Title: The concept of collection development in the digital world
Abstract: The concept of collection development is central to the professional practice of librarianship, since the whole notion of a library is fundamentally associated with the idea of a collection, to the extent that the words ‘library’ and ‘collection’ are almost synonymous. Other terms such as ‘information centre’ ‘learning centre’ or ‘discovery centre’ are often used now instead of ‘library’ and terms such as ‘information resources’ may be substituted for ‘library collections’. However, the activities and processes traditionally associated with collection development are still essential to the effective functioning of contemporary library information, learning and knowledge services, even though they may look and feel quite different to their historical counterparts. Our concern here is to explore the concept of collection development in the digital library and information environment and in particular to examine how thinking and practice in this vital area of library and information management have developed and changed in response to advances in digital technologies. What are the similarities and differences between collection development yesterday and today? Investigating such questions should help to prepare us for dealing with the collections of tomorrow.