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Collection development literature has burgeoned over the past decade, yet the complaint is still heard that college libraries are not engaged in meaningful collection development activities. College librarians often consider methods described in published research as too time‐consuming, technologically dependent, or statistically complex to apply to their own situations. How relevant is the literature to the practical needs of the collection developer? In addressing this question, a theoretical overview of collection development is presented, and recent publications reviewed, in terms of their relevance to collection planning, implementation, and evaluation in the small college library.

Librarians have lavished years of scholarship on the subject of collection development. The rewarding process of organizing and building a relevant and competitive collection is one of librarianship's more rewarding jobs.

Larger libraries of both the academic and public varieties have in the last few years increasingly been creating the position of Collection Development Officer in their organizations. It seems to me that there are two very important problems with the searching and hiring procedures for this position. They stem from the conclusion of some of our top library directors that the qualifications for this position must necessarily be twofold: subject expertise and literary background. The former is usually spelled out by requiring that the aspirants have subject masters or doctorates; the latter is usually assured by having some writing or “bookman” experience in the work background. Although these two competencies are not necessarily bad for a collection development officer to have, what they do as a rule is prevent the hiring of (and discourage applications from) people who would make excellent collection development officers in areas that are plainly most important. What are the areas of expertise that are needed?

In order to develop a collection and a collection development policy, data must be gathered and representatives of the library and community must be consulted. This is not something that can be accomplished in a short period of time—or alone. The greatest need in formulating a collection development policy is for ideas — these ideas must come from different people and different points of view. Even the smallest library must gather ideas from a number of people interested in keeping the library alive, vital, and a part of the community it serves.

For the past six months (and with no end in sight) I have been reading and evaluating the collection development and materials selection policies of libraries from all over the country. Not only does this include academic and public libraries, but thrown in for good measure are some school, special, and state library documents. Some are good, and some aren't so good, but what it all boils down to is, what goes into the making of a successful policy?

Volume Three of Collection Building introduces a new column, Issues in Collection Building. Our previous editions have centered primarily on the means of developing library resources, with a special interest in achieving diversity in library collections. Now, with this new column, we can begin to identify the issues in collection development, address them, and, at times, act as a forum for varying points of view.

A ready reference collection, kept close to the reference desk and to the telephone, is composed of items which answer a myriad of questions asked by either walk‐in patrons or telephone callers. These quick fact‐type questions are easily answered with minimum effort on the part of the patron and the librarian. But, these small, helpful collections often grow in size and complexity until, in some libraries, they begin to resemble the Sorcerer's Apprentice, with the librarian rather than the patron, playing the part of the sorcerer. Librarians sometimes look no further than these items to answer all sorts of questions—even the more complicated research ones. Shouldn't we be asking ourselves not only which items belong on these shelves, but which can be discarded from them too?

Building a collection in academic and public libraries entails knowing the publishing market and matching it to the community to be served. This requires a guiding philosophy with goals and statements of objectives, which usually end up as part of a collection development policy. Sometimes such a policy is a formal, written document and sometimes it exists only in the minds of the people in charge of the library. In any case, one of the important aspects of collection building that never makes it into the formal policy is the evaluation of the existing collection, or, after a time, the evaluation of the one which the policy has described. In the former case it is always important to know what it is that you are building on and in the latter case it is a good indication of the success of the policy.

For readers' advisory librarians, genre literature can prove to be difficult collection management areas. The literature itself has rarely been defined in anything but the negative (“not great literature,” “not of lasting quality”) and yet it makes up a good deal of the attraction for many patrons to the public library, and gives great circulation support to their collections. Percentage‐wise, it gets the least attention for the most benefits. Many budgets are based on circulation figures, and much of the commendable relationship with the public is based on readers who devour genre literature. Why is it that genre readers are given such short shrift for their loyalty and devotion? Some of the problem lies in the traditional view of genre literature and the rest in the new view of collection development.

It is important to determine the sequence of bibliographies to be searched for maximum success in correctly identifying books ordered for a college library. Each year, as the price of books rises and salaries of library staffs increase, the amount spent on the ordering procedure also goes up. This cost is determined by two factors: the time needed to search trade bibliographies for identifying information, and the number of bibliographies that must be searched to properly determine an item. This study focuses on the latter factor: the proportion of success among bibliographies searched.