Intellectual Experience: Wolfeboro Public Library Collection Development Policy

During winter quarter of 2006, Cindy Scott, Library Director for the Wolfeboro Public Library in New Hampshire, was delighted to find out that a group of library students from the University of Washington were interested in creating a collection development policy for her library. One of her goals for 2007 was to create a new collection development policy for the library. The old policy was mimeographed and made no references to electronic resources. This excerpt from an e-mail sent by Cindy early in the project provides insight into the condition of the existing policy:

The previous administration did not really believe in weeding the library collection. I actually found a three volume set of science encyclopedias on the reference shelf, shortly after I began working here 4 1/2 years ago, that stated that someday there would be manned space flight. So a section on weeding is very important.

As a group, we worked together to create a policy that was relevant and reflected the collection development goals of the current administration. On April 2, 2007 the Wolfeboro Public Library Board of Trustees implemented the final draft of the Collection Development policy we created.

The success of our policy was dependent upon our ability to educate ourselves about Wolfeboro from here in Washington. This meant working closely with Cindy and utilizing resources, both academic and community-based to learn about the town. The town of Wolfeboro, New Hampshire is an old resort destination located on Lake Winnipesaukee. The legal service area for the Wolfeboro Public Library is within the Wolfeboro city limits. However, the actual service area extends beyond the town limits to provide library services to the surrounding community. Non-residents may obtain a library card for an annual family fee of $40.00. In addition, Wolfeboro's reputation for being "The Oldest Summer Resort in America" brings an estimated 25,000 visitors annually. The library provides summer residents with temporary cards that run from Memorial Day to Labor Day for $15.00. While highly contested among locals, the population of Wolfeboro is estimated to be around 6,500. The local population, surrounding communities and summer visitors all contribute to the library's circulation of over 120,000 items and 60,000 branch visits a year. Given the unique demographics of the library's patrons we had our work cut out for us.

While in the end we were able to create a policy that was passed by the Wolfeboro Library Board with some revisions, the process was at times difficult. Our group endured several personal emergencies, one resulting in a member of our group temporally leaving the MLIS program. Furthermore, since I contacted the library through a personal connection my motivation to create a policy they could successfully implement extended beyond the classroom. At times I found myself at odds with the rest of the group members and had to remind myself that their personal stake in the project was limited to receiving a grade. These issues were perpetuated by the lack of a defined leader at the beginning of the project. As the de facto leader this made mitigating issues as they arose more complicated. In addition to learning how to write an effective collection development policy, I learned the importance of designating well-defined roles at the beginning of a project.

Despite the hardships we encountered as a group, each individual member contributed a great deal to the overall policy and I am happy to report that a bit of each of us can be found within the revised version passed by the board.

Intellectual Experience: Cataloging Working at the University of Washington

In addition to course work, I have held several positions at the University of Washington that encouraged my love of metadata. During my first year of the program I worked in Special Collections. I cataloged images for the Digital Library collection. During this year I realized the importance of accurate description and the difficulties involved in describing objects beyond the realm of the monograph. My research adventures for this position took me from the depths of the University Archives to the Washington State Historical Society in Tacoma. The Lawrence Denny Lindsley Photograph collection is the largest project I worked on and the one I am the most proud of. After a year of working in Special Collections I yearned for an experience that included more cataloging. I was fortunate enough to have a friend who suggested that I apply for a job in Database Management also at the UW where I cataloged Government Publications.

Intellectual Experience: Federated Search Keeping the Dream Alive

While not significant in terms of overall impact, this example of an intellectual work was the first time in my library school career that I had enough background knowledge about a topic to create an opinion piece. Library Technology Systems (LIS587) was one of the best classes I took at the University of Washington and one I would highly recommend to any library student. I felt the course was an accumulation of everything I had learned since I started the program in fall of 2006. While not entirely academic in nature, this paper about federated search is a reflection of my ability to critically discuss library technologies.