Brief Tests of CollectionStrength
"Brieftests almost always yield results that librarians can use. The scores areinformative in assessing collections of any size, in any subject, in anytype of library."
Publisher's page for Howard D. White's:
Brief Tests of Collection Strength; A Methodology for All Types of
Libraries.
This book gives librarians who use RLG or WLN collection-levelscales a new tool for setting collection levels or for verifying those subjectivelyset. Brief tests are short lists of titles ranked through an innovativeuse of OCLC holdings counts to create "power tests" for librarysubject collections. As few as 40 titles, appropriately ranked, constitutea test that can be used to grade a collection by scale levels such as RLG's:
0 = Out of Scope: the library does not collect in this area.
1 = Minimal Level
2 = Basic Information Level
3 = Instructional Support Level
4 = Research Level
5 = Comprehensive Level
These tests have already undergone hundreds oftrials across scores of subject areas in several types of libraries. Theyare an economical alternative to cumbersome evaluation methodologies ofthe past.
Intended audiences:
This book:
Shows that librarians can understand and use brief tests without statistical background.
Gives results of about 300 trials of brief tests in more than 70 subject areas, mainly in academic but also public and special libraries.
Presents many results through graphs.
Challenges the notion that collections can be assessed only with huge checklists.
Pits an 80-item brief test against a 1,000-item checklist
in evaluating French Literature collections at 21 of
Ties in with the RLG or WLN Conspectus scales of collection levels used by many libraries.
Clarifies the definitions of collection levels and strengthens the theory of scale-based collection evaluation.
Shows empirically that collection patterns in American libraries are in fact cumulative: strength is built upward, level by level.
Shows that the nation's research collections are strong at all levels, not just in "research-type" items.
Demonstrates
how brief tests can be used to evaluate collections in a library consortium
(through trials at Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and
Contains a lively critique of features of the Conspectus and of Conspectus-style verification studies involving coverage of literatures.
Discusses issues of validity and presents empirical results that tend to validate brief tests.
Breaks new ground in interpreting OCLC holdings counts and discusses potentially interesting uses for these counts beyond brief tests.
Contains eight brief tests in full with illustrations of their use.
Related collection evaluation tools:
· WLN Collection Assessment Software
· OCLC/AMIGOS Collection Analysis CD