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Building a New Library Collection at UC Merced
by Judith Ekstrom, YBP Bibliographer

How often is a librarian able to participate in building a brand new collection for a brand new library in a brand new research university? When the opportunity came for YBP, and hence this librarian, to build the opening day collection (ODC) for the University of California at Merced, we faced a most exciting project, one bringing with it a sense of great responsibility and a challenge to our professional expertise. As is often the case when a library elects to involve a vendor in book selection for its ODC, the majority of the university's librarians and professional staff are yet to be hired

Staff at Merced. L to R: Jim Dooley, Technical Services Librarian.; Donald Barclay, Assistant University Librarian for Public Services; Joy Parham, Assistant to the University Librarian; R. Bruce Miller, University Librarian; Sarah Sheets, Library Clerk; Emily Lin, Digital Assets Librarian

and the physical building is not yet completed.

My job as Project Director was to coordinate YBP's efforts: choosing the books to be supplied, meeting deadlines and communicating with both Jannette Schuele, one of YBP's West Coast Regional Managers, and the staff in place at the library. Additionally, I worked with our Library Technical Services Division on the technical specifications of record provision, physical processing, billing and the even staging of the shipping schedule in conformance with our internal production requirements. Merced is one of our first libraries to incorporate RFID (radio frequency identification) technology into its processing specifications.

The processing line at YBP applying
RFID tags and physical processing to Merced’s books.

UC Merced is the first major American research university built in the twenty-first century and the tenth campus in the University of California system, bringing the benefits of a major research university to the San Joaquin Valley in central California. Academic programs at Merced will place special emphasis on science and engineering, particularly resource engineering, computer science and information technology, but will also encompass the range of core arts and sciences as well as selected professional programs, with focus on interdisciplinary links and research initiatives.

Working with R. Bruce Miller, University Librarian, Donald Barclay, Assistant University Librarian for Public Services and Jim Dooley, Technical Services Librarian, Jannette Schuele crafted a YBP profile reflecting the staging of curriculum initiatives as well as a core collection that would serve as a blueprint both for the initial collection and as a collecting mechanism for going forward with current publications. Additionally, we prepared a statement that outlined the scope and sequence of the entire project so that all parties would share the same expectations. We expected to provide about 13,000 titles over a period of eight months, expending at least the initial allocation by the end of fiscal year 2004. Our plan of work cited some of the sources we would use for title identification, including selected Choice Outstanding Academic Titles, literary and other awards and prizes, outstanding core series and YBP's own lists of "Core 1000" titles, "major" works, "overviews" and "best-selling academic" titles. We would also consult standard collecting tools and do some creative web searching. A short cancellation period of thirty days enabled me to constantly review and update orders, searching for alternates as necessary

At my call for professional expertise, YBP Bibliographers enthusiastically volunteered to work on such an interesting challenge and were soon busily occupied querying YBP's vast database in search of likely titles in their subject areas. GOBI2 offered innovative ways to streamline the workflow. We built a special GOBI account for the project and Bibliographers could then place their suggestions in folders for my later review. Duplicate ISBN and linked ISBN selections were immediately visible in library history, a GOBI feature that allowed effective duplication control throughout the life of the project. Additional manual duplication checks were necessary in the case of possible variant and multiple editions of standard works, primarily in the humanities. GOBI2 also offered us the notable advantages of seeing current title availability and the most recent receipt history as well as tables of contents and reviews of the works. Earlier ODCs had required us to additionally check for duplicates against the library's existing holdings, but this was not a requirement at Merced.

The collection in temporary storage awaiting its users.

While the project was ongoing, GOBI2 introduced a revolutionary new feature. By using "Peer Reports" we could compare the collection we were building at Merced with the selections of any other YBP customer in the U.S. that could be considered a peer institution. We also set up a smaller "consortium" of UC schools and used the GOBITWEEN feature to show us other copies of titles in the UC system, thereby avoiding duplication of more peripheral titles.

At regular intervals, we used both our spreadsheets and GOBI activity reports to support a benchmarking procedure that showed us the current status of our collection by LC class. Comparing the reports to our action plan suggested initiatives and direction. Week by week we tracked our progress until the last shipment left YBP in the last week of June, earlier this year.

The staff at Merced has asked us to continue, however, so we celebrate the fulfillment of our initial mission, but not the end of the project. One of our best rewards is to look at the photograph Merced has supplied of the books we've sent, lined up in their temporary quarters and awaiting use by the students and faculty we hope will benefit from our effort.

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