Re: Promoting videos

Gary Handman (ghandman@library.berkeley.edu)
Wed, 17 Mar 1999 08:40:04 -0800 (PST)

Hmmmm, I have to throw in a bit of disagreement here. There's a
substantial difference between a curated collection (a collection built and
maintained by a knowledgeable professional with a strong sense of
institutional and programmatic needs) and a collection built primarily
according to the vagaries of particular faculty interests and needs. I
guess it sort of depends on what the mission of the collection is: if the
intent is to build a broad disciplinary or interdisciplinary collection
which is responsive to the current and potential needs of users, there's no
substitute for professional (librarian) oversight of collection
development; if the intent is purely to support specific curricula, then I
guess faculty selection might suffice. The problem with the latter route
is that it generally leads to a profoundly uneven and quirky
collection--one which is responsive in the short term rather than the long
term. The ideal collection development model for media is one built on a
strong collaboration between librarian selector(s)and the faculty whom they
serve.

Gary Handman
UC Berkeley

At 06:19 PM 03/16/1999 -0800, you wrote:
>Our single best strategy here at San Francisco State University for
>promoting faculty interest in the media collection is having the faculty
>select the titles. Nothing promotes faculty interest, sense of ownership
>and use of the collection better. A copy of our faculty media
>recommendation form is available at
>
>http://www.sfsu.edu/~avitv/media.purchase.form.html
>
>Requests are reviewed by the faculty member's college dean (primarily to
>prioritize purchases in view of available funds). And when a faculty
>member asks me why we don't have a particular title, I can say, "Why not
>recommend it for purchase?"
>
>Internet access is also a great help, of course. The main website for our
>media collection is
>
>http://www.sfsu.edu/~avitv/AV.mediacatalog.html
>
>The bottom line is, if you want them to use the collection, let them build
>it.
>
>Brigid Duffy
>Media Purchasing
>Audio Visual/ITV Center
>San Francisco State University
>San Francisco CA 94132-4200
>E-mail: bduffy@sfsu.edu
>
>On Tue, 16 Mar 1999, Marguerite Hawkins wrote:
>
>> Hello Videolibers - I am hoping that some of you can share with me your
>> strategies for promoting your videos to the academic staff. Our old ways
are
>> not working all that well and I am trying to find new ideas and some
methods
>> that are working for you. If you can help I would be very grateful.
>> Marguerite
>> mhawkins@swin.edu.au
>>
>
>
>