Collection Development Crash Courses via ALA

Look, I know with the confusion around IMLS funding that a lot of Continuing Education is on hold in most library budgets and especially in State Library budgets (which is how most libraries get their CE) . That is why I want to point you to this ALA Courses option this July as you can get four classes for staff across all of your service areas for less than hiring me to make a virtual visit to your library.

And all four of these people are excellent. I not only know and trust them, I helped to bring them to eCourses for these classes. And, they have done this previously. The reactions were so positive, they are back.

Click here for all of details or use the links below. Please note, you can buy only the classes you want, but honestly, it is a much better deal to get them all and just make sure the correct people at your library watch the one for them.

Webinars and eCourses for Library Professionals Collection Development Crash Course A bundle of four 90-minute webinars.

Wednesdays, July 2, 9, 16, and 23, 2025 2:30 pm Eastern | 1:30 pm Central | 12:30 pm Mountain | 11:30 am Pacific

If you’re new to collection development, it can be intimidating. Responsibility for a library collection has many facets, from assessing the needs of your community to staying current. We’ve assembled a team of four collection development experts for this crash course webinar series, and they’ll take you through everything you need to get started.   This four-part event includes the following sessions (all sessions also available for individual purchase): Developing the Youth Collection with Julie Jurgens: Wednesday, July 2, 2025 Developing the Adult Fiction Collection with Lila Denning: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 Developing the Adult Nonfiction Collection with Stephanie Sendaula: Wednesday, July 16, 2025 Weeding Your Collection with Karen Toonen: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 Each session also available for separate registration Developing the Youth Collection In this webinar, you’ll learn the basics of collection development for kids and teens. You'll also learn about how to prepare for and handle material challenges and how to make sure your collection development policy provides adequate support for these situations. Developing the Adult Fiction Collection Diversity is the key to a strong adult fiction collection. In this webinar, collection development expert Lila Denning will cover how you can grow and diversify your collection to make better readers advisory choices and offer stronger materials to your patrons. Developing the Adult Nonfiction Collection In this event, collection development expert Stephanie Sendaula will show you best practices for developing, maintaining, and weeding the adult nonfiction collection, with an emphasis on staying up to date with trends in popular areas such as memoirs and cookbooks. Weeding Your Collection A truly patron-driven collection serves its community effectively, and with continually increasing demands taxing libraries’ limited resources, every item in a physical collection must justify its shelf space. In this webinar, weeding expert Karen Toonen will cover the challenges inherent to weeding and share tips, tricks, and tools for collection evaluation.

After participating in this event, you will:

• Have a stronger understanding of how to get started with nonfiction collection development
• Be equipped to stay up to date with nonfiction trends that can help you to keep a collection current
• Gain the confidence to purchase books in subjects outside of your usual reading interests
• Understand the foundational reasons for diversifying your collection and be able to reliably discover diverse materials
• Understand strategies for recommending works either actively or passively that go beyond your lived experience or the perceived lived experience of your community
• Recognize the importance of the book atmosphere and how libraries, publishers, reviewers, vendors, authors, bookstores and the public all work together
• Understand the fundamentals of curating and maintaining collections for youth and teens
• Have a list of resources to consult, including where to find reviews and other collection support tools.
• Feel empowered to advocate for materials for youth and teens
• Be able to articulate to internal and external stakeholders why weeding is as important as selection as part of a robust collection development plan
• Be able to revitalize collections, increase circulation, enhance visibility of diverse materials, and highlight materials relevant to your communities with confidence
• Be able to implement logical, rigorous weeding doctrines which will free areas for new collections, promote patron driven collection policies, and create additional space.

Click here to learn more and register.