Supporting the evaluation and review of collections

The issue

The effective management of collections by libraries is crucial for the provision of timely and relevant physical and electronic resources.

How we can help

We can help you determine the value and uniqueness of the physical items you hold so that you can make informed decisions about collection management.

We can also help you assess how well used your electronic resources are and if they are providing value for money.

What you can do

Here are some key points to ensure you get the most from your resources.

Withdraw items confidently

The library hub compare service allows you to compare a list of items you have earmarked for withdrawal against the holdings of other academic and specialist library catalogues.

In this way you can:

• Determine the scarcity of items
• Make more informed choices over whether they can be removed to make room for new resources
• Ascertain if you hold the last copy of any item

Preserve unique items

You can use library hub compare as a useful tool in the weeding and withdrawal process to help identify items that are particularly rare and in need of preservation or digitisation.

The data on the rarity of an item can also be viewed in helpful visualisations, giving a graphical depiction of how unique an item is in comparison to other institutional or specialist library holdings.

Assess value for money

We know that collection assessment is not limited to physical items. Electronic journal subscriptions form a substantial portion of library expenditure, and in a climate of limited budgets it is important that you can demonstrate value for money.

• You can use JUSP to determine which electronic journals are being well used and which are not
• You can also view case studies where universities have used JUSP data to estimate a cost per use for journals and increased the value of their electronic journal collection
• ​Knowledge Base+ (KB+) can be used to help calculate cost per use data for subscriptions by drawing usage data from JUSP into its finance module. By recording cost items from subscription invoices into KB+, you are able to calculate cost per use at a granular level for resources where usage data is available in JUSP.

Ensuring electronic resources remain relevant

When you evaluate your electronic collections, KB+ offers several comparison tools that allow you to check if the content of resources remain the most appropriate for your users.

At renewal, subscriptions can be compared to ensure that key content is not lost and shows you if new titles have been added.