Loquacious would not describe Charlene Adkins, Library Supervisor of JPL's Collection Development and Acquisitions. However, it takes a lot of words just to touch on the many aspects related to her position. Charlene has her thoughts well in order before she speaks and she reminds one--in her quiet way--of a famous statement by Admiral Farragut, "D--- the torpedos; full speed ahead!" The Support Services Team is happy to have her on board.
Q: How did your career evolve to you becoming the Collection Development Supervisor for the library system?
A: My career with JPL began just after I graduated with my MLS from FSU in 1989. I started as an adult reference librarian at Mandarin and worked there the longest (8 years), except for my time in Collection Development (13 years). I also worked at Regency, San Marco, and Southeast. Before I got my library degree, I managed a store in the locally owned family bookstore chain, Whites, which no longer exists. Growing up, I thought I would have a career in something to do with books and my love of reading—although I wasn’t quite sure what it would be. In fact I thought I might go into publishing, but the thought of moving to New York City was a bit daunting! During library school and my early years at JPL, I always thought Collection Development would be a good fit for me based on my experience and abilities. While I was working at Southeast as a Senior Librarian, the Collection Development Coordinator at the time (Susan Shami) decided she wanted to go back to public service. Theresa Barmer, who was head of Technical Services (our name before we became Support Services), asked if I would be interested in the position and answered my questions about the duties. Within the week, I was told I would be transferred to the position of Collection Development Coordinator--a senior librarian position at that time. I have been in charge of Collection Development since 1999. The position and my duties have greatly expanded over the years. When I first came, there was a clerk in the department besides me and that was it. At that time, I edited order lists, the clerk created the order lists, and staff throughout the system ordered from the lists. I met with vendors and coordinated with other staff in Technical Services on issues involving Collection Development, but was not involved in developing the budget, requesting and tracking blanket orders, centralized ordering, supervising standing orders, continuous orders, electronic ordering, periodicals, weeding, opening day collections, collection analysis and site visits, or all of the myriad of duties that are handled within Collection Development. Currently, Collection Development consists of me, Senior Librarian Jill Haile, Librarians Steve Egbert and Benjamin Smith, and Library Assistant Hope Bissell. We all work very closely together to centrally order all library materials. I also supervise the Acquisitions and Processing department, which is responsible for receiving orders, processing materials, and linking items to the catalog records.
Q: What is the process used to select and order materials for JPL's system?
A: The majority of our new materials ordering is done based on reviews in sources such as
Publisher's Weekly, Library Journal, Booklist, School Library Journal and a few other library review sources. We also closely monitor media outlets for the current Hot titles that are not from established authors—we meet weekly to discuss these types of orders. Reviews are read and a quantity decision is made from our ordering grid which is tweaked regularly. Those orders are entered into a Baker and Taylor Titlesource cart online which is downloaded into Workflows to bring in the bibliographic and order information and then those purchase orders are sent back out electronically to Baker and Taylor (or Midwest or Ingram) to be placed on order with the vendor. That is how the bulk of materials are ordered; there are also quite a few variations depending on the type of material and the vendor. We have automatic order plans in place for very popular adult fiction titles (B&T Automatically Yours plan); juvenile and YA series standing orders; and automatic order plans that we customize for DVD based on box office sales or non fiction topics. Continuous order plans are set up that order certain types of large print, spoken audio and downloadable audio. Periodicals titles are reviewed, adjusted and ordered on a yearly basis. We have standing orders for print reference and serials materials (travel titles are an example), and we meet with vendors' representatives from electronic database vendors, and other materials vendors to consider new databases and services, such as the language learning database. Although a large portion of our ordering process is based on reviews, there are quite a few other processes for materials ordering as well.
Q: How has Collection Development balanced the City/JPL budget cuts with materials needs/demands of JPL?
A: Each year, we keep close tabs on how materials are being used through collection analysis, staff input, Workflows reports, trends in the library field and newly available materials and formats. As budget time approaches, we juggle adjusting the materials budget to meet decreased funding and the need to reapportion the budget to cover new material types such as e materials. For instance, we have done periodicals usage studies the last two years in order to have feedback on the periodicals receiving the most use. This has allowed us to cut the periodicals budget in order to redistribute those funds to other materials such as e books, but has allowed branches to still have the magazines that customers use the most. In many cases, such as popular adult fiction and entertainment DVDs, we have had to purchase fewer overall copies so that we can still have the popular materials, but because we cannot buy as many as we once did, customers have a longer wait before they receive those extremely popular materials. In times past, we had a much higher materials budget. Right after all of The Better Jacksonville Plan libraries had opened, we were able to afford to buy one copy for every hold of an adult bestseller. It has been many years since we could afford to do that. Now we buy an initial order, and in the majority of cases, we do not reorder additional copies unless the holds to copies owned ratio exceeds between 4 and 6 to 1. That means that whatever the most popular title of the moment happens to be, it could have hundreds of holds. Currently,
Hunger Games is the king of titles with holds due to the newly released movie—it has almost 700 holds! Around 300 is more typical for the most popular materials though. That can mean a long wait for a customer. But it is one way we can stretch our budget dollars.
Q: How will technology affect the kinds of materials Collection Development will order now and in the future?
A: The continuing increase in popularity of e materials, particularly e books, has the publishing world and libraries that have to try to purchase e materials trying to find their way in a very unsettled, disorderly, fluctuating marketplace. The library market is currently dominated by one primary popular materials vendor--Overdrive. Publishers are nervous about how they can operate profitably in a market changing from print dominance to a mix of print and electronic materials. Libraries are caught in the middle and affected by being able to buy from one publisher one day, and either not being able to purchase that publisher's materials the next, or having restrictions placed on how materials can be circulated, or having prices raised to three times the amount they were just the day before. As e materials continue to gain in popularity in libraries, there are signs of other vendors coming into our market to try to develop models that are more acceptable to libraries. Models in which we purchase the materials, just as we do with physical materials, then the materials are available through the library seamlessly. Hopefully, customers will be able to check out an e book from the library as easily as they can a physical book and they will not have to know the ins and outs of multiple vendor platforms as is the case now. There are going to be more and more materials that will be available electronically, but I think there is always going to be a place for print as well. Historically, as a time of great change occurs when a new technology upsets the existing technologies, there is always an unsettled period, but eventually a coexistence is worked out. Going to the movies in the theater did not disappear when television became available in everyone's homes. Attendance patterns changed, but they have both coexisted now for many years. I think the same will happen with print and electronic books. And with other types of digital materials, that may be on the horizon.
Q: What is your favorite pastime?
A: I have more than one and they mostly revolve around my family--my husband, Guy, and our two boys, Duncan (15) and Spencer (12). I love to cook, read, watch movies, work in the yard, keep up with my boys' activities in band (Mandarin High School and Mandarin Middle School), Scouts and theater. I like to play tennis, but don't get to do it too often these days. I also love to travel. Last year, we joined 13 members of my family on a cruise for my parent's 50th wedding anniversary. This year we hope to go to New York for the Thanksgiving Day parade (but not 17 of us!)--something I have always want to do!
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