9.2.1 A Quantitative Approach to Determine Library Users and Usage

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) survey for 2013 revealed an overall increase in use of public library materials and services and participation in programs over the past decade. The survey covered 97% of U.S. public libraries, which include more than 9000 libraries with 16,500 branch facilities and bookmobiles (Schadt, 2016). While there is no one single factor to explain the increase in all U.S. libraries, a Kansas public library district engaged a consulting company to better target local library patrons through GIS analysis of common features with community profiles (Baumann, 2010). By identifying potential users, librarians were able to focus, develop, and market services effectively.

In this example, the library served a population base of 173,000, spread over more than 500 square miles. Librarians needed to know “…who is using the library, how they are using it, what they aren't using, what they might be interested in using, and who isn't using library services” (Millsap as cited in Baumann, 2010). The consultants correlated patron demographic data with circulation, materials, and program attendance. Data helped to classify neighborhoods into distinctive segments. This GIS analysis identified that 53% of the library district population used the main facility and the remaining 47% were fragmented across 24 distinct segments. Results showed inner city tenants were 1% of the population, but 77% of these library patrons had the fifth-highest average checkouts (Baumann, 2010). In other words, the library was providing exceptional service to inner city residents, who are often considered underserved. Furthermore, results showed that family-oriented segments where the potential to increase children and young adult patronage was high, only 39% were current library users (Baumann, 2010). The librarian's solution was to increase rural community visits using four bookmobiles and new store-front facilities as outreach services in underserved areas. This study and subsequent increase in library usage earned the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library the highest honor in the U.S. and Canada, Library of the Year for 2016 (Berry, 2016; Hrenchir, 2016). Ironically, this GIS strategy worked to identify a means for increasing library circulation by utilizing some of the same powerful resources found in map and geospatial libraries.

Although listing all strategies for assessing and anticipating community needs are beyond the scope of this book, the GIS example above along with online assessments and survey instruments are effective ways to create library user statistics (Futterman, 2008; Library Research Service, 2016). Once needs are assessed, a plan for developing collections should be designed. One thorough, online guide to collection development training for librarians is at the Arizona State Library, Archives & Public Records. A continuing-education opportunity offered there, has “…self-guided modules providing practical training in how to perform collection development activities in public libraries” (Arizona State Library, Archives & Public Records, 2015a). The course introduces library selections with a list of typical resource books, periodicals, Internet resources, and government documents. The course continues with sections on defining special collections, acquisitions, gifts, and weeding, with the last task being the deselection of resources. Finally, the course covers preserving resources, assessing the collection, and writing an effective collection development policy.

9.2.2 A Qualitative Approach to Determine Users and Uses of Maps and GIS

Another way to get to know users and uses of maps and GIS is to gather first-hand information by directly talking with people. As an example, students in a map librarianship course were assigned to investigate use and users of map resources through informal survey, interview, and observation methods, using a purposive sampling technique. Students spoke with friends, relatives, acquaintances, and professionals, and collected data using a variety of situations such as face-to-face or via phone, text, chat, email, Facebook, Skype, and listserv postings. Some of their results follow.

Over the years of collecting data from hundreds of map users, fewer than five participants adamantly denied ever using a map. There were no demographic restrictions, yet participants in the student's studies have been mostly male and in the 30–60 year age range. Table 9.1 is a sample of participant's occupations.

Some used maps in professional ways, while all used maps in personal lives. A surprising theme was the number of people who preferred print maps over digital in some situations. Some print map stories were nostalgic; for example, one participant recalled she loved looking at AAA maps on road trips so she could see where they were in relation to others and gauge distance to the next destination with the map scale. Others who used print maps for boating, hiking, biking, and climbing mentioned problems with digital display devices including batteries, sun glare on screens or polarized sunglasses obscuring the image, loss of connectivity signal, and not being able to see the bigger picture. Table 9.2 is a sample of preferred print and digital map types.

One student reported a genogram created by a Marriage and Family Therapist to map a family's history of mental disorders looking for genetic components related to depression, alcoholism, or eating disorders. Another student detailed the use of both print and digital maps and mapping by the U.S. Forest Service and Fire Engine Captain fighting an uncontrolled forest wildfire that had burned for weeks. GIS was used to coordinate information and data from satellite images and aerial photography, layering this with weather data, topography, hill shading, fire lines, and natural fire breaks from rocks to rivers. Maps were generated in the field twice a day, printed, and sent out with fire crews; other maps were given to police to warn residents in the path and news media for general regional updates to the public.

Many students and participants had misconceptions of both users and libraries. For students, one of the biggest misconceptions was that physical maps are no longer needed. For many users, paper maps remain better suited than their digital counterparts for applications such as outdoor use and travel planning. However, in contrast users spoke often of convenience in the digital map such as quickly identifying nearby restaurants, gas stations, or alternative routes when traffic delays occur. The common misconception held by many participants was that libraries had no maps or GIS capabilities. There was even an unlikely prediction by a participant that in 10 years there will be no map librarians.

The main objective of this activity was to discover what type and format of map or GIS-related resources were used in personal or professional life. This may be a less efficient way of knowing library users, current and potential, but the qualitative research approach served two purposes: (a) to dispel preconceived ideas by library students for uses of maps by potential patrons; and (b) to raise awareness of potential users that map resources and services are available in library collections.

Besides getting to know users and identifying demographic patterns, collection development is affected by other factors as well. Although the foundation for sound collection development policy involves a realistic and honest assessment of current and potential clients, other factors may impact collection development decisions.

9.2.3 Collection Development Budgets

If we think of collection development as a puzzle to assemble, main border pieces are library type, setting, and budget. The center pieces of the collection development are the existing and potential users, who come in many sizes and shapes. It is the border pieces that help to identify potential client and collection emphasis. Regardless of whether the collection is in a public, specialized, academic, or K-12 school library located in an urban or a rural setting, budget restrictions coupled with the high costs of spatial data resources effect collection development decisions. Defining priority levels for the selection of map and other spatial data resources is one way to address budget and location limitations.

Kollen, Linberger, Wassetzug, and Winkler (1998) identified user types or professions associated with different library settings. For example, in a K-12 school media setting users of the map library are both students and teachers, with potential topics in need of maps as varied as geography to history and government to biology. In this setting, budget plays a major factor along with the practical consideration that teachers must teach to benchmark standards using available technologies in classrooms and libraries. These factors drive collection development decisions for the school library more than merely satisfying teacher and student spatial data wishes.

The highest expenses in academic and special libraries may be the yearly GIS software licensing agreements as well as other concerns directly related to accessing digital collection components in library collections such as E-Rate and network bandwidth (American Library Association, 1996–2016a, 1996–2016b). Although rates vary by institution size, yearly GIS campus-wide commercial site licenses that include unlimited seats for large institutions costs tens of thousands of dollars per year. Broadband speeds and net neutrality concerns are related to libraries and noncommercial enterprises because they may be limited to the Internet's “slow lanes.” The broadband technologies and providers may give high-capacity connectivity preference to telephone, cable, and other commercial customers.

9.2.4 Collection Development Gifts and Digital Philanthropy

An option to ease funding concerns has been grant opportunities and donations, both grand and ordinary. Grants and donations are similar in that cash, services, and property are given to benefit people. Specifically, grants are a type of sponsored project or cooperative agreement where written proposals detail the project and if accepted, the award involves transferring money or property from a sponsor to an institution or individual. Grants may require research and subsequent budget, progress, and final reports. In contrast, donations are charitable gifts of goods or services, which the recipient accepts or rejects. Donations do not require specific work in return, but an application of solicitation is usually expected.

For example, grant opportunities on a grand scale include librarians who are talented and lucky enough to take advantage of funding through local, national, or international grants offered to libraries by, for example, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (1999–2016a). U.S. libraries received Gates Foundation funding from 1997 to 2014, and a brief summary of these library initiatives was given in an Impatient Optimists blog post (Jacobs, 2014). The shift to a global library focus began around 2013 with funding to the University of Washington iSchool, a library and information science program, for its Global Libraries initiatives (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 1999–2016b, 2013; Pacheco, 2013). More recently, the Gates Foundation solicited grants for organizations to work with geospatial data and is currently working together with Libraries without Borders (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 2016; Novak, 2016).

In contrast, an ordinary map donation is when one library lists map resource discards to any library via social media (e.g., listservs). This exchange may involve Federal depository maps being discarded. Within the depository program, discarded materials must first be offered to the state's full depository library; if rejected, librarians are free to offer these resources to any library.

A different example of a grand donation is described by Sweetkind-Singer (2013) who introduced and defined the phrase “digital philanthropy” to encompass an exclusive gift of maps from private map collectors for digital display even though the library may or may not own the resource. Sweetkind-Singer (2011) explained that Stanford University Libraries describe digital philanthropy as “…an emerging partnership between the Libraries and collectors interested in donating access to their unique and interesting map collections in a scanned format for broader viewing.” Pledging a digital map collection is a way for donors who lack equipment and time to have the library perform the digitization of physical maps. The library may provide not only scanning facilities for the donation, but also cataloging and webpage display expertise. If the physical map is donated as well, then it is preserved and safely archived by library staff. The donor's legacy is shared in a digital format with scholars worldwide via the map library collection's webpages. One such donation to Stanford was from David Rumsey, who pledged his entire physical and digital map collection over time (Gorlick, 2009; Stanford University Libraries, 2016).

Whereas the Library of Congress and other libraries have digitized map donations, Stanford has detailed the complex, ongoing procedure of the Rumsey donation, which was finalized in a signed contract. The project and idea may indeed be unique in that it is a private collection moved to a private university. This digital philanthropy has become visible to the world via the generosity of donor and Stanford's University Libraries Digital Repository. Sweetkind-Singer (2011) identified some of the main challenges in this kind of process as negotiating the rights with the collector for access and reproduction as well as moving the rare and fragile physical maps which were sometimes a single map sheet and other times folded, framed, or inside an atlas. Finding the best way to scan large map sheets and track/retain the metadata for maps, were additional concerns. Catalog records were created in metadata object description schema (MODS), and loaded into Stanford's Digital Repository, known as Searchworks. Stored in a non-MARC, machine readable cataloging, metadata are directly sent to the library's open-public-access catalog (OPAC).

9.4.1 Dartmouth College Library

Dartmouth College librarians in Hanover, New Hampshire succinctly refined the definition of CDP for universities while accounting for practical considerations (Dartmouth, 2016a). Selection guidelines vary with subject and given the Internet-enabled, collaborative environment, Dartmouth noted that policy accounts for “collective collecting” with partner institutions. A second point was that selection relevance to academic department faculty and student, teaching and researching programs is paramount, but interdisciplinary areas must communicate to avoid redundancy. Selection depends on weighing quality, currency, cost, and policy statements. Also, a preservation commitment must be included in policy statements to retain and preserve content throughout the lifecycle including format migration as needed.

The Maps and Atlas Collections has a cartographic teaching and research purpose that is responsive to undergraduate and graduate programs in geography and Earth science, history, government, languages, environmental studies, and individual programs such as African & Afro-American studies (Dartmouth, 2016b). The policy boundaries include collection of atlases, maps, gazetteers, and selective cartography among main languages of English, French, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish. Geographic areas are local to North America, Polar Regions, and “U.S.S.R.” The last designated geographic region suggests that policy updates may not be as current as the latest 2016 copyright date or that historic maps are requested for research. Reference materials are essential, but Braille and raised-relief maps might suit specific user populations as well.

9.4.2 The Library of Congress

The LOC Collections Policy Statement for Geography and Cartography has a scope defined as literature relating to the discipline (Library of Congress, 2008b). The research strengths are reviewed and specific Classes and Subclasses of LC Classifications identified. This is followed by a well-defined collecting policy, acquisition sources, and collecting levels, which range from comprehensive to research.

The LOC has a separate Collections Policy Statement for Cartographic and Geospatial Materials (Library of Congress, 2008a). The scope is defined as analog geospatial resources in the form of aerial photography, atlases, charts, globes, maps, remote-sensing images, and three-dimensional models; and digital geospatial data in the form of vector and raster representations, relational databases incorporating common geographic features as attributes, remotely sensed imagery, appropriate software for creation, retrieval, analysis, and display. Research strengths are reviewed, and much detail is given on collecting policy and acquisition sources for print and digital geospatial materials.

9.4.3 University of Chicago

The University of Chicago map collection has a midwestern coverage emphasis, along with an extensive collection of foreign maps following the World Wars. The purpose is to support research and teaching in geology, geophysics, geography, history, economics, public policy, and genealogical studies. There is a substantial collection of geospatial data going back to the early 1990s (The University of Chicago Library, 2016). Policy dictates the collection's types of maps, formats, languages, geographical and chronological range, as well as the areas of distinction within the collection. While there is no cooperative arrangement with other Chicago area collections, the librarians refer patrons to complementary collections: the Newberry Library, with a distinguished collection of historic maps, and the Research Center at the Chicago History Museum, with a collection focused on Chicago materials.

9.4.4 Louisiana State University

The CDP introduction at Louisiana State University's Cartographic Information Center provided statements of purpose, mission, administrative structure, and selection responsibility; the CDP also defined main users, access policies, user confidentiality, and copyright considerations (Anderson, 2015). The purpose is to support instruction and public outreach in geography and anthropology; in addition, this is a regional Federal Map Library Depository. The selection and weeding or discard criteria are defined as well as collection review and gift policies. The third portion of the document defined the regional extent and format of maps and geospatial data in text and appropriately, using a world map color-coded from general to selective level collecting and research to comprehensive coverage. This document was approved in 2004.

9.4.5 The University of California Santa Barbara

The University of California Santa Barbara Map & Imagery Laboratory Collection of maps, aerial photography, satellite imagery, and geospatial data exceeded five million information objects and was ranked the number one collection among members of the Association of Research Libraries (Jablonski, 2015). This is an important research collection, but it also houses geology teaching slides from a former professor for future curriculum use. In spite of the collection size, the Collection Development Policy is relatively simple with a purpose statement, subject parameters, and scope, divided into subjects, geographic coverage, and types of material collected. There is reference to participation in the UC/Stanford Map Group and the statewide consortia acquisitions via the California Digital Library, which allows dataset collecting of cross-campus interest.