Coordinating Collection Development: The RLG Conspectus

Collection development officers in libraries whose parent institutions are members of the Research Libraries Group, Inc., have a new collection evaluation tool, the RLG Conspectus. The Conspectus is an overview, or summary, arranged by subject, of existing collection strengths and future collecting intensities of RLG members. It serves as a location device or collections considered as national resources and as a basis for assignment of primary collecting responsibilities. The authors trace the antecedents of the Conspectus to work of ALA committees, the initialRLG Collection Development Committee, and a group known as GNOMES + 2. Descriptions of the data-gathering process and of the online version of the database precede an outline of the benefits, realized and anticipated, to individual institutions, as well as the partnership. The Association of Research Libraries is conducting an experiment to see if the methodology can be extended to non-RLG association members.