Maine Shared Collections Cooperative Executive Committee
October 6, 2016
10:00 am – 11:00 am
Attendees: Clem Guthro, David Nutty, Joyce Rumery, Jamie Ritter, Matthew Revitt
Absent: Barbara McDade
1. Changes to MSCC Collections & Operations Committee
Becky Albitz has left Bates College; Susan MacArthur will serve as Bates’ interim representative on the MSCC Collections & Operations Committee until Becky’s replacement is in post. Susan attended the Committee’s September 12th meeting.
Cynthia Young (Eastern Maine Community College) had been appointed to the Collections & Operations Committee to represent community college members. Since then Cynthia has been unable to attend Committee meetings and is willing for someone else to take over the post. Matthew felt that in hindsight a specific community college representative wasn’t necessary, but he thought it might be useful to on appoint a representative from the newer members to reflect that MSCC is now larger than the original grant partners. Also, it might be useful to hear the perspective of a smaller library on retention criteria and allocations.
Clem commented that the intention had always been to open up the Committee to newer members, but that perhaps Matthew should limit his search to libraries that are in the vicinity of Waterville, so it’s more likely they will be able to attend MSCC meetings held at Colby (e.g. Belfast). Joyce felt that Matthew should put out a more general call, letting members know the meetings will be held at Colby, and that they take this into consideration when deciding whether they want to be nominated to the Committee.
The Executive Committee agreed that Matthew should ask MSCC members if there is interest in joining the Collections & Operations Committee (making clear what the time commitments are). The Executive Committee will be then asked to approve the election of one new member to the Collections & Operations Committee.
2. MOU language re. membership terms
Section 1.3 of the MSCC Memorandum of Understanding (http://www.maineinfonet.net/mscs/wp-content/uploads/Maine-Shared-Collections-Cooperative-MOU.pdf) is
“Members agreed to join the MSCC for an initial term of 3 years”. Matthew was concerned that the MOU doesn’t specifically address what happens after the 3 years, just in Section 9 that “If a participating library opts to withdraw from this agreement, it must provide written notice to the Executive Committee a minimum of one year prior to withdrawing.”
Clem and Matthew discussed how modifying the MOU and getting it signed again would be an administrative nightmare. David commented that he had presumed membership had automatically renewed. Matthew agreed, but in hindsight he wished it clearly stated that ‘Thereafter MSCC membership is renewed annually on a 12-month term”. Joyce felt that if members did decide to leave after 3 years then the Executive Committee would need to deal with any issues then, but otherwise felt MSCC should let the issue rest. Jamie pointed out that Section 3.1 made it clear that “Libraries agree to retain
materials from 15 years of date of signing” which is a clear long term commitment to MSCC. However, Matthew confirmed for Jamie that there although there are review cycles built into the MOU, that doesn’t necessary mean changes will made or that a new MOU will be created.
3. USM Franco Collection withdrawals
Janet Roberts (University of Southern Maine) attended last month’s MSCC Collections & Operations Committee meeting to discuss material USM has pulled from its Franco Collection that didn’t really fit their mission and scope, hoping to eventually de-accession them. The Collections Committee agreed that Janet should send them a spreadsheet of MSCC designated Franco titles they want to discard which they will work on reallocating retention responsibility for. David added that he’s pleased that where feasible the commitments will be transferred to another copy or reallocated to another MSCC library for retention.
Matthew has asked the Collections & Operations Committee to generally review the publishers list to see if modifications or amendments need to be made for the 2019 review of commitments and next round of group analysis. Possible examples include publishers of IT guides and consumer health titles. The Executive Committee didn’t have any comments regarding this work.
4. Adding children’s publishers to publishers list
Portland Public Library is running out of storage space: Brian Damian would therefore like to add specific children’s publishers to the list of publishers MSCS agreed to exclude from receiving retention commitments and actually begin weeding the works of those publishers as soon as the Collections & Operations Committee approves the list. Brian has also been speaking to Bangor Public Library about whether there are any specific publishers they also have issues with. The titles weeded would be works which don’t fit Portland’s collection management policy. Matthew will ask Brian to offer the MSCC membership any items they decide to withdraw.
5. 2019 group collection analysis planning – criteria & vendor service
The Collections & Operations Committee continues to be plan for the 2019 group collection analysis, including potential retention criteria. To help prepare for this, Matthew worked with technical services at Colby, Bates, and Bowdoin, Portland Public, and Alisia Revitt (Maine InfoNet) for URSUS and Minerva to estimate the number of titles likely to be included in the analysis.
The holdings numbers for print monograph items added after 12-31-2002 and before 01-01-2009:
• Portland Public – 61,126 items
• CBB – 204,448 items
• URSUS – 280,000 items
• Minerva – 175,000 items (this was done on pub date, not acquisition because of data issues)
• TOTAL – 659,448 items
The total number will increase as MSCC recruits new Minerva members. The data doesn’t include Koha members, but those numbers won’t affect things too much.
Matthew went over some guesstimates (using information from the EAST project) for the costs of MSCC contracting with Sustainable Collection Services (SCS) for collection analysis support. The consensus of the Committee was that the costs of contracting with SCS would be too high for MSCC.
Clem questioned whether libraries would be willing to made retention decisions regarding material 8-10 years old and as such wondered whether it made sense for MSCC to carry out the collection analysis in 10 years not 5 years as currently planned. Matthew reported that 5 years was selected because it coincided with the 5 year retention review stated in the MOU. Matthew was concerned that if the collection analysis was pushed back MSCC would lose its momentum which, combined with the loss of institutional knowledge from some members of the current MSCC Collections & Operations Committee, would mean the work would not get done and MSCC would fizzle out. Joyce discussed Maine Shared Collections role in establishing best practices for future collection analyses.
The Committee agreed that while based on Matthew’s guesstimates it would not be feasible for MSCC to work with SCS Matthew should ask Rick Lugg for a formal proposal.
Another collection analysis tool on the market is GoldRush from the Colorado Alliance. Unfortunately, GoldRush as it currently stands is not going work for MSCC because it includes neither OCLC holdings data nor local circ. data, but these are both functions the Colorado Alliance are working on, so hopefully by 2019 they might be available.
Matthew has also spoken to Sara Amato about the collection analysis work and while Sara is interested she has pointed out a number of complicating factors. These are that:
• Minerva records would need to be cleaned before the analysis. Alternatively MSCC could decide to exclude bad records from the analysis.
• As a commercial contractor Sara is concerned about using the OCLC API on this scale of analysis.
• The state of flux of the OCLC retention registration service which makes it difficult to predict how retention commitments will be discoverable.
Sara provided some guestimates for the work that the Committee felt were more realistic for MSCC, even though MSCC wouldn’t get all of the impressive functionality that comes with SCS and their tool GreenGlass.
The Committee agreed that Matthew should speak with OCLC about the use of their API for the collection analysis work.
6. On-demand services – UMaine leaving HathiTrust and future of the POD service
Primarily due to budgetary issues UMaine have decided to not renewal their HathiTrust membership. UMaine leaving HathiTrust will obviously affect the print on demand service in MaineCat because the items are downloaded in full from HathiTrust using UMaine’s account and then printed by the UMaine Printing Service.
Clem reported that Colby are not in a position to continue the service.
The Committee agreed that UMaine’s decision to leave the HathiTrust combined with the low demand for the POD service meant that the MaineCat print on demand would be shut down. Matthew will inform the UMaine Printing Service and Bookstore of this decision.
Joyce reported the URSUS directors had made the decision to not load the HathiTrust and Google Books records into URSUS which means once Solar is decommissioned the on-demand records will no longer be contributed to MaineCat.
7. Project updates
a. MSCC collection analysis
37 libraries have so far gone through the analysis process (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/166pguY5D5GLSZH0XQzeYOOIujbRRVT7gS2jk7Dn4PB4/pubhtml?gid=1086627895&single=true), with just over one million monograph titles being included. Matthew also has a handful of other Minerva libraries he hopes to work with over next few months, including Lewiston Public Library which as one of the largest public libraries in the state he was keen to recruit.
Sara is being kept busy with the EAST project, so Matthew has limited the analysis to 1-2 libraries per month. Matthew has also asked Sara to train him and Alisia to run the data comparisons and produce the spreadsheets libraries are provided, so MSCC don’t have to rely so much on outside support.
b. New MSCC member libraries
Of the 37 libraries that have gone through the analysis, 26 have so far joined MSCC and have collectively agreed to retain approximately 1,500 titles. Most of the titles are local histories and fiction in local settings.
MSCC now has 35 members (including the founding members).
c. 583 issues – MaineCat display implementation & Colby EAST commitments
Innovative set up the flow of retention information in the MARC 583 Field from local catalogs to MaineCat which means all Maine Shared Collections retention commitment “MSCC” notes are now displayed in MaineCat (http://mainecat.maine.edu/record=b8646260~S0). Matthew thanked technical services and systems staff at Colby, Bates, and Bowdoin and Portland Public for their work on updating the retention statement so the retention note displayed correctly. Matthew (with support from Maine InfoNet) made the necessary record updates in URSUS and Minerva. Issues remain with some of the Portland Public notes which show the full retention commitment URL rather than the “MSCC” note.
Colby have agreed to retain approximately 44,000 titles for the Eastern Academic Scholars’ Trust. Matthew showed an example (https://mainecat.maine.edu/record=b3097862~S0) of the display in MaineCat of one of Colby’s EAST retention commitments.
d. Update on new OCLC retention commitment registration
The Maine Shared Collections retention commitments remain disclosed in OCLC using the second shared print symbol. But OCLC are replacing the need for the second symbol and replacing it with a shared print holding type. OCLC have agreed to move MSCC commitments from the old discovery method to the new free of charge. Matthew has been speaking to OCLC about the new process for registering commitments which MSCC will need to follow once it replaces the previous batch loading process. Matthew outlined two concerns he and others involved in shared print have with the new process. One is that although the disclosure of retention commitments will begin in March 2017 how these commitments will be discoverable is still to be developed. The other issue is that the final pricing model for the new registration service has not been released, so it’s still unclear whether or not it will be feasible for MSCC to use the service.
Matthew will continue to work with OCLC on requirements for the registration process and will keep the Committee updated on the affects it will have for MSCC.
e. Reporting on MSCS/MSCC –NETSL & ACRL/NEC presentation & ALA monograph
Maine Shared Collections remains of interest to other libraries. Matthew has delivered presentations at both the NETSL and ACRL/NEC conferences and a chapter on Maine Shared Collections featured in a ALA published monograph entitled “Shared Collections”.
f. EAST project update –cohort 2 outreach
Since the Committee last met the Eastern Academic Scholars’ Trust have
• Completed a sample validation study of titles.
• Agreed on a retention model which resulted in 6 million titles being committed to retain across the approximate 40 EAST Retention Partners.
• And developed a number of policies and procedures including a MOU a final draft of which Matthew will be presenting to the EAST Executive Committee (on which Clem sits) for approval on Friday 10/7.
EAST is currently reaching out to academic and research libraries in the eastern region of the U.S. in an effort to recruit new members. EAST has a members’ meeting next Friday (10/14) in Boston for both current and prospective members which Matthew will be attending along with Colby representatives and Joan Campbell from Bowdoin. Bowdoin is one of the institutions EAST hopes will join a second cohort of EAST members. David and Joyce commented that while it was not feasible for their institutions to join EAST at this time they appreciate Matthew and Clem keeping them updated on the initiative’s progress.
g. Colby participating in HathiTrust shared print project
Colby have agreed to participate in phase 1 of HathiTrust’s shared print initiative which Clem and Matthew both sit on the advisory committee for.
Clem commented that having already made significant retention commitments to MSCC and EAST (300,000 titles in total), he likes the fact that Colby will get control over what they decide to retain for HathiTrust.
8. Next meeting date
The Committee’s next meeting will be in April 2017.