Multimedia Seeds: Management: Audio and Video Collection Development

Collection development is the process of building, managing, maintaining, and evaluating a cohesive set of materials. The collection development policy guides these activities.

A collection development policy provides a way to systematically select materials for the library or information center. The policy should be flexible enough to adapt to changing environments. For example, as new technologies arise, the policy should be revised rather than rewritten.

A collection development policy should contain an overview of key issues followed by specific criteria for selection. Rather than a separate policy for non-print materials, explore how the current policy can be adapted for the new technologies.

As you build your collection, it's important to look at all types of materials. Traditionally, libraries have focused on book collections such as the Caldecott Honor book Click, Clack, Moo Cows that Type. Today, however the collection may contain not only the book, but also audio and video materials. For example, this book is also available as an ALA notable video by Weston Woods and Scholastic. It has received favorable reviews for School Library Journal, Discovery School, and Booklist.

Read the off-site article Select or Satisfy? The Video Collection Development Dilemma by Kim Lloyd (MC Journal: The Journal of Academic Media Librarianship, 2(2), Fall 1994). This article explores issues related to building video collections.

Read the off-site article (PDF document) Building a Multicultural Media Collection by Sharon Gray and Teresa Abaid (MC Journal: The Journal of Academic Media Librarianship, 8(2), Winter 2002). This article examines how to build a particular type of media collection, in this case a multimedia collection.

Go to the following sections and read about different aspects of collection development: