2015 Charleston Library Conference

Streaming media, perhaps more any than other acquisitions medium, challenges librarians to negotiate stakeholders’ changing needs and balance these with rational workflows. This panel will explore the processes and considerations undertaken at two institutions to write streaming media collection development policies. The University of Kansas (KU) will share suggestions of data librarians need to collect and consider to write an informed policy. KU will discuss the results of a library user survey, conversations with campus stakeholders, analysis of title availability, and highlights from other libraries’ policies. Tulane University will share their written policy which addresses the library tradition of ownership in the midst of industry pressure to lease; the tension between traditional title-by-title collection development to meet local instructional and educational needs and budgetary and programmatic movements in favor of vendor curated collections; and, the costs and workflow concerns arising as institutions begin to host and take on digital rights management for owned files. This panel concludes with the perspective of an industry insider in current practices and emerging trends in the streaming media industry.