Floating collection in an academic library: An audacious experiment that succeeded

ABSTRACT

Can a floating collection thrive in a large multicampus academic research library? Floating collections have been successful in public libraries for some time, but it is uncommon for academic libraries and unheard of for a large academic library system. This article will discuss the investigation into the feasibility of a floating collection at Penn State University Libraries, its implementation, and continuation for a period covering 2009 through 2015. Attaining the floating collection, limited to monographs in the general stacks of campus libraries, proved to be easier to implement than imagined and resulted in unintended benefits as well as some surprises.

KEYWORDS:

• Academic libraries
• collection management
• floating collection
• library cooperation
• Penn State
• Penn State University
• Penn State University Libraries
• risk-taking