1 1 Introduction The goal of any collection development organization must be to provide the library with a collection that meets the appropriate needs of its client population, within the limitations of its fiscal and personnel resources. —Bonita Bryant, 1987 Much of the literature on library collections and access to information focuses on academic libraries. . . . There are some similarities between the challenges faced by academic libraries and public libraries. . . . The issues of concern are far-reaching­ and transcend traditional topics that collection development and management has included. —John Budd, 2014 In a rapidly evolving information environment, libraries need to “do more than just prevail.” Instead they need to reimagine and reinvent themselves taking advantage of the new opportunities that this environment has created. —International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, 2016 Bonita Bryant’s opening quotation is as valid today as when she first “penned” it. We believe it will remain valid well into the future, even as the content of library collections changes. The overarching purpose of collection develop- ment and management will not change—money and people in a library are finite and will always be. Even so, collection development and collection man- agement are relatively new concepts for libraries, in light of library history. As a societal institution, the notion of a library is old—more than 4,000 years, in fact. Clearly that type of longevity suggests that libraries have
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