Collective collection

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The academic library of Van Hall Larenstein, University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands

A collective collection, shared collection, or shared print program is a joint effort by multiple academic or research libraries to house, manage, and provide access to their collective physical collections. Most shared print programs focus on collections of monographs and/or serials. [1] Similar efforts have addressed acquisition and/or retention of microform, [2] federal government documents, [3] and digital collections. [4] Shared print programs often have activities in common with national repositories and archiving programs. [5] Discussions surrounding shared print programs in their current form have come to the forefront as a popular solution to shrinking collection budgets, rising costs of resources, and competing space needs. [6]

Contents

Goals

The goal of shared print programs is to leverage a physical collective collection to preserve and provide access to the scholarly record in its original print form. [7] Each library participating in a shared print program agrees to retain certain titles for a stated period of time, usually at least ten years. [8] This practice ensures that the collective collection contains a predetermined number of unique items (such as specific editions of books and complete runs of journals) and that these items will be cared for and made available to all libraries participating in the shared print program. [9] To prevent the loss of any given title, participating libraries determine an appropriate number of copies that should be retained, so that if one were lost or destroyed, other copies would remain available. Shared print programs base these decisions on the number of libraries involved, the total number of items held in retention, availability of the item outside of the program, and other factors. [10]

Shared print programs also enable participating libraries to make informed decisions about weeding locally-held volumes that are duplicated in the collective collection. [1] This practice enables libraries to create cost savings and to repurpose shelf space, whether to accommodate other print materials or to create a greater number and variety of spaces for users, especially students, to study, collaborate, teach, consult, and pursue other research and learning activities. [11]

Types

Two basic types of collection storage models exist. A distributed (or decentralized) collective shared print collection is one in which items in the collection are retained at the original library but are accessible to all partnering libraries. Centralized shared print collections are those in which books and journals are removed from the original library and stored in a shared shelving facility. [12] In many cases this shared shelving facility is a high-density preservation facility built according to the Harvard model, featuring rigorous temperature and climate controls to facilitate preservation of materials, along with elevated stacks and special shelving methods to maximize storage efficiency. [10]

Library consortia generally coordinate shared print programs. A consortium can create and manage a formal agreement (such as a memorandum of understanding), signed by each participating library's director, which ensures that certain books, journals, or other materials are both retained and made available to other libraries, generally through interlibrary loan. The consortium can also manage the analysis of each library's collection to divide the responsibility for retaining items equitably. The consortium can also establish criteria for shelving environments (to ensure long-term preservation), as well as outline the methods for providing access to titles to other participating libraries. [13]

Library catalogs generally include indicators of which materials are part of a shared print agreement, making commercial vendors such as OCLC an important part of the shared print ecosystem. Some shared print programs such as CAVAL (Australia) or CSLS (Switzerland) may develop catalogs specifically for their collective collection. Many shared print programs are additionally tracked at a regional or national level. In the United States, the Center for Research Libraries (CRL) hosts a Print Archives Preservation Registry (PAPR) to record titles, holdings, and conditions of serials held in major shared print programs across the country. While there is no equivalent tool for monographs, other tools serve the shared print monograph community, such as Gold Rush Library Content Comparison System [14] from the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries, OCLC's GreenGlass, and HathiTrust Shared Print Registry. In 2018, CRL and OCLC were awarded a $1 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to enable collective collection retention commitments for serials to be reflected in the global union catalog WorldCat. [15] In the United Kingdom, the United Kingdom Research Reserve (UKRR) developed the Linked Automated Register of Collaborative Holdings (LARCH) through which all Member Libraries’ holdings are run, and is now hosted by the British Library. [16]

Programs

Shared print programs may be regional or national in scale. National libraries and academic consortia often participate in shared print programs.

United States and Canada

In the United States and Canada, shared print programs are often a consortial effort. Libraries may also participate in collection sharing on an individual basis, such as participating in the HathiTrust Shared Print Program. [17] Support organizations also exist, such as the Partnership for Shared Book Collections, Rosemont Shared Print Alliance, and North/Nord (North: the Canadian Shared Print Network/ Nord: Réseau canadien de conservation partagée des documents imprimés) that library consortia may join in order to increase collaboration, communication, and information sharing.

According to the Partnership for Shared Book Collections, participating programs have committed to retain over 38 million volumes. [18]

Latin America

The following consortia do not participate strictly in shared print programs, but do participate in sharing collections of digitized print material:

Oceania

Africa

African librarians have cited the lack of and need for shared print programs among libraries, due in part to insufficient infrastructure. [19] Efforts focus more on consortia building than on shared print, and are mostly centered in southern Africa [20] [21]

Asia

Europe & United Kingdom

History

Libraries' efforts to collectively manage and provide access to their holdings date back to antiquity [22] and, in the United States, extend through twentieth-century projects such as the Midwest Inter-Library Corporation (now CRL) [23] and the Farmington Plan. [24] Funding reductions and escalating storage costs, as well as space constraints, for physical collections in the 2000s created an environment where library directors needed to rely on partnerships with consortia and other libraries. Librarians began to write about shared print collections as one possible method of dealing with these mounting constraints. In 2002 Richard Fyffe argued that librarians needed to start a dialogue with stakeholders and patrons in the scholarly community about the need to rely more on collective collections. [25] In 2004 Bernard F. Reilly (former president of the Center for Research Libraries) envisioned "drawing together the major independent regional and national repository initiatives into a coordinated, community-wide print preservation effort." [26] The Print Archive Network Forum (PAN) was created in 2010 by the Center for Research Libraries as an information sharing opportunity between shared print professionals. In 2013 Lorcan Dempsey popularized the term "collective collections" in an OCLC research report. [27] The trend toward collective collections has also received significant coverage in the mainstream press. [28] [29]

Related Research Articles

Interlibrary loan is a service that enables patrons of one library to borrow physical materials and receive electronic documents that are held by another library. The service expands library patrons' access to resources beyond their local library's holdings, serving as "an integral element of collection development" for libraries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Consortium</span> Association of two or more individuals and/or organizations to achieve a common goal

A consortium is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations or governments with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for achieving a common goal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ephemera</span> Transient items, usually printed

Ephemera are transitory creations which are not meant to be retained or preserved. Its etymological origins extends to Ancient Greece, with the common definition of the word being: "the minor transient documents of everyday life". Ambiguous in nature, various interpretations of ephemera and related items have been contended, including menus, newspapers, postcards, posters, sheet music, stickers and valentines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">OCLC</span> Global library cooperative (1967–)

OCLC, Inc., doing business as OCLC, is an American nonprofit cooperative organization "that provides shared technology services, original research, and community programs for its membership and the library community at large". It was founded in 1967 as the Ohio College Library Center, then became the Online Computer Library Center as it expanded. In 2017, the name was formally changed to OCLC, Inc. OCLC and thousands of its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the largest online public access catalog in the world. OCLC is funded mainly by the fees that libraries pay for the many different services it offers. OCLC also maintains the Dewey Decimal Classification system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WorldCat</span> International union library catalog

WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions, in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the OCLC member libraries collectively maintain WorldCat's database, the world's largest bibliographic database. The database includes other information sources in addition to member library collections. OCLC makes WorldCat itself available free to libraries, but the catalog is the foundation for other subscription OCLC services. WorldCat is used by librarians for cataloging and research and by the general public.

The California Digital Library (CDL) was founded by the University of California in 1997. Under the leadership of then UC President Richard C. Atkinson, the CDL's original mission was to forge a better system for scholarly information management and improved support for teaching and research. In collaboration with the ten University of California Libraries and other partners, CDL assembled one of the world's largest digital research libraries. CDL facilitates the licensing of online materials and develops shared services used throughout the UC system. Building on the foundations of the Melvyl Catalog, CDL has developed one of the largest online library catalogs in the country and works in partnership with the UC campuses to bring the treasures of California's libraries, museums, and cultural heritage organizations to the world. CDL continues to explore how services such as digital curation, scholarly publishing, archiving and preservation support research throughout the information lifecycle.

The National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) of the United States was an archival program led by the Library of Congress to archive and provide access to digital resources. The program convened several working groups, administered grant projects, and disseminated information about digital preservation issues. The U.S. Congress established the program in 2000, and official activity specific to NDIIPP itself wound down between 2016 and 2018. The Library was chosen because of its role as one of the leading providers of high-quality content on the Internet. The Library of Congress has formed a national network of partners dedicated to preserving specific types of digital content that is at risk of loss.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ann Shumelda Okerson</span> American librarian

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">HathiTrust</span> Digital library

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An inventory is the one method that libraries and archives use to determine whether some items in their collection are in need of preservation or conservation activities. A modern inventory might involve examining item by item with a barcode scanner and a laptop, with the objective of adjusting bibliographic and item records in theirs and OCLC's WorldCat databases. Using a laptop and handheld bar code reader will "reduce human error and inconsistencies, while helping to maintain staff concentration and enthusiasm for the project".

A library consortium is any cooperative association of libraries that coordinates resources and/or activities on behalf of its members, whether they are school, public, academic, special libraries, and/or information centers. Consortia exist on a variety of levels, e.g., local, state, regional, national or international. Libraries commonly belong to multiple consortia. The goal of a library consortium is to amplify the capabilities and effectiveness of its member libraries through collective action, including, but not limited to, print or electronic resource sharing, reductions in costs through group purchases of resources, and professional development opportunities. The “bedrock principle upon which consortia operate is that libraries can accomplish more together than alone.”

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Texas at San Antonio Libraries</span>

The University of Texas at San Antonio Libraries (UTSA Libraries) is the academic library of The University of Texas at San Antonio, a state research university in San Antonio, Texas, United States. UTSA Libraries consists of the John Peace Library (JPL) on the Main Campus, the Downtown Library, and the Applied Engineering and Technology (AET) Library. The libraries provide students and faculty with a comprehensive access to information as well as spaces for active learning, teaching, and interdisciplinary scholarship.

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The Boston Library Consortium (BLC) is a library consortium based in the Boston area with 23 member institutions across New England.

The Ohio State University Libraries are the collective libraries of the Ohio State University and its satellite campuses. This system welcomes Ohio State faculty, students, visiting scholars and the general public to study and research. It includes ten libraries located on the Columbus campus, six libraries on the regional campus of the university and nine special collections. The Ohio State University Libraries offer educational resources and services to support readers to research, learn and teach. They can help researchers find and borrow physical and digital materials from articles, journals, databases, books, dissertations, theses, newspapers, streaming videos and images, etc. The Ohio State University libraries hold over six million volumes in traditional library formats and more in electronic information resources.

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References

  1. 1 2 Crist, Rebecca; Stambaugh, Emily (2014). SPEC Kit 345: Shared Print Programs. Washington, D.C.: Association of Research Libraries. p. 15. ISBN   9781594079283. OCLC   899212694.
  2. ↑ Dupont, Jerry (1983). "Cooperative Microform Publishing: The Law Library Experience". Microform & Imaging Review. 12 (4). doi:10.1515/mfir.1983.12.4.234. ISSN   0949-5770.
  3. ↑ Dinsmore, Chelsea; Glenn, Valerie D. (2012). "Using Targeted Distributed Collections to Enhance Government Depository Collections at a Regional Level: The ASERL Collaborative Federal Depository Program". Collection Management. 37 (3–4): 307–321. doi:10.1080/01462679.2012.685831. ISSN   0146-2679.
  4. ↑ Garskof, Jeremy; Morris, Jill; Ballock, Tracie; Anderson, Scott (2016-01-01). "Towards the Collective Collection: Lessons Learned from PALCI's DDA Pilot Projects and Next Steps". Collaborative Librarianship. 8 (2). ISSN   1943-7528.
  5. ↑ Shorley, Deborah; Yang, Daryl; Kromp, Brigitte; Mayer, Wolfgang (2015-01-28). "Collections Earning Their Keep. An Overview of International Archiving Initiatives". 027.7 Zeitschrift für Bibliothekskultur. 3 (1): 30–46. doi:10.5281/zenodo.4704913.
  6. ↑ Lavoie, Brian; Dempsey, Lorcan; Malpas, Constance (2020-09-10). "Reflections on Collective Collections". College & Research Libraries. 81 (6): 981. doi:10.5860/crl.81.6.981. ISSN   0010-0870.
  7. ↑ Demas, S.; Miller, M. (2016). "Curating Collective Collections--What's Your Plan? Writing Collection Management Plans" (PDF). Against the Grain. 24 (1): 65–68.
  8. ↑ "Retention Period – The Partnership For Shared Book Collections" . Retrieved 2023-01-11.
  9. ↑ "Best Practices for Scarce Copies – The Partnership For Shared Book Collections" . Retrieved 2023-01-11.
  10. 1 2 Hale, D., ed. (2016). Shared Collections: Collaborative Stewardship. Chicago: ALA Editions. ISBN   978-0-8389-1405-2. OCLC   1030796851.
  11. ↑ Kieft, Robert H.; Payne, Lizanne (2012-07-01). "Collective Collection, Collective Action". Collection Management. 37 (3–4): 137–152. doi:10.1080/01462679.2012.685411. ISSN   0146-2679.
  12. ↑ Clement, Susanne K. (2012). "From Collaborative Purchasing Towards Collaborative Discarding: The Evolution of the Shared Print Repository". Collection Management. 37 (3–4): 153–167. doi:10.1080/01462679.2012.685413. ISSN   0146-2679.
  13. ↑ Kieft, Robert H.; Payne, Lizanne (2012). "Collective Collection, Collective Action". Collection Management. 37 (3–4): 137–152. doi:10.1080/01462679.2012.685411. ISSN   0146-2679.
  14. ↑ Machovec, George (2014). "Shared Print Archiving—Analysis Tools". Journal of Library Administration. 54 (1): 66–76. doi:10.1080/01930826.2014.893118. ISSN   0193-0826.
  15. ↑ "OCLC awarded Mellon Foundation grant to register library retention commitments for print serials in WorldCat". OCLC. 2018-06-24. Retrieved 2019-12-13.
  16. ↑ Stubbs, Theo; Banks, Chris (2020-03-11). "UKRR: a collaborative collection management success story". Insights. 33 (1): 10. doi:10.1629/uksg.503. ISSN   2048-7754.
  17. ↑ "Shared Print Program | www.hathitrust.org | HathiTrust Digital Library". www.hathitrust.org. Retrieved 2019-12-12.
  18. ↑ "Membership Stats – The Partnership For Shared Book Collections" . Retrieved 2023-01-11.
  19. ↑ Ossai, Ngozi Blessing (2010-01-01). "Consortia Building among Libraries in Africa, and the Nigerian Experience". Collaborative Librarianship. 2 (2). ISSN   1943-7528.
  20. ↑ "ALA | Partnerships in Libraries". www.ala.org. Retrieved 2023-01-11.
  21. ↑ Alemna, A.A.; Antwi, I.K. (2002-01-01). "A review of consortia building among university libraries in Africa". Library Management. 23 (4/5): 234–238. doi:10.1108/01435120210429961. ISSN   0143-5124.
  22. ↑ Casson, Lionel (2001). Libraries in the Ancient World. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 100. ISBN   0-300-08809-4. OCLC   45123204.
  23. ↑ Weltin, Heather; Fulkerson, Natalie (2021-07-29), Old Texts, New Networks: HathiTrust and the Future of Shared Print, ALA Editions Core, ISBN   978-0-8389-4882-8 , retrieved 2023-01-11
  24. ↑ Dempsey, Deon (2004). "Review of A History of the Farmington Plan". Libraries & Culture. 39 (4): 473–475. ISSN   0894-8631. JSTOR   25541874.
  25. ↑ Demas, Samuel; Miller, Mary E. (2012). "Rethinking Collection Management Plans: Shaping Collective Collections for the 21st Century". Collection Management. 37 (3–4): 168–187. doi:10.1080/01462679.2012.685415.
  26. ↑ Reilly, Bernard F. (2004-04-01). "Preserving America's Print Resources: Toward a National Strategic Effort – Report on the Planning Day Discussions". Library Management. 25 (3): 104–117. doi:10.1108/01435120410699050. ISSN   0143-5124.
  27. ↑ Dempsey, L. (2013) "The Emergence of the Collective Collection: Analyzing Aggregate Print Library Holdings," 1-5. In B. Lavoie and C. Malpas, eds. Understanding the Collective Collection: Towards a System-wide Perspective on Library Print Collections. Dublin, OH: OCLC Research, 2013.
  28. ↑ Ellis, Lindsay (2019-10-09). "The Future of Campus Libraries? 'Sticky Interdependence'". The Chronicle of Higher Education. ISSN   0009-5982 . Retrieved 2019-12-12.
  29. ↑ Cohen, Dan (2019-05-26). "The Books of College Libraries Are Turning Into Wallpaper". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2019-12-12.
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