Maine Shared Collections Cooperative Executive Committee
March 31, 2016
9:00 am – 10:00 am
Attendees: Matthew Revitt, Joyce Rumery, Clem Guthro, Barbara McDade, David Nutty
Absentees: Jamie Ritter
1. Retention commitment removal and transfer policy & procedures
The Collections & Operations Committee met last month (2/25). One of the Committee’s standing agenda items is looking at any issues around the current retention commitments, not making wholesale reversals of commitments, but discussing any one-off issues. For example, the University of Southern Maine’s (USM) Franco-American Collection have some titles which received commitments which don’t fit their mission which Matthew will share with the Committee who agree on what titles will have their commitments transferred to another MSCC library. David confirmed that USM had seen a change in personnel which had led to a review of the Franco-American collection to identify material not relevant to their mission.
There may be some titles from the UMaine Darling Center which also have their commitments transferred as Deb helps them make space saving by removing duplicate copies of some stacks materials that have never circulated in certain LC ranges.
2. Review of existing commitments
In 2019, the Collections & Operations Committee will be expected under the terms of the MSCC MOU to review the existing MSCC retention commitments. Another standing agenda item for the Collections & Operations will be to discuss whether any changes need to made to commitments. The Committee spent time at their last meeting discussing possibilities for changes to the agreed retention commitments and the difficulties both politically and practically in making changes.
One idea for the review was looking at attrition rate of commitments i.e. how many commitments remain from the original list of commitments added. Another idea was identifying how many titles that received commitments had zero circulations since the commitments were agreed.
Both Portland and Bangor public libraries would like MSCC to add additional publishers (specifically publishers of children’s fiction) to the list MSCC agreed didn’t require a retention commitment. A revised list could be used both in the 2019 review of commitments and the next round of group analysis. Portland Public is dealing with significant space issues which have been exacerbated by them not being able to weed children’s fiction with commitments. Matthew confirmed for Clem that EAST were using a version of the MSCS publishers list in their collection analysis. EAST had removed and added some publishers from the original list MSCS had sent them.
Matthew reiterated that any proposed changes to MSCC existing retention policy would come to the Executive Committee for approval before being implemented.
3. Planning for 2019 group analysis
Scope
Another standing agenda item for the Collections & Operations Committee is planning for the 2019 group collection analysis which will include both the original grant libraries and new libraries that have joined since. At the Committee’s last meeting they had agreed that:
● Only titles published or added from 2003 to 2008 would be included.
● Only print monographs will be in scope.
● The usage threshold that triggers a retention commitment may be raised.
● Rarity in OCLC will likely be included in the retention criteria.
● Going forward perhaps two holding commitments across the group will be sufficient.
● As a general rule an EAST retention commitment would not affect MSCC retention policy because there’s no guarantee MSCS libraries could access these titles.
● Relying on digital surrogates held by HathiTrust is not likely to be a factor in 2019 because will be looking at in-copyright titles.
Analysis support
In terms of collection analysis support, Matthew felt that Sustainable Collection Services (SCS) will be out of MSCS’s price range. Even SCS’s more self-service analysis tool GreenGlass for Groups would still require MSCC to pay a fee per library and the work involved in loading, normalizing, and matching data, generating retention commitment allocation algorithms, and lists of titles retained. However, Matthew will confirm with SCS what a “ball park” fee would be for their services.
Matthew has spoken with Sara Amato about whether she would be interested in assisting MSCC with the 2019 analysis. The types of reports MSCS would need are similar to the ones Sara already produces in the current MSCC collection analysis for individual libraries. However, one issue Sara might have is allocating retention responsibility across a group which is one of the selling points of working with SCS. Another option for collection analysis support for the future is Colorado Alliance’s Gold Rush Library Content Comparison tool, but as it stands this tool would not meet MSCS’s need to compare holdings overlap in OCLC and allocate retention responsibility.
Matthew is currently gathering data on the number of items added for MSCC libraries from 2003 to 2008, which should help Sara understand the scale of the work and enable her to provide Matthew with a price estimate. Looking at URSUS there were 150,000 bibs added from 2003-2008, so it’s going to be a much more of a manageable number than the grant analysis.
Once Matthew has the numbers from Colby, Bates, and Bowdoin (CBB) and Portland Public he will report back to the Executive Committee in order for them to look at different funding models.
The Committee agreed with Matthew that even though 2019 is still a few year away it makes sense to start planning now. Clem commented that MSCC would want a quote from SCS by the summer of 2018 to be able to plan for how the work would be funded.
4. Project updates
a. MSCC collection analysis update – new libraries, data matching issues & marketing
33 libraries are in various stages of the MSCC collection analysis process. 1 million titles have so far been analyzed.
Overlap with MSCC continues to be high, on average 37%, so plenty of weeding opportunities which is what the libraries really want to get out of the analysis. In term of retention, rare titles (under 10 OCLC and no Maine holdings in OCLC) make up less than 1% of library’s collections and only a subset of these will actually receive commitments usually those titles with a local connection.
Matthew presented a spreadsheet that he uses to track the analysis and plan for future roll outs. Approximately 1/2 of all Minerva have signed up so far. Matthew has spoken with Nancy Grant regarding the possibility of including school libraries. Although the school libraries would likely benefit from receiving weeding lists they might not be willing or able to be allocated retention responsibilities. Other barriers for school library participation include the costs of the analysis and the ability to perform data matching. Barbara agreed with Matthew that the school libraries would benefit from weeding lists, but couldn’t see them making retention commitments. However, the school libraries might be willing to transfer any rare titles they own to public libraries for retention.
Data matching issues
For the past couple of months Matthew has not actively recruited new libraries because:
a) OCLC discontinued the API Sara had used to generate the spreadsheets.
And related to this is b) there have been issues with MSCS’s ability to successfully match titles caused by a mixture of issues around the accuracy of local holdings data (particularly OCLC number) and with finding workarounds now that the API has gone. c) Sara has been kept busy with EAST, designing software for their validation study.
The good news is that MSCC are now back on track with OCLC and the data accuracy has actually improved.
In terms of Sara’s workload, Matthew and Alisia Revitt (Maine InfoNet) have spoken with Sara about handing over some of the responsibility for the collection analysis to them (in particular Matthew). Sara is still willing to carry out one analysis per month, but Matthew felt that it made sense to not rely on one contracted person to do the work, and that more should be done in-house. For the next library that participates in the analysis Matthew (with support from Alisia) will work with Sara on running the lists and seeing if it’s something they can realistically carry out themselves. If Matthew and Alisia do take over from Sara, MSCC will need to look at whether libraries will continue to be charged a fee. Matthew commented that it might be useful to have funds that can be used to fund the 2019 group analysis. However, offering the service for free would likely attract even more libraries.
The Committee agreed that it would be useful to have the skill-set required to carry out the analysis in-house. Joyce asked Matthew to make sure James Jackson Sanborn (Executive Director of Maine InfoNet) is okay with Alisia taking on some of the MSCC work. David was agnostic about whether to charge fees, but agreed it was a good idea to have the skills in-house. Joyce felt fees were needed for MSCC to be sustainable.
Once Matthew receives the training from Sara he can report back on whether it’s likely that he and Alisia will be able to take over responsibility for the analysis. The Committee can then come back to look at fees.
Marketing
Matthew continues to promote Maine Shared Collections at Maine library events and in publications. Also, on social media posting, including posting on Instagram book covers of titles the new MSCC libraries have committed to retain; Matthew hopes that other Maine libraries will see they have similar material that they could make commitments to.
b. New MSCC member libraries update– additional commitments made, retention criteria, shelf checking & labeling
Additional commitments made
Of the 33 libraries Matthew has worked with on the analysis, 21 have so far joined MSCC and have agreed to retain a combined total of 1,222 titles. MSCC now have 30 member libraries. Matthew thanked the Committee for getting back to him so promptly on membership votes. Matthew’s longish term goal is to reach 49 members which would be one more than EAST!
Matthew presented data on the total and average number of retention commitments. David pointed out that a large number of the new commitments came from University of Maine at Fort Kent; Matthew confirmed the titles were mainly in their Acadian Collection which contains some rare titles. Unity College (who are still to agree their commitments) also have a number of interesting titles on the environment and land management which will be a good addition.
Matthew has heard from the director of the Kennebec Valley Community College that their president refused to sign the MOU and join MSCC; Matthew was unsure of the reason(s) behind the decision.
Retention criteria
Matthew reported that it tends to be local titles that receive commitments because these are the rare titles that libraries own and what they feel most comfortable retaining for 15 years. Also as more libraries join and make commitments, the pool of titles that require commitments becomes smaller.
Shelf checking
Matthew has been adding new retention commitments to Minerva and URSUS, including validation data for those that are checking their shelves before committing. MSCC are the first monograph shared print project to add this data to the MARC 583 field. Sharon Fitzgerald and her team have also been adding commitments in WorldCat for OCLC members.
Labeling
The new libraries are adding a physical MSCC label to the items (which McArthur Library produced), so they aren’t pulled for weeding.
c. On-demand services – stats, record load into URSUS & future of POD service
Stats
On average there are 100 views of on-demand per month in MaineCat. Matthew has been adding monthly updates for the top 10 viewed on-demand titles to the Maine Shared Collections webpage and Twitter feed.
Despite over 100 clicks on the print-on-demand request form in the last year there has only been two actual POD requests.
Record load into URSUS
Joyce confirmed that the URSUS Directors approved the loading of the on-demand records into URSUS at their last meeting. The load should include titles added to the HathiTrust since the load last, including the Maine State documents that Peggy O’Kane (Maine State Library) worked on adding to the public domain.
Future of POD service
Alisia Revitt is ready to start the load, but Matthew wanted to give the Executive Committee the opportunity to discuss whether it still wants to offer the print-on-demand service, considering it’s a legacy of the MSCS grant. Deb Rollins has raised the question whether it’s necessary to continue with the service when demand is so low. Matthew felt the POD links should be left in there for those that want it and perhaps the records being in URSUS might see the amount of requests increase. Also, removing the links would require more work on Alisia’s part than just loading the records as they are formatted now.
Joyce commented that she has no stronger feelings on whether the POD service should continue, but as it’s clearly the cost that is putting off requesters than perhaps the printing could be done by another institution. Matthew confirmed that the UMaine Bookstore is responsible for handling the financial transactions for the service.
Both Clem and Barbara felt the POD service should continue as it’s something MSCS agreed it would do as part of the grant.
David reported that one of the requests would have come from a librarian at USM. Joyce commented that there should be a library representative advising requesters on the fact that there are printing fees for the books. Matthew responded that he was actually the de-facto person reviewing the requests and so was surprised he hadn’t seen the request David was referring to.
d. MSCC involvement in EAST
In addition to his role at UMaine, Matthew has recently been appointed as the Shared Print Consultant for the Eastern Academic Scholars’ Trust project. Matthew will be replacing Lizanne Payne (former MSCS advisory board member) who has taken up the position of program manager for the newly established HathiTrust shared print program. EAST has some pretty tight deadlines for the collection analysis, policy development, and validation study, so there will plenty to keep Matthew busy.
There are currently two first iterations of the EAST retention model under consideration. Both models include a rule which says EAST wouldn’t commit to retain anything already held by Maine Shared Collections. There are 805,995 title-sets held by EAST that have a commitment from MSCC.
One of the other interesting items under discussion on the policy side is whether there will be free lending between EAST libraries. Clem commented that he doesn’t believe libraries should be made to charge ILL fees for EAST items Clem felt that separate ILL rules for EAST items would complicate the ILL process.
e. HathiTrust shared print update
Lizanne Payne has been appointed HathiTrust’s shared print program manager and will start at the end of April. As HathiTrust members both Colby and UMaine may well be asked to make retention commitments to items digitized by the HathiTrust
Jeremy York confirmed before he departed HathiTrust that HathiTrust are still not able to accept Maine Shared Collections as a consortial member.
f. Introduction of new OCLC retention commitment registration service – retro converting, removal of symbols & fees
Background
OCLC’s are developing plans for how retention commitments are recorded in OCLC. Essentially OCLC are doing away with the requirement to have a second shared print symbol.
New service
The shared print symbol will be replaced by a shared print holding type which will flag that a title has a commitment. After OCLC have registered the commitments they would then give shared print projects the information back which can then be used to load the commitments locally.
Feedback
Sara and Matthew have concerns regarding the discoverability of the commitments, including when it comes to being able to identify commitments for the MSCC collection analysis service.
Costs
There are going to be fees for the new registration service and it will also mean MSCC can longer manually add commitments.
Matthew is still waiting for OCLC to provide pricing information, but he share it with the Executive Committee as soon as it’s available. The Executive Committee did express concerns that a fee per record would disincentivize projects like MSCS from disclosing commitments.
Retro converting
OCLC are going to retro convert OCLC symbols to the new shared print holding type for projects like MSCC that have already registered commitments. The earliest they hope to have this done by is this summer.
Matthew and David both attended a presentation from OCLC at Midwinter which emphasized how significant the Maine Shared Collections retention commitments are to shared print. MSCC still remain the largest group of commitments in OCLC (1.4 million). Also, of the 82 shared print symbols 14 are from Maine (there are many projects that have ordered symbols, but don’t actually use them). David commented that it was nice to see the kudos MSCC received at the OCLC session.
g. Display of retention commitments in MaineCat
Matthew is still waiting for Maine InfoNet to switch on the flow of retention information from local catalogs to MaineCat, so the only commitments displaying in MaineCat currently are those from the original grant libraries that are being pulled from OCLC. Matthew commented that he was keen for the new commitments to be disclosed because with so many of the new MSCC libraries not being OCLC members, MaineCat should act as the central place for recorded commitments in Maine. Matthew will continue sending reminders to Maine InfoNet.
Matthew presented examples of how the display in MaineCat might look. The Executive Committee preferred having the “MSCC” note rather than having the full URL displayed.
Note: Since the meeting Maine InfoNet have been in contact about getting starting the work. Matthew has sent instructions (that Alisia produced) to CBB and Portland Public to have add a subfield z to the 583 to ensure only the “MSCC” displays, not the messy URL shown in the example above. Matthew and Alisia will make the changes in URSUS and Minerva records.
h. Reporting on MSCS/MSCC – ALA Midwinter, NETSL, & ACRL/NEC presentation & ALA monograph
After speaking at the RUSA Hot Topic session at ALA Midwinter, Matthew will presenting next at the NETSL (New England Technical Services Librarians, a section of NELA) Annual Conference on April 8th in Worcester, MA. Matthew will then be on a panel discussion on Friday May 13th at the ACRL/NEC Conference in Manchester, NH alongside representatives from EAST & SCS.
Clem will be presenting on MSCS at a meeting in Connecticut on April 1st, 2016.
MSCC will feature in a monograph coming out in spring from ALA.
5. Next meeting date
The Committee’s next meeting will be in September 2016; Matthew will send out a Doodle Poll closer to.