At a glance
Stocking eight rural branches for real demand at Western Plains Library System
Buying ran on a fixed ratio and word of mouth, with no way to see which titles were earning their place. collectionHQ gave a one-person collection team the evidence to weed, transfer and buy for every branch.
Branches plus a bookmobile
Residents served
Less dead stock since June 2022
The challenge
What the library was up against
Western Plains Library System serves rural western Oklahoma through eight branches and a bookmobile, with collection development led largely by one person, Jamie Hudson. Purchasing once ran on physical catalogs and hand-keyed ISBNs, and beyond bestsellers it depended on word of mouth about what each branch liked.
Circulation figures showed whether usage was up or down overall, but not which titles were earning their place on the shelf. Buying followed a fixed ratio by branch size regardless of local demand, and some assumptions went unchallenged, such as the belief that the bookmobile’s readers wanted mainly Christian fiction.
The solution
What they did
Western Plains adopted collectionHQ in June 2022, giving Jamie a clear view of where each branch is overstocked or understocked, and where titles are and aren’t circulating.
Weeding and transfers with confidence
Weeding reports tailored to each collection mean a branch can be cleared in half a day rather than a full one. Under-used titles move to understocked branches that don’t already hold them, with no new spend.
Buying for demand, protecting what matters
Popular author and subject data show what each community actually reads. Core collections keep memorial copies, local authors and rare titles safe from accidental weeding.
The results
What changed
A healthier collection
Dead stock has fallen by 7.5% since June 2022, a steady move toward a more active collection.
Assumptions replaced with evidence
The data showed the bookmobile’s readers wanted romance, not only Christian fiction, and revealed a landlocked branch understocked on sailing books.
Budget directed where it counts
Formats that no longer circulate, such as audiobooks on CD, are no longer bought, and extra copies go to the branch where they will circulate.
More case studies
Other libraries, other pressures
Collection management
Rebuilding stock management after deep budget cuts
After service closures, a third fewer librarians and a change of LMS, South Gloucestershire used collectionHQ to re-establish a collection management process — and gave dead stock a second life worth 9,017 extra circulations.
South Gloucestershire Council Libraries
South Gloucestershire, UK
5 min read
DEI
Curating an inclusive collection at Evanston Public Library
A decade-long collectionHQ customer cut Dead on Arrival stock from 17.5% to 14.1% while lifting DEI representation from 21.9% to 24.9% — by promoting books rather than weeding them.
Evanston Public Library
Evanston, Illinois, USA
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DEI
Curating an inclusive collection at Oak Park Public Library
Manual tagging showed the diversity of new material but never the whole collection. DEI Analysis gave Oak Park a holistic view across twelve industry-respected DEI topics.
Oak Park Public Library
Oak Park, Illinois, USA
5 min read
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