PDA Event: Resource Wise: Evaluating Library Collections with Impact

Library budgets and user needs are constantly evolving, making it essential for librarians to make informed, strategic decisions about which resources to keep, renew, or cancel. In this webinar, Erica Barnett from Western Carolina University will share how WCU librarians adapted a rubric originally developed at the University of Eastern Kentucky to evaluate e-resources in a transparent, consistent, and collaborative way.

Moving beyond usage statistics, the session will explore a framework for analyzing e-resources using multiple criteria, including alignment with curriculum and community needs, user experience, cost effectiveness, and the staff time required for resource management. Attendees will learn practical strategies for scoring and categorizing resources, adapting the rubric to local contexts, tracking usage and costs, and communicating recommendations to faculty and campus leadership.

The webinar will also highlight approaches for negotiating with vendors and using data to maximize budget impact while strengthening collections. Participants will leave with an adaptable framework, actionable takeaways, and greater confidence in presenting and justifying resource decisions at their own institutions.

Learning Objectives:

• Explain how multiple evaluation criteria - including community or curricular alignment, user experience, cost effectiveness, and staff time - can be applied together to assess e-resources more holistically.
• Apply a rubric-based framework to score, categorize, and compare e-resources in a transparent and consistent way.
• Identify ways to adapt this framework to their own institutional context, supporting clearer communication and more confident decision-making with faculty, administrators, and other stakeholders.

Presenter:

Erica Barnett is an Acquisitions Librarian at Western Carolina University who oversees the lifecycle management of library resources amongst many other responsibilities. She is committed to offering as many resources as possible to her community while operating within a limited budget. When not working in spreadsheets, Erica enjoys being active by running, going to the gym, or walking her three dogs (never all at once).

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