Abstract:
Of the twelve National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision conferences, the Southeastern Conference (SEC) has attained prominence. But how do the SEC’s university libraries fare when evaluated for their football holdings? While university libraries develop their collections mainly to support research and teaching functions, according to accepted collection development practice, the extent to which sports of local importance are represented in their collections is a subject given little attention in the professional literature. In order to help close the gap, this study evaluates the football holdings of the 12 SEC university library systems using the checklist method of each library’s Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC) system from a remote location. The evaluation is meant to serve as a case study of sports holdings in the SEC libraries by using an authoritative checklist consisting of the best fiction and nonfiction football books. The checklist method, which compares a library’s holdings to an authoritative list, is an effective means of identifying collection strengths and weaknesses
