Books and Bytes

Library’s collections are constantly evolving and revolving, from expanding online offerings to restocking the stacks

by Clay V. Train

Susan Martin (center) at open house

When you walk into Susan Martin’s office, you can’t help but be struck by the number of books you’ll find. There’s a cartful, a small stack on her desk, and even more on the tables around her desk.

It’s a scene that is unsurprising for the person tasked with overseeing the Collection Development and Management Department at MTSU’s James E. Walker Library, but to reduce the collection to only physical books does a great disservice to the depth of the offerings available from the library.

That’s not to say that the library isn’t fully loaded with books. There are more than 600,000 physical volumes on offer within the building. But as universities have grown over the years, the demands of the digital library have grown as well—a trend that was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We have to focus on journal subscriptions, and we’ve seen an incredible increase in the need for streaming media. We see six-figure usage in streaming, in particular. It’s used in classes; it’s used in research. We have a very large online presence,” Martin said.

“Things have been kind of going this direction for a while, but the pandemic pushed it over the edge,” she added. “Everyone was at home. Everyone was teaching remotely, and having streaming options was very important, especially to our students from the College of Media and Entertainment, who use it a lot. But we also have a film studies program in the College of Liberal Arts, and then you get into fields like social work or on the medical side, and those training videos are very important too. It’s not just that it helps for working remotely; it also prevents what previously could have been a bottleneck if we were to work through course reserves with physical copies.”

While the library has enjoyed increased numbers from remote users, the digital landscape hasn’t always been easy for Martin to navigate. To ensure that the library is providing an optimal level of service to the 300+ majors offered by the University, a team of library liaisons works its contacts across campus to make sure things don’t fall through the cracks.

“We have to be all things to all people, and there are times when maybe we can’t immediately meet a need,” Martin said. “Especially with journal subscriptions. We have to track the usage of our materials, and this is where the subject liaisons come into play. They can talk to faculty to make sure that we have the necessary journals and databases available to our students.”

None of this is to downplay the need for that physical collection, but times have certainly been changing over the past two years.

“We are far more of a practical library now,” Martin said. “Our collection is getting better, and the first thing I was tasked with when I got here was our switch from Dewey Decimal to the Library of Congress classification system. That gave us the opportunity to weed our collection, which hadn't happened for a long time.”

At first, it may seem a little counterintuitive for a library to remove books from the shelves, but it actually serves as a vehicle to improve the holdings and experience for faculty and students, sometimes in ways that aren't immediately obvious.

“The weeding process gave us a chance to examine things and determine if they're still relevant to the curriculum or research,” Martin explained. “In some cases, they just might not be relevant, period. With some materials, they’re good for a long period of time, and it doesn’t go bad. You’ll see that with literature and history, and in some cases, the older material is relevant because you can look at it and identify trends.

“However, there are other things that continually need to be refreshed. Legal information needs to be refreshed. Medical information needs to berefreshed. A lot of business material sometimes requires an update. We had to get rid of a lot of the chaff. We’ve trimmed the collection down, and while it is a little leaner, we’re doing better to support the ever-changing needs of our constituency.

“We do still hold on to some historic materials, especially as it relates to our Special Collections, but it’s a difficult balance to strike,” she added. “We have a finite amount of space and a finite amount of resources, and we want to make sure that we do what we can to meet the needs of everyone.”

A Class Act

Two years of hard work will help make MTSU’s James E. Walker Library a more efficient academic resource.

Walker Library Dean Kathleen Schmand and MTSU Provost Mark Byrnes cut a ribbon on the library’s second floor Oct. 21 to symbolize the library’s transition from the traditional Dewey Decimal system to the Library of Congress system of classifying library materials.

“It means that faculty coming from other institutions and students that are coming into the campus and using the collections will have a much easier time in finding the resources that they need,” Schmand said.

While the work continues, the staff can celebrate the culmination of a process that had been anticipated for decades and began in earnest in summer 2019.

“We brought in a consultant to look at the stacks to see how we could actually have two systems simultaneously until it’s all converted over,” said Susan Martin, the library’s chair of Collection Development and Management.

Library personnel made more room by weeding out old materials that weren’t being used much anymore. Professional movers then assisted with the actual physical relocation of some 564,000 books to the fourth and third floors, where faculty, staff, and students reclassified them, placing new designations on the spines and entering them into the library’s computer system.

Distilling the Past

If you’re not specifically looking for Special Collections, it can kind of sneak up on you. Nestled in the corner of the fourth floor of the building, you’ll find an area that houses centuries of history, mostly from around Tennessee. This part of the building contains some of the most exclusive and rare offerings that the library has, and its most recent collection has proved exciting.

The Distilling, Fermenting, and Brewing Collection has moved from a narrow initial focus based around wine and the state of Tennessee to a broader approach, encompassing Prohibition and the temperance movement, as well.

“Liquor and its production doesn’t occur in a vacuum,” said Susan Martin, who serves as the library’s chair of Collection Development and Management. “We have a very robust History Department here, and the story of Tennessee whiskey is also the story of Tennessee. Prohibition and temperance were powerful forces that existed in Tennessee, and you can’t look at one specific part and ignore some of the others.

And go beyond it, they have. Because it’s not only books that exist in the collection. There are a variety of other materials that serve to tell a story that maybe cannot be conveyed by text alone. These items, typically referred to as ephemera, offer fleeting snapshots of moments in time.

“The ephemera is actually the richer thing, the stuff that people don’t pay attention to,” Martin said. “You think about campaign buttons and how collectible they are now, sometimes simply because of the visual elements. So we look at stamps and how they have the history behind them.

“Postcards are kind of the same way. Some of the Prohibition postcards we have now are actually quite clever. They were the internet memes of their time, either poking fun at or supporting Prohibition. We’ve also been collecting revenue stamps, which is how people would show taxes had been paid for a particular barrel of beer or whiskey, making it a legitimate purchase. We also look for advertisements, too, because they speak to a time and place.”

The collection serves as a valuable resource for MTSU students, especially those from the relatively nascent Fermentation Science program, offering an up-close view of the history of their studies.

And go beyond it, they have. Because it’s not only books that exist in the collection. There are a variety of other materials that serve to tell a story that maybe cannot be conveyed by text alone. These items, typically referred to as ephemera, offer fleeting snapshots of moments in time.