SELECTION TOOLS AND THEIR IMPORTANCE:

In order to do this job well, it is invaluable to have a good background knowledge of production agencies that bring out print and non-print information materials. In this unit, we give you some general ideas in production and distribution of information materials. These agencies are studied under two broad groups - trade and non - trade agencies. 

As part of their  marketing and promotional activities, these agencies bring out a number of documents announcing their products, which serve as source tools for collection development in libraries. We shall study these tools of selection, their nature and scope, their characteristics and the information/data they carry about print and non-print materials. There are bare lists, annotated catalogues and bibliographies, announcement bulletins, leaflets, folders, review documents, each one of them giving various types of information, which can be useful for making appropriate selection. We shall study these tools in some detail in  this unit, with reference to appropriate selection of  books, periodicals and serials,  reference books and other type of print materials and microforms, audio visual materials and machine-readable/ electronic publications.