Maine Shared Collections Cooperative Executive Committee
January 14, 2020
10:00 am – 11:00 am
Attendees: Matthew Revitt, Joyce Rumery, Marjorie Hassen, Ben Treat, Jamie Ritter
Absent: David Nutty
- Update on 2019 Collection Analysis
Matthew has received the final sets of rejected titles from participating MSCC libraries. The process took a lot longer than originally anticipated because most of the Minerva libraries carried out shelf checks to verify titles were present and in a condition that would survive a 10-year retention period. There were other rejections for out of scope material and material not deemed retention worthy, the types of content with only short-term value. There was a fair amount of such material at some of the publics, but Matthew felt it was better for libraries to retain some titles, rather than nothing.
Matthew has now submitted the rejections to OCLC SCS who will remove the titles from the libraries’ final retention allocations.
Matthew also reallocated about 100 titles that he deemed “retention worthy” to other MSCC libraries that SCS will add in GreenGlass. Also, Colby, who had inadvertently left some locations out of the analysis, self-nominated titles they would retain in these locations. Matthew is waiting to hear back when from SCS regarding when the final retention allocations will be ready to download from GreenGlass.
Jamie reported that the Maine State Library hadn’t rejected any of their titles, but there could well be government documents in their allocation. Matthew responded that while government documents are out of scope, from experience most of these documents are likely to be Maine related, so he didn’t have an issue with them being included. Ben also commented that Bangor Public hadn’t rejected titles because it wasn’t feasible for them to do shelf checks.
- Recording MSCC commitments in ILSs
Sierra
Once the final allocations have been agreed, the next step is to record the commitments in Sierra. A meeting was held with technical services and systems staff in October to go over the process.
Cason will load the commitments for UMaine System libraries and the Maine State Library. Ben confirmed that Patrick Layne will load the commitments for Bangor Public.
MaineCat
Once the commitments have been loaded in Sierra they should automatically flow to MaineCat.
OCLC
The consensus of the cataloguing and systems staff is that MSCC should move from the second symbol approach it currently uses to indicate that a title has a commitment to the new registration service, which involves libraries supplying CSV data enabling each LHR to be indexed for discovery (not symbol driven). One of the major pros of this new approach is that the commitments will actually be indexed & discoverable in First Search, Record Manager & Connexion. Also, in the future (perhaps) WorldCat.org, but not currently part of plans which is something that Matthew and others are going to lobby for, as some staff use WorldCat.org to identify retention status.
There’s some pilot testing of the new process currently underway, so when the service goes live in May MSCC should have a better idea of whether it wants to move forward on the registration.
Matthew has also asked being speaking with OCLC regarding how they will retrospectively transition existing commitments from the second symbol LHR to “regular LHR”.
- MSCC OCLC Webinar 2/5
Ben and Matthew will be delivering a OCLC webinar on February 5th to discuss MSCC, specifically working with public libraries. They hope that there will be both public library and academic librarians in attendance, particularly those skeptical about public libraries involvement in shared print programs.
- MSCC website changes
Matthew has been working with Brad Beauregard, Fogler Library’s Public Relations manager on changes to the MSCC website. So far it’s been mostly content changes to better reflect where MSCC is now with the program, moving legacy material off the main pages. Changes can only be made within the limits of the website infrastructure, which was designed by a marketing firm, and is very much of its time, circa 2011. Brad and Matthew are also seeing what can be done to improve the layout and visuals. Matthew will seek feedback once the edits have been made.
- MSCC membership in the Partnership for Shared Book Collections
The Executive Committee discussed MSCC’s potential membership in the Partnership for Shared Book Collections. The Partnership is a federation of shared print programs, whose aim is to better coordinate the activities of the many existing and emerging programs across North America. The idea being that they are efficiencies to be had from working on a larger scale. Matthew had previously reviewed the Partnership’s proposed services with the EC in June of last year, before ALA Annual.
Since that meeting, the Partnership working groups have been refining the services it proposes to offer. Matthew is on the Steering Committee for the Partnership and he chairs the working group that developed the governance structure, member agreement, and business model.
One of the concrete benefits of joining the Partnership is engagement in the development of best practices across a number of important categories relating to shared print, which is already helping programs like MSCC’s when it comes to recording commitments. Another working group has been focusing on the kind of research that needs to be undertaken relating to shared print, particular as it relates to understanding the optimal number of copies of print monographs that need to be retained across programs and in different storage environments to truly ensure the content is protected and preserved, something MSCC hotly debated in the summer when developing its retention models.
The Partnership can also act as an advocate for the needs of shared print programs e.g. the availability of openly accessible retention data. And is also going to be working on tool kits for communicating the message of why shared print matters.
The Partnership will be formally launched at the PAN forum meeting at Midwinter (1/24). Seven shared print programs have already agreed to join as founding members:
- MCLS group in Michigan
- WRLC, Washington Research Library Consortium
- PALNI, in Indiana.
- ConnectNY
- SCELC in California
- EAST
- And the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries
Once the launch has taken place, more widespread outreach to about 20 other programs will begin.
A lot of the costs of the Partnership are being provided by in-kind contributions, either staff time on committees or infrastructure support. But based on the experiences of projects of this kind it was agreed that there has to be a point person, responsible for managing day-to-day operations, so the budget includes the costs of contracting with a program coordinator. This cost is distributed across the membership with each program expected to pay an annual fee of $3,000. This cost would be split equally between the original founding 8 libraries, with each library paying an annual fee of $375, with a 3-year membership commitment, ending December 2022.
The consensus of the EC was that there are generally okay with the member fee and joining and recognize there are potential benefits at the MSCC program level which could trickle down to libraries. Marjorie felt that while membership may not be of direct benefit to each of the individual institutions, it’s important for MSCC to join so it remains part of the national conversation about shared print. The EC agreed that philosophically, MSCC, as one of the pioneer shared print programs, should be a part of this national effort, as it shows MSCC’s long-term commitment to shared print. Being part of the Partnership would also ensure MSCC can have a voice in its future direction.
The EC agreed that MSCC join the Partnership, including the $3,000 membership fee.
Matthew will contact the directors of Colby, Bates, and Portland Public libraries to get their approval on MSCC joining the Partnership. Marjorie agreed to contact Colby and Bates to give them background on the EC’s decision.