Rightsizing the Academic Library Collection

by Mary E. Miller, Suzanne M. Ward

Honored with many accolades, including a starred review in Library Journal, the first edition of this book demonstrated the power and flexibility of “rightsizing,” an approach that applies a scalable, rule-based strategy to help academic libraries balance stewardship of spaces and the collection. In the five years since Ward’s first edition, the shared print infrastructure has grown in leaps and bounds, as has coordination among programs. With this revision, Miller addresses new options as well as the increasing urgency to protect at-risk titles as you reduce your physical collection. Readers will feel confident rightsizing their institution’s own collections with this book’s expert guidance on



the concept of rightsizing, a strategic and largely automated approach that uses continuous assessment to identify the no- and low-use materials in the collection, and its five core elements;
crafting a rightsizing plan, from developing withdrawal criteria and creating discard lists to managing workflow and disposing of withdrawn materials, using a project-management focus; 
moving toward a “facilitated collection” with a mix of local, external, and collaborative services;
six discussion areas for decisions on participating in a shared print program;
factors in choosing a collection decision support tool;
relationships with stakeholders;
how to handle print resources after your library licenses perpetual access rights to the electronic equivalent; and
future directions for rightsizing 

184 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 22, 2021

Reviews

[Lily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this for a project and it ended up posing a lot of helpful questions for my work! This was a super helpful introduction for me, somebody who didn't know what rightsizing was, both into why it mattered and how libraries could implement it. It covered every aspect of a rightsizing project, including little details for staff such as post-rightsizing parties, how staff might be seeing this as a growth opportunity, and more. It's clear the authors came with experience to this project and a very modern outlook on this.
I also appreciated how the authors took brief looks into the philosophies of libraries, asking why they keep print books and what new developments thanks to the internet mean for both individual libraries and the broader academic community. Its predictions about the future were also intriguing, focusing mostly on current trends and seeing if they continued, where would it take us — to a place of more library collaboration and digitization.
This is an interesting dive into rightsizing. While at times it is repetitive, the authors did explain why in the introduction, so I forgive it. The actual writing could get dry through this repetition, though. Still, overall, it was a useful and interesting read!