Internet Resources Cooperative Collection Development Project

by Marcy Bowen

Representatives from Resource Libraries (RLs) in Region 7 met recently to discuss the feasibility and possible approaches to cooperative collection development of Internet resources. (Latitudes, September/October, 1995, pg. 3). Because of the number and character of these resources, a great deal of staff time is needed to investigate and evaluate them. A cooperative approach could lessen the time burden for individual libraries. Meetings were held in Northern California on August 25th, at University of California, San Francisco, and in Southern California on September 8th, at University of California, Irvine. One representative from each of the two meetings attended the Resource Library Directors meeting, held October 5 th, in order to present ideas developed at the sessions and to participate in a further discussion of the topic by the Directors and the PSRML staff.

Following are highlights of the two initial meetings:

• Most of the RLs are collecting Internet resources and providing access to them through WWW Home Pages which the libraries have developed or are in the process of developing.
• A few RLs have formal collection development (CD) policies in place for these resources. Those that have not developed a formal policy, have adapted their standard CD policy.
• The majority of the RLs found the time required for locating, evaluating and maintaining links to Internet resources to be significant. Staff designated to do this were often performing the task in addition to their normal job duties since traditiona l collection development is still necessary.
• Those attending the meetings felt that this type of cooperative collection development was feasible and would be useful for saving time, identifying more relevant sources than one individual could accomplish alone, and beneficial to smaller libraries in the region who are starting Internet programs and have fewer staff to devote to these efforts.
• Two approaches to the idea of cooperative CD were discussed. One approach would be a kind of bibliographic utility or clearinghouse, which could be mounted as a Home Page maintained by PSRML. Information would be entered in a standard template, offe ring a description and evaluation of a site. This information would be available to any institution for downloading and tailoring to their own Home Page.
• The other idea was to maintain a simple reflector, for notifying others of quality resources.