How can you involve your community in collection development?

En primer lugar, promovemos una integración más estrecha con programas y proyectos institucionales para comprender las necesidades de los especialistas, donde, facilitamos el acceso a información, además de que conocemos sus acciones y actividades en las que podemos colaborar. En segundo lugar, lideramos la Alianza SIDALC (https://www.sidalc.net), que recopila recursos de conocimiento agrícola de diversas instituciones. Como miembros de la red, compartimos y accedemos a sus servicios de información y producción intelectual. Más que aumentar colecciones, promovemos la colaboración e intercambio de recursos de conocimiento, así como identificación de especialistas generadores de conocimiento que estimulen la creación de nuevo conocimiento.

My library system has a Suggest A Title form on the website. It is available to both external customers and library staff. It does require the title and author, and also asks for format, language, audience, and content. This way, customers can suggest not only titles that our system does not currently have, but can also recommend another format of an available title be added to the collection. This can reveal if there is demand for an item in a particular format, such as large print or audiobook.

Sometimes simple and even ‘old-fashioned’ methods are the most effective! I saw a big increase in suggestions for new books when I set up a suggestion box, complete with slips of paper and pens, at our library service point. Having a very visible ‘physical’ suggestion box, together with an encouraging sign, was much more effective than an online suggestion form. This wouldn’t be the case for all libraries but in our library, where in-person visits are the norm, it works a treat!

Our library has patron request cards, where patrons can fill them out to request items the library doesn't currently own. We do our best to fulfill the requests and utilize ILL whenever we are unable to purchase the item for our collection. On our catalog website, we also have a request form patrons can fill out which serves the same purpose as the cards, but saves on paper.

Diligently monitor suggestions. Most catalog systems have a customer suggestion path that are very simple to use. Respond to the suggestions either with confirmations or reasons why the material does not fit in your collection development goals. When I was working in a public library and developed the graphic novel and manga collection, the teens were able to look through the catalogs and mark off the materials they wanted to borrow. Be more aware of the suggestions from the user group. Be flexible and nimble in your acquisitions to make winning selections. Anticipate the trends by listening to your users.

The book club I host meets across the street from my branch at a local brewery. Flyers posted in the brew pub have attracted readers who wouldn't otherwise think of coming to a library book group or checking out the library's online calendar. I take suggestions from the group a couple times a year using an anonymous web survey, but I curate and add a few of my own choices to make sure we're reading a diverse and varied list of titles that have plenty of available copies, in multiple formats, for checkout in our system. It's been a great partnership with a local business, who love having a 12-15 person group on normally slow night, and I've now got book group members hooked up to other fun programs in the branch as well!

Many branches in my library system offer book clubs or meetups. Often when planning the schedule of books that my book discussion wants to read, I try to offer material that the members haven't read before to showcase the books we offer.

It is important to make sure the panels or forums reflect the various cultures that are part of the communities. That way the media can reflect the various languages that are part of the community.

There are a number of vendors that provide services to help libraries connect with their communities and gauge interest in the types of library materials, genres, and topics that they are interested in. We use a product that allows members of our library community to sign up for automated weekly newsletters focused on various genres and topics such as mysteries, biographies, science fiction, fantasy, true crime, history, etc. The newsletters are linked directly to our online library catalog, so when subscribers receive the newsletter each week based on their topic of interest, they can click on the book covers of recommended materials in the email and go straight to that title in our library catalog to place a hold or check out that item.