Letting the Readers have a Say: Crowd Theory in Collection Development

Keywords

Crowd Theory, Collection Development, Social Behavior

Abstract

One of the pressing concerns for academic and research librarians is collection development, or choosing and purchasing new books for the library. Librarians spend countless hours scanning through system-recommended book titles, trying to determine which ones the students will use and benefit from as academic resources. Do students look at book covers more than at content, for instance? Do they choose books based on five-star Amazon reviews? Do they prefer books with interesting titles or interesting descriptions? Every year we do our best to decide what will be most useful for students and their research needs.

Original Publication Citation

Strong, J., & Galbraith, Q. (2018). Letting the readers have a say: Crowd theory in collection development. College & Research Libraries News, 79(9), 502-504. doi: 10.5860/crln.79.9.502

Document Type

Peer-Reviewed Article

Publication Date

2018

Permanent URL

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/6515

Publisher

Association of College & Research Libraries

Language

English

College

Harold B. Lee Library

University Standing at Time of Publication

Full Professor

Link to Full Text

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