Collection Policy Evaluation

Assessment 2: Collection Policy Evaluation

TASK

The focus of this assessment is collection policy evaluation.

You have recently been appointed manager/director of the collection/s in ONE of the following information organisations. The Director of your organisation has given you the task of reviewing the collection policy against an appropriate set of guidelines and making recommendations for updating the policy based on your evaluation.

§ Curtin University Library

§ Run Run Shaw Library, City University of Hong Kong

§ Eastern Regional Libraries

§ Heriot-Watt University Museum and Archive

§ Griffith University Archive

Drawing on the knowledge you have developed in this subject and a review of relevant scholarly and professional literature, write an evaluative report with recommendations for the policy. To successfully attempt this assessment you will need to:

1. Locate the collection policy

2. Contextualize the collection within the organisation and wider collections sector, and then

3. Identify appropriate way/s to evaluate the policy – through a best practice example, industry guidelines or another option.

You have been asked to address the following areas in particular in your report:

§ The needs of collection stakeholders,

§ The selection and acquisition of information resources, and

§ Preservation of the collection/s (including disaster preparedness).

The report should be written for your Director, with a professional tone, using complete sentences and paragraphs, be well proofread, well organised, and with subheadings to guide the reader through your content. Scholarly and professional resources should be used to support your arguments and your arguments should lead to solid recommendations for improvement of the policy, as appropriate. An optional report template will be provided in class.

References

It is expected that you delve into formal professional and scholarly literature to discover new ideas in the profession and to and strengthen your arguments in your written work. Remember to cite the policy and guidelines you are using. All references should be cited using APA 6th or 7th format both in-text (parenthetical references) and in the final reference list at the end of your write-up.

Assessment study groups

You may wish to work in small study groups as part of this assessment, and your subject coordinator will set up group work spaces in Interact as requested. Working as a group to solve a problem is often a useful strategy, and we encourage this for this assessment. Your report however must be completely your own work, and you will make a declaration of this when you submit your assessment through EASTS.

RATIONALE

This assessment task will assess the following learning outcome/s:

· be able to evaluate the needs of collection stakeholders in a professional context.

· be able to apply relevant professional understanding to the selection and acquisition of information resources.

· be able to exhibit ethical decision making and reasoning to identify creative solutions to issues such as access, censorship, budgeting, outsourcing and cooperative resource provision.

· be able to demonstrate a professional understanding of complex issues associated with disaster management and preservation of collections.