Collection Management Committee Meeting: December 15, 2025

Zoom / Conference Call

Members attending: Gwen Gregory (Northern Illinois University), Edith List (Principia College), Briana Love, co-chair (Aurora University), Jackie Mann (DePaul University), Julie Murphy, co-chair (Illinois State University), Samantha Seay (University of Saint Mary of the Lake Mundelein Seminary), Justin Sextro (Southern Illinois University Carbondale)

Members absent: Kim Heinz (Harper College), Kevin Mackaben (Benedictine University)

CARLI Staff attending: Jen Masciadrelli, Nicole Ream-Sotomayor

Decisions

• The November 17, 2025 minutes are approved.
• Plan a Community Chat Webinar for Late March/Early April on Alma Analytics for Collection Development.

Tasks Assigned

• Minutes taken by Jen Masciadrelli.
• CARLI staff will send out descriptions and registrations for January & February events in January at return to office.
• All committee members will review list of questions from Julie for Analytics Webinar and your additions/thoughts for the discussion at January CMC meeting.

Announcements

• CARLI Announcements:
  • Ebooks: Annual call for members commitments for the FY27 Program has been sent. Need response by January 15, 2026. If anyone needs the PDF document with the program details, send Elizabeth an email.
  • Two licenses still being worked on (ACS & Sage) for January 1, 2026.

Discussion

• Webinars: The descriptions are good as they are. 
• Review Discussion Questions:
  • Promotion of Collections – 2 ideas
    • Gwen asked about asking question: What is a specific example of a material promotion you did – to lead into next question.
    • Samantha asked about a minor wording change “successfulness” to “success.”
  • Nontraditional Materials
    • No changes
• Next Webinars
  • Alma Analytics: 
    • The committee decided to go with late March/early April for the session.
    • Should we do a survey or schedule a chat to gather information? A chat makes sense.
    • Julie shared her chat questions from the Annual Meeting table talk.
    • Alma Analytics Table Talk Questions:
      • What are some of the ways you currently use Alma Analytics for collection development? (weeding, etc.?)
      • Are there any ways that you’d like to be able to use Analytics in collection development that you haven’t tried yet, or haven’t worked out?
      • Does your library have staff who create Alma Analytics reports for selectors, or do you have to rely on out-of-the-box reports or asking CARLI for help?
      • Have you been trained to run reports in Alma? Was the training sufficient to meet your needs, or do you still feel like you have skill gaps? What gaps?
      • Have you tried using the Alma Analytics support resources on CARLI’s website? Were they sufficient to help you? Was there something missing that you wish had been there?
• Jen shared her notes from the table talk at the Annual Meeting:
  • Example report: Breakdown or circ stats by call number; Collection counts by call number – useful for weeding and collection development
  • Subject audits
  • Recent vs. total circulations
  • Finding a way to share reports to selectors
  • More training from Ex Libris or CARLI (to build on Ex Libris training)
  • What could CARLI Share via dashboards or other methods

Next Meeting Dates and Deadlines

The Collection Management Committee will meet next on January 26, 2026 at 2:00 – 3:30 p.m.

Committee Meetings:
December 22, 2025, Minutes take by: Jen Masciadrelli
January 26, 2026, Minutes take by: Jackie Mann
February 23, 2026, Minutes take by: Julie Murphy
March 23, 2026, Minutes take by: Samantha Seay
April 27, 2026, Minutes take by: to be determined
May XX, 2026, Minutes take by: to be determined
June 22, 2026, Minutes take by: to be determined