SPEC Kit 324: Collecting Global Resources (September 2011)

This SPEC Kit explores the trends, practices, and challenges in collecting global resources in North American research libraries at a time of political and economic change, on the one hand, and of significant change in scholarly communication and collection management strategies, on the other. It covers global resources collections (including an overview of expenditures, collecting trends, sources of funding, and acquisition strategies), staff and organizational structure, preservation strategies, and discovery, public service, and outreach.

The survey results clearly demonstrate that support for global resources in North American research libraries is strong and predicted to remain so in the foreseeable future. Budget and space challenges, as well as increasing electronic access to resources with resulting changes in research habits of students and faculty, will create new and different patterns in collection growth. In response, many ARL libraries either already have or are in the process of creating organizational structures that facilitate intense outreach activities, in-depth reference, and collaborative collection development.

This SPEC Kit includes documentation from respondents that describes print and digital global collections, collection development policies, examples of research guides, and organization charts.

Cheun, Wookjin, Marion Frank-Wilson, Luis A. González, Akram Khabibullaev, Wen-Ling Liu, Andrea Singer, and Noa Wahrman. Collecting Global Resources. SPEC Kit 324. Washington, DC: Association of Research Libraries, September 2011.

https://doi.org/10.29242/spec.324

Table of Contents

SPEC Kit 324: Collecting Global Resources (September 2011)

Abstract:

This SPEC Kit explores the trends, practices, and challenges in collecting global resources in North American research libraries at a time of political and economic change, on the one hand, and of significant change in scholarly communication and collection management strategies, on the other. It covers global resources collections (including an overview of expenditures, collecting trends, sources of funding, and acquisition strategies), staff and organizational structure, preservation strategies, and discovery, public service, and outreach.

The survey results clearly demonstrate that support for global resources in North American research libraries is strong and predicted to remain so in the foreseeable future. Budget and space challenges, as well as increasing electronic access to resources with resulting changes in research habits of students and faculty, will create new and different patterns in collection growth. In response, many ARL libraries either already have or are in the process of creating organizational structures that facilitate intense outreach activities, in-depth reference, and collaborative collection development.

This SPEC Kit includes documentation from respondents that describes print and digital global collections, collection development policies, examples of research guides, and organization charts.

Cheun, Wookjin, Marion Frank-Wilson, Luis A. González, Akram Khabibullaev, Wen-Ling Liu, Andrea Singer, and Noa Wahrman. Collecting Global Resources. SPEC Kit 324. Washington, DC: Association of Research Libraries, September 2011.