Collection policy

Ms Barbara Lison, Director of Bremen Public Library, President of BID (Bibliothek Information Deutschland), the national umbrella organisation of the German library associations talks about in:

Quality Management for the collection policy of public libraries

The most important assets of public libraries are their staff, their premises and, of course, their collection. For the latter it is not so important if it is physical or virtual.

In order to offer good services for the public it is necessary that these three elements work as effectively and efficiently as possible and that they are congruent to each other. The seminar will concentrate on the effective strategies for collection management and the library services related to that issue.

Starting from the basic point about the tasks and functions of a public library the presentations will focus the following questions:

• How to create and maintain an up-to-date library collection?
• How is the process of collection building organized by German public libraries?
• What are the most recent trends in the collection management of German public libraries?
• How to give access to information and the collection as the core services of a library?
• How to measure the efficiency of the library collection?

In addition to that the presentations will give a general picture of the relationship between the German public libraries and the German book market. And it will refer to the general legal and administrative framework as well as the preconditions for the work of German public libraries. (abstract, by Barbara Lison)