Collection Development Working Group
Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Konferenzraum 2, 3rd floor
Monday, 22 March 1999, 2:00-6:00pm
(1) Discussion of the Group’s Mission Statement (Mike Olson)
"The Collection Development Working Group explores ways of increasing
bibliographic and full-text (both remote and physical) access for North
American research libraries to monographic and serial publications, in all
formats, from the German-speaking countries of Europe."
Discussion topics:
How can we best collaborate with the other working groups of the German
Resources Project (Bibliographic Control, Digital Libraries, Document
Delivery)?
What differentiates our group from the others?
Do we, as a working group for collection development, want to get into
the business of facilitating access to the content of any work, or of
facilitating access to non-content aspects (e.g. reviews, bibliographic
citations) of any work, or both?
Can we augment the work of two other Working Groups, Bibliographic Control
and Document Delivery, by improving access to already published monographic
and serial materials in paper, microform, and electronic formats. How?
How can we promote the use of GBV-Direct/North America and other document
delivery systems in Europe as well as North America?
How can we work with our German counterparts to encourage individual
libraries to lend their physical items across the Atlantic, and explore
alternative means of transferring content without actually shipping
the physical item (e.g. when substantial portions of the text of a volume
are required)?
(2) Collaboration with German Counterparts (Jim Niessen, Rolf Griebel)
Discussion topics:
How can we expand our contacts in Germany?
Which projects can we work on together?
How can we assure – assuming that we do want to – our German
counterparts that efforts to improve collection development in North
America will also lead to improved access in German to publications
held by our libraries?
(3) Completeness of the German Bibliographic Universe – Physical
Access (Tom Kilton)
At issue:
The identification of categories of materials (major disciplines, broad subject areas, as well as samples of representative individual titles), and agreeing upon the absolute necessity of insuring North American ownership of at least one copy of items from these categories versus making do with document delivery or interlibrary borrowing of the physical item ("returnables").
Discussion topics:
Do we want to concentrate on having complete physical access to sets
of German materials – that is, must North American libraries have
at least one copy of every German titles in selected subjects?
If we do, how do we achieve this?
Do we wish to undertake a sort of Farmington Plan with the intent of
dividing up collecting responsibilities -- e.g. gray literature, of
which few or no German publications are acquired by North American libraries?
Are the following aids or hindrances to this cause?
The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft’s conspectus Neuer Verteilungsplan
der überregionalen bibliothekarischen Schwerpunkte in dem von der
Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft geförderten System der Literaturversorgung
http://webis.sub.uni-hamburg.de/cgi-bin/ssg?file=ssg/text/ssgliste2.html
The National Shelflist Count
The National Collections Inventory Project (NCIP)
The RLG Conspectus
(4) Completeness of the German Bibliographic Universe – Bibliographic
Access (Jeff Garrett, Jim Niessen)
At issue:
Identifying "current awareness" tools that can best serve the goal of identifying
items which might otherwise not be collected by North American libraries. Such tools might include ongoing major bibliographies of various sorts (such as Series B, the non-booktrade section of the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie), book-reviewing sources, specialized bibliographies issued by various learned institutions, government agencies, cultural societies, and museums in German-speaking Europe, and sources such as Harrassowitz’ emerging "Database of Non-Selected Materials" or their "New Monographs Database."
Discussion topics:
Do we want to concentrate on having complete bibliographic access to
sets of German materials – that is, must North American librarians
be able to have complete bibliographic access to every German title
in selected subjects?
If we do, how do we achieve this?
To what extent do we want to devote our energy to H-Net Reviews and
other review sources?
(5) Conclusion
Discussion topic:
What results/agreements/projects/etc. do we want to take away from
our meetings in Germany this week?
What are our next steps?
