Part of my job is selecting items to be purchased by our library. Most of our materials budget goes to purchase scientific and technical Journals. These are all subscriptions and the annual selection process is quite run of the mill. We get a title because; well we subscribed to it last year and see no compelling reason to change. Occasionally a title ceases, or becomes less useful to us because of curricular changes. Sometimes we cancel titles because the prices go up, but our budget does not. Once in a very rare while some funding becomes available to add a title, but most of the time the Journals subscriptions just roll on from one year to the next. A small slice of the budget pie is reserved for one time purchases and a tiny slice of that goes for recreational reading/viewing/listening. Here's where the crystal ball gazing comes in. What are our students, faculty and staff going to want to read, watch, and listen to? Not just now but next year, and 20 years from now? ...
the newsletter for the library at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology