OLA Conference 2018

Collection development is never an exact science, but when it comes to financially supporting open access (OA) initiatives, many of us are making educated guesses. We need innovative methods for assessing and evaluating new collection investments, and they must reflect the risk inherent in funding OA initiatives.

Enter library service design.

What will it look like if we apply service design methodology to collection development funding decisions? What if we place the user at the center of OA funding decisions? This dynamic session will explore these questions and more.

We will present an overview of library service design and how it has been applied to decision-making at Reed College library. We will share how we developed and adapted a set of library service design heuristics and used this methodology in deciding whether to financially support OA initiatives. Though the session will focus on OA funding decisions, the heuristics can be adapted to fit collections assessment in general. Participants will be encouraged to share their own experiences with and methodologies for funding OA projects. They will leave the session with increased knowledge of library service design and how it can be powerfully connected to the future of collection development and assessment.