POST: The Facilitated Collection

In a recent blog post on “The Facilitated Collection,” Lorcan Dempsey (OCLC) builds on OCLC’s previous work on networked collections with a consideration of the emergence of “the facilitated collection.” Defined as “a coordinated mix of local, external and collaborative services assembled around user needs,” this type of collection is necessarily organized around network logic rather that print logic. Dempsey points to external collections that are neither owned nor licensed by libraries, shared collections (including resource sharing networks, shared print collections, and the distribution of working papers, data, and other scholarly outputs across multiple services), licensed resources and just-in-time approaches like DDA, and the shifts in collections-related job responsibilities as evidence of a movement toward such facilitated collections.

There is some discussion about a shift from collections to services. Another way of thinking about what I have called the facilitated collection here is to move towards thinking about collections as a service. Libraries will continue to build collections, although the level of activity will differ across libraries. At the same time, it seems likely that facilitated collections of various types will grow in importance.

This post will interest librarians and DH practitioners who work behind-the-scenes in planning and creating collections locally as well as those who make use of shared and external collections in their libraries and projects.