Statement of Competency
Introduction
The primary concern of collection development is to gather, organize, store, evaluate, and preserve materials relevant to the community it serves. The careful management of such information, both physical and digital, is paramount throughout the life cycle of the collection, as are the efforts to make sure the collection is accessible to patrons now and in the future.
Selection
Selection is the process by which information professionals choose materials for a collection. There are several guiding principles to building a collection, and these start with a collection development plan; one that aligns with the organization’s strategic plan (Disher, 2023). Melissa Wong (2018) outlines the following eight parts for a comprehensive collection policy statement: the mission of the library; purpose of the collection; guiding principles; patron challenges; general guidelines; selection; collection evaluation; subject profiles. These guiding principles incorporate the essential elements espoused by the American Library Association (2018). The criteria includes:
Present and potential relevance to community needs
Suitability to physical form for library use
Suitability of subject and style for intended audience
Cost
Importance as a document of the times
Relation to the existing collection
Attention by critics and reviewers
Potential user appeal
Requests by library patrons
These tenets all confirm the primacy of the unique information needs of the community, material authoritativeness, budgetary concerns, and diversity in scope. At a minimum, these are the guiding principles of selection as it relates to collection development.
Evaluation
When considering materials in collection development, evaluative measures play a key role for the information professional. Potential resources should be measured against criteria such as community need/interest/best fit, authoritativeness, age appropriateness, currency, cost, and resource type. Wong (2018) stresses the importance of understanding one’s community as a primary step in evaluation, for budgets of all stripes are finite, and so must resource allocation be. Currency and authority in material selection is critical so that the constituency is offered the most up-to-date and reliable information on rapidly changing environments such as technology, science, and news. An organization that houses works for younger ages will want to consider both the social and comprehensive appropriateness of the material. To align with the American Library Association’s ethics and standards, the chosen materials should present varying viewpoints, as well as being devoid of bias. Technology has advanced so that electronic resources are becoming a vital part of organizations’ collections. Understanding user metrics and user usage (offline, online, on-site) should play a role in shaping the collection’s balance of print to electronic resources.
Organization
When considering materials in collection development, evaluative measures play a key role for the information professional. Potential resources should be measured against criteria such as community need/interest/best fit, authoritativeness, age appropriateness, currency, cost, and resource type. Wong (2018) stresses the importance of understanding one’s community as a primary step in evaluation, for budgets of all stripes are finite, and so must resource allocation be. Currency and authority in material selection is critical so that the constituency is offered the most up-to-date and reliable information on rapidly changing environments such as technology, science, and news. An organization that houses works for younger ages will want to consider both the social and comprehensive appropriateness of the material. To align with the American Library Association’s ethics and standards, the chosen materials should present varying viewpoints, as well as being devoid of bias. Technology has advanced so that electronic resources are becoming a vital part of organizations’ collections. Understanding user metrics and user usage (offline, online, on-site) should play a role in shaping the collection’s balance of print to electronic resources.
Preservation
Preservation in collection management is critical as it allows for resources and content to remain accessible and usable. Not to be conflated with conservation, "Preservation is about ensuring abiding access to an object or collection through whatever means necessary. Conservation, as a subset of preservation, is ultimately about preventing or repairing changes to the object or collection” (Skinner, 2023, p. 180). Physical items in the collection need to be stored and housed in appropriate ways to prevent damage while digital content falls victim to bit erosion through item migration, digital obsolescence, and security threats (Skinner, 2023). Appropriate metadata curation, diversification in media type and storage location in addition to copies in different formats aid in successful preservation of digital content.
Evidence
In my role as Collections Manager at the Museum of Northern California Art, I apply the principles of organization and selection every day. The museum’s permanent collection includes around 300 works of art, and because The Museum of Northern California Art currently lacks funding for a digital asset management system and content management system, I created (from scratch) an organized spreadsheet to track artworks, artists, and acquisition records, and deeds of gifts. Each entry includes metadata and links to individual artist files, forming a searchable digital record. This work shows my ability to organize and maintain a collection even without specialized software, using accessible tools to meet professional standards all while adapting to the institution’s needs. I also practice preservation and evaluation through careful recordkeeping and documentation. I consider how each item fits within the museum’s mission, ensure accurate metadata, and track each object’s condition and provenance.
These tasks connect directly to the competency by showing how thoughtful organization and attention to preservation protect the integrity of both physical and digital materials. This experience has strengthened my understanding of how selection and documentation contribute to the responsible management of a collection. I believe this experience is entirely transferable, and I am confident that the principles of selection, evaluation, organization, and preservation will constitute a large part of my professional future.
INFO 246: File Preservation Strategy
In INFO 284: Digital Curation with Alyce Scott, I developed an understanding of evaluation and preservation as they relate to digital materials. Using Adobe Bridge, I examined different file types and their embedded metadata to understand how each format affects long-term preservation. I then created a table that compared properties, potential risks, and preferred formats for digital durability. This exercise helped me understand the importance of evaluating files not just for content, but also for stability and sustainability over time. The second part of the project focused on organization and preservation strategy. By considering how metadata supports file identification and retrieval, I learned how to plan for the future management of digital assets.
This assignment showed me how to think critically about the practical side of digital curation, meaning how to structure information so that it remains usable and safeguarded as technology changes. It reinforced my understanding that good preservation depends on careful organization and ongoing evaluation.
Curated Newspaper Articles from California Digital Newspaper Collection Archive
This project demonstrates my understanding of selection and evaluation in developing and organizing a meaningful collection. I started this independent research project as a way to preserve my father’s writing and introduce him to the sisters he never knew he had. Using the California Digital Newspaper Collection (CDNC), supported by UC Riverside and administered by the California Library Association, I searched his name and found 437 results. From there, I reviewed each article and selected around 150 that best represented his work based on relevance and substance. This process helped me understand how selection criteria such as significance and scope shape any curated collection.
I also applied principles of organization and preservation to ensure that the collection would be both durable and accessible. After downloading each article in PDF format, I used Adobe Illustrator to enhance clarity, adjust white balance, and standardize the page layout. These steps helped create consistent files suitable for both digital storage and print presentation. Through this project, I gained firsthand experience in digital preservation. I thought about file quality, consistent formatting, and long-term access for these articles, all of which are helpful in managing and storing/saving/preserving digital information.
Conclusion
Collection development requires careful selection, evaluation, organization, and preservation to ensure that the materials and resources remain relevant and accessible. Successful evaluation of the collection means that it has been considered against terms of authority, diversity, and community needs. Organization makes the collection discoverable and usable. Proper preservation ensures that both physical and digital resources will remain available now and in perpetuity. My experience developing metadata standards and managing digital assets at MONCA has strengthened my understanding of these practices. Moving forward, I will apply this competency to collections by working to make sure that they are equitable, sustainable, and align with stakeholder needs.
References
American Library Association. (2018, January 11). Selection criteria. Tools, Publications & Resources. https://www.ala.org/tools/challengesupport/selectionpolicytoolkit/criteria
Disher, W. T. (2022). Managing collections. In S. Hirsh (Ed.), Information services today: An introduction (3rd ed., pp. 332-341). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Skinner, K. (2022). Curation and preservation. In S. Hirsh (Ed.), Information services today: An introduction (3rd ed., pp. 179-191). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Wong, M. A. (2018). Developing and managing library collections. In K. Haycock & B. E. Sheldon (Eds.), The portable MLIS: Insights from the experts (2nd ed., pp. 129–142). Libraries Unlimited.