwhelmed, budgets are being stretched, and space for printed books is filling up. Data-driven methods can help ensure value-for-money and the provision of the right resources to the right people, at the right time.
Perspectives
This is a practical paper, written from the point of view of a manager with specific problems to solve in a restructured staffing environment. Exploiting library data and analytics seems to offer a very positive way of tackling these issues. Although the possibility of dynamically updating linked profiles is a beguiling one, which has been fascinating to explore, the most effective mode of operation is dependent on human individuals being fluent in and enthusiastic about their use of data to drive collection development.
Dr Rachel J Kirkwood
University of Manchester
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Collection development or data-driven content curation? An exploratory project in Manchester, Library Management, June 2016, Emerald,
DOI: 10.1108/lm-05-2016-0044.
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