Collection Management Fundamentals

Friday 22 January 2027 | 2:00pm GMT | Live online with David Morgan

Build confidence in making practical, purposeful collection decisions

Collection management can involve some surprisingly difficult decisions.

What should stay? What should move? What is actually being used? When is it time to withdraw something? And how do you organise a collection so that it works for the people who need to use it?

Whether collection management is a core part of your role or something you have inherited alongside everything else, this practical session with David Morgan will take you through the fundamentals.

Rather than focusing on collection management as an abstract policy exercise, David will explore the day-to-day thinking, decisions and techniques that help you understand your collections and manage them with greater confidence.

In this session, we’ll explore:

Understanding your collections – getting a clearer picture of what you have, why you have it and who it is for
Making sense of usage – considering what usage data can tell you, as well as what it cannot
Moving stock – thinking practically about location, accessibility, visibility and changing patterns of need
Removing and withdrawing stock – approaching weeding and deselection confidently and purposefully
Collection categorisation – exploring ways of organising collections so that they make sense to users
Making balanced decisions – bringing together evidence, professional judgement and knowledge of your community

Who is this for?

This session will be particularly useful for:

Library staff who are new to collection management
People who have recently taken on responsibility for an area of stock or a collection
Managers and team leaders who want a refresher on collection management principles
Staff who want to feel more confident about weeding, moving or reorganising collections
Anyone interested in understanding the thinking behind effective collection management

No specialist collection management knowledge is required.

What will you take away?

By the end of the session, you should have a clearer understanding of the core principles of collection management and a practical framework for thinking about your own collections.

You’ll leave with ideas you can apply in your own setting, whether you are responsible for an entire collection, a particular subject area or simply contribute to collection decisions as part of your role.

About the session

Date: Friday 22 January 2027 Time: 2:00pm GMT Location: Online Facilitator: David Morgan

The session will be recorded, so if you cannot attend live you can catch up afterwards.

Included for Empower members.

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