[Videolib] issues in academic media collection development

Wes Miller (wesm@earlham.edu)
Thu, 23 Sep 2004 13:31:12 -0500

At Earlham, we do much the same as Maureen and purchase as request come
in. While we don't budget specific amounts for departments, once a
department has ordered a large number of inexpensive programs of a few
expensive programs, we begin asking the department to share the costs
(since they all have AV budget lines for rentals, etc.) This has
proven helpful when the well begins to run dry or we order "big ticket"
programs. In our case, we are small enough that faculty members don't
often go back to their department for approval. Since most of what we
order is for a specific course/use, it seems to work.

Wes

On Sep 23, 2004, at 11:55 AM, Maureen Tripp wrote:

> This is related to our recent discussion of collection development
> assessment . . . do other academic media centers allocate their budget
> among different departments--for example, are you asked to spend a
> certain amount on, say, requests from faculty from the visual and
> media department, a certain amount on faculty requests from
> communication, etc? Do you need to get department chairpersons to
> approve requests made by individual faculty? I'd be very interested
> in how you make your decisions.
>
> I have been able to pretty much fill all requests up to this year, but
> now demand has outstripped our budget, and I am being asked to come up
> with a fair way of dividing our resources among the different academic
> departments.
> Thanks for any ideas!

T. Weston Miller
Director, Instructional Technology & Media
Earlham College, Drawer 5
Richmond, IN 47374-4095

Voice: 765-983-1278
E-mail: wesm@ earlham.edu

President-elect designee, Association for Educational Communications
and Technology. (www.aect.org)