Maine Shared Collections Strategy Directors’ Council
February 24, 2014
Colby College, Miller Library, Conference Room
1:00 – 3:00 PM
Attendees: Clem Guthro, James Jackson Sanborn, Linda Lord, Marjorie Hassen, Barbara McDade, David Nutty, Deb Rollins, Joyce Rumery, Matthew Revitt
Absentees: Gene Wiemers, Steve Podgajny
1. Project Updates
a. Collection Analysis
i. Monograph analysis complete – final allocation figures from SCS
Since the last MSCS Directors’ meeting the MSCS Collection Development have agreed upon the retention criteria for titles in the Step Two category (which are those held by 3 or more MSCS libraries). The Committee also signed off on the retention allocation rules which decide which library is assigned the retention commitment responsibility:
RULE 1.
If Colby holds a title, it will be marked Commit-to-Retain (CTR).
RULE 2.
If a title is held by any of the Colby, Bates, and Bowdon Libraries then at least one of these libraries must have their holding marked CTR. If Colby holds and is marked CTR per rule 1 then this rule will be satisfied
RULE 3.
Given that Rules 1 & 2 are satisfied, the remaining CTR allocations will be done in an “equitable” fashion, where equity is defined as maintaining a constant ratio of CTR allocations to not committed allocations among libraries (which is equivalent to a constant ratio of retention commitments to in-scope titles).
RULE 4.
ALL MSL local protected title-holdings are marked CTR.
Andy Breeding (SCS) reported to Matthew that this was the most complex and difficult allocation they have had to run to date.
Matthew presented the Final MSCS-Step-2-CTR-Counts (final only) he received from SCS for title-holdings in Step Two and an estimate for the total amount of monographs being committed as part of MSCS. Matthew commented that the numbers will change slightly as Sara has yet to make the CTR reversals she did in Step One, but the reversals will only account for a relatively small number of title-holdings (approx.1% in Step One), so the numbers shouldn’t change dramatically. There will also be monograph series numbers added as the Collection Development Committee looked at these separately as part of the journal work, but again this will be a relatively small amount.
MSCS started off with approx. 2.7 million title-holdings in the analysis, and of that amount approx. 1.4 million title-holdings have received retention commitments, so that is just over half. Libraries are free to de-accession title-holdings they weren’t allocated a commitment to retain and surplus of copies of a CTR title should they choose to do so. USM have already weeded surplus copies of CTR titles that were water damaged at their Gorham location.
Matthew commented that UMaine still had the most commitments which is not surprising considering they have the largest collection, but the allocation rules in Step Two meant that CBB (Colby in particular) were not far behind. Clem commented that it was interesting to see CBB having similar amounts of commitments between them.
Matthew has sent the individual library retention lists to Sara so she can begin filtering the lists to remove those titles MSCS agreed wouldn’t receive commitments in Step One.
Collection analysis activities are now complete for monographs, and all MSCS commitments have been agreed and just need to be disclosed (see below).
Matthew will also work with the Collection Development Committee and Sara to produce data showing the percentages of the overall collections of MSCS libraries that have retention commitments.
ii. Journal/serial/series analysis complete – final CTR figures
The Collection Development Committee have filtered the lists they were provided to only include those titles they felt their institution should Commit To Retain (CTR).
In addition to individual library analysis, Deb conducted a comparison of the holdings of titles held by 2 or more MSCS libraries in the ‘not in vendor sets’ category and identified opportunities for making group retention decisions. Deb commented that comparing holdings involved a lot of work. Matthew responded that this is why in the ‘local protected’ category the Committee decided for the time being not to look at making group decisions as it would require a lengthy process involving holdings overlap comparisons. The Committee also agreed that most titles in the ‘local protected’ category their institutions would still want to CTR even if another MSCS had already made a commitment. Matthew commented that MSCS may come back and look at collection building opportunities.
Collection analysis activities are complete for journals/serials/series and all MSCS commitments have been agreed. CTR totals can be found here. Again, as with monographs the next step is for the commitments to be disclosed in catalogs (see below).
iii. OCLC WorldCat Collection Evaluation tool – proposal & access update
Matthew has spoken with Sara Randall, new product manager for the OCLC Collection Evaluation tool, and Andy Noonan, a programmer at OCLC, about MSCS requirements for group collection analysis functionality. Sara informed Matthew that full group functionality is not likely to go live until the 3rd or 4th quarter of 2014. Matthew asked Sara to make the changes MSCS wanted made to the deferred access proposal he had been sent by her predecessor, so MSCS have something in writing regarding the agreement for complimentary deferred access to the tool.
b. Loading & display of retention information in catalogs
i. Local Catalog – loading updates & public display
Monographs
Once Sara completes the filtering of the retention lists (see above) she will begin adding commitments for titles in Step Two.
The public display of retention commitment made in Step One is now in both the URSUS and the new Colby, Bates, and Bowdoin catalogs. Karl Fattig (Bowdoin) is also looking at adding a title attribute to the MSCC link so that when users mouse/track over it they would get a bit more information about MSCC.
Sara has been speaking to Portland Public about getting the display loaded there as well.
Journals/serials
Sara has begun adding retention statements for MSCS libraries in URSUS. When she runs into any issues or more complicated records such as those without closed holdings she refers them to the MSCS Collection Development and Technical Services Committee members.
Matthew reported that the Project Team and Sharon Fitzgerald (UMaine) have been debating the best option for the public display of serial/journal retention statement. Matthew commented that, as with monographs, the goal is to have accurate and meaningful information, but not to make it seem like there is a separate MSCC set of holding in a different location.
Option 1:
Option 2:
Barbara and Deb commented that they preferred Option 2 as it didn’t give the impression that a library has two runs of the stated volumes. Deb wondered whether MSCC could just be in parentheses. Matthew responded that Option 1 is more technically accurate as libraries are only committed to holdings through 2013 and in some active record instances they will continue to build holdings that are not CTR.Joyce felt the word ‘identity’ seemed odd.
Matthew confirmed that the ‘hover’ functionality being discussed for the monograph ‘MSCC’ link (see above) could also be used for serials and journals which might help reduce confusion.
Sara has spoken to the WEST project about what they do about display, but they only display in OCLC, not in local catalogs. Matthew and Sara will be discussing the display options with the Collection Development and Technical Services Committees. Matthew will report to the Collection Development Committee the thoughts of the Directors on the display options.
ii. OCLC WorldCat – progress of batch loading commitments
Sara submitted to OCLC the batch loading request for loading retention information into the Local Holding Records of CTR titles back in late November/early December, but was told that processing the request can take 90 days. That 90 day period is due to end next week at which point Sara will chase the request. Matthew commented that this time frame means MSCS needs to get the request submitted for Step Two titles ASAP to ensure they are processed in the grant period.
Sara was chosen by OCLC to attend one of their developer house sessions in February and one of the things she was looking at getting from the session was the possibility to use their new metadata API to generate holdings records, so MSCS wouldn’t need to go through the lengthy batch loading process. Sara reported that she and other attendees made it clear to OCLC that there needs to be offline batch processing interfaces.
The Directors were disappointed at the length of time it was taking for OCLC to process the batch loading request. Clem suggested speaking to WEST to find out how long the batch loading process had taken them for loading retention information for journals. Matthew commented that as WEST had been part of the OCLC pilot project it might have been a more timely process, but he will still check with WEST as it would be interesting to compare processes.
iii. MaineCat – III communications & progress of displaying commitments
James reported that he had received an Innreach update email in January from Tom Jacobson (Innovative, Interfaces, Inc.) that included as one of the enhancements the following:
“Initial support for shared collection management through the inclusion of 583 retention fields from the local catalog in the union catalog. Key data elements from local 583 fields will map into the institution record within the union catalog, and be visible within the OPAC, thereby giving shared collection management partners a single place to search and find decisions being made by all participants.”
Later in January, James was contacted by Tom directly asking about the 583 and MSCS’s planned uses of it. Deb, Clem and Sara had provided Tom (via James) details of MSCS requirements.
In the short-term, because MSCS doesn’t know when these enhancements will happen, MSCS will still be using Sara’s workaround of using the OCLC API and JavaScript to perform a check of OCLC and display when an item is in shared print. So once the commitments are in OCLC they should also appear in MaineCat. James commented that of course the delays with display in OCLC (see above) have resulted in delaying the display in MaineCat. Deb asked whether the display would appear automatically in MaineCat. James responded that it would because Albie Dunn (Maine InfoNet) had already put it in place.
In May, James and Clem are meeting with Innovative Interfaces, Inc. representatives at the International Coalition of Library Consortia conference in Portland, OR and will mention the 583 field. Matthew suggested that they include Sara in the conversations about the 583 field as she is the expert on the subject and the meeting is close to where she is located.
c. Ebook-On-Demand & Print-On-Demand (POD) services
i. MaineCat records load complete
Sara has completed loading into Solar the 1.3 million HathiTrust public domain records and, where available, links to downloadable versions in Google Books. The records also feature a request form for Print-On-Demand copies that had been edited to reflect the changes requested at the last Directors’ meeting. Matthew presented an example of an E-Book-On-Demand and Print-On-Demand record in MaineCat.
The records are going to need to find a new home once Solar goes away. James commented that one potential option for when the records are reloaded is adding an agency for them in URSUS.
ii. Tracking clicks
Matthew presented Google Analytics stats for clicks to HathiTrust, Google Books, and the POD request form from MaineCat records:
Matthew commented that interestingly the POD request form currently has more hits than Google Books links. Deb noted that not all records have a Google Books link (but all have a POD link). Clem commented that it was interesting to see this trend because the data was for actually clicking to view the Google Books copy.
MSCS are also tracking clicks to specific item records. Matthew commented that the numbers are still a little off because originally his and Sara’s IP addresses were included, so every time they used “The Christian Defence” (which has the most hits) as an example it was included as a hit.
Clem commented that it would be interesting to know on a given day how clicks to the EOD/POD records compared to clicks to other bib records in MaineCat. Matthew will speak to Tim Pellet (Maine InfoNet) and Sara about getting this done.
iii. POD requests update
Since the end of December when the EOD and POD records started to appear in MaineCat, MSCS have received approx. 20 POD requests and over the last week there have been an average of 1-2 per day. There was of course an increase in requests once the record load was completed in January.
The requests are routed from MaineCat to Deb and Greg Curtis at Fogler Library, who review the request and then send it on to Matthew (who is tracking the requests), who submits it to UMaine Printing and Mailing Services, who should then deliver the printed book to him in 2-3 days. It has actually been more like 5-6 days after submission that we receive the copies. Matthew then mails the printed book to the requester. Matthew commented that because MSCS are using grant funds to test the service and it’s still in the early days of the service, he is more actively involved in the process, but in the future the work could be done by a classified staff member. MSCS still haven’t actually been billed for any of the books, but based on estimates from Printing and Mailing Services on average it has cost $26-27 for each book to be printed which means in total MSCS have spent approx. $500 of the $2,000 allocated. The grant is also covering mailing costs, but those are minimal.
Matthew brought an example of a POD copy to show the Directors.
Matthew is tracking the requests received and commented that they have been for a diverse range of titles. Some interesting trends include:
● About half (9) required a HathiTrust partner login to download which meant Matthew had to go through Colby College to download the items.
● For 6 titles there were physical copies in MaineCat. Matthew commented that if Sara managed to merge the records to see both print and e-versions in one record there might be fewer requests for titles when there is a physical copy. Some serial records unintentionally merged and Sara is looking into the implications of having all records merge. James explained that the merging had been caused by matching on the 022 (ISBN) field, when the 001 (OCLC #) field, which is normally used for matching, does not exist. James commented that Maine InfoNet and Sara had wanted to avoid overlaying records, but that merging was not a problem.
● There were also print copies available at libraries outside of Maine.
● There are also copies available from commercial vendors which in most cases are linked from the HathiTrust and Google pages.
● 4 of the requests have been submitted by libraries on behalf of patrons.
● Most requests had come from patrons of public libraries.
● And finally approx. ¼ of the requests have come from addresses in Waldo County.
Matthew commented that most of the requests received so far have been straightforward to fulfill, but there had been a few oddities, which have actually been helpful to plan for different eventualities. Deb described how one request for a serial included both public domain and in-copyright issues which meant not all issues could be printed. Deb also reported on a request received for a whole encyclopedia set, for which only one volume was available to download anyway. To address these sorts of issues Deb and Matthew had Sara add to the POD success page a sentence about a library staff member contacting the requester should there be any issues with fulfilling the request. Matthew commented that the Project Team needs to develop criteria for when requests won’t be fulfilled.
Deb observed that HathiTrust does not indicate when there are freely downloadable copies available in Google Books. Clem commented that it wouldn’t make business sense for HathiTrust to add this, as it wouldn’t encourage libraries to pay to join the HathiTrust to access the titles.
The Project Team have developed a survey for POD requesters to get feedback on the service, which Matthew will send out monthly. The responses so far included that requesters:
● prefer to read books in print
● made the request for recreational reading
● except for some mis-scanned pages, were pleased with the overall print quality.
● if the service was no longer free they would have preferred to request a library copy via MaineCat or Interlibrary Loan from their local library.
● would not have been willing to pay more for a copy with print coloring.
iv. Ongoing POD business model
The Project Team have been discussing various business model ideas to plan for when grant funds are exhausted, these include:
● Requesters paying for the cost of printing and shipping to recover costs. This would require a financial transaction that Fogler could potentially act as the middle man for. A fee could be added on top of cost recovery to cover administrative costs.
● Alternatively the requests could be directly handled by the UMaine Printing and Mailing Services and University Bookshop. Matthew has spoken to Printing and Mailing Services and they aren’t allowed to outsource. It’s also a grey area whether the UMaine Book Store could provide the service for requesters not affiliated with UMaine which is why Fogler would still need to remain associated with the service. That would end up happening anyway, as Fogler librarians would still need to review the requests.
● MSCS libraries contribute to the cost of the service for a trial period of one year, so that it stays free of charge.
● One library administers and pays for the service.
The Directors agreed that these last two options should be discounted as they are not willing or able to support a free books service for other Maine libraries.
● ARRC libraries pay for the services
● Maine libraries make requests on behalf of patrons and add the item to their collection. Matthew reported that Jeremy York had cautioned against this option because both HathiTrust and Google are not in favor of a formal distribution strategy for Google-digitized materials (like offering ILL), and HathiTrust does not officially support any kind of distribution. One-off distributions at different times might not be something they get exercised about, but he warned against becoming a target for requests when people are interested. So this could be Colby providing a one-off copy to Bangor Public.
● POD requests are limited to only those titles not available in print from commercial vendors (which there are links to in most HathiTrust and Google views). This would still need to be paid for either by the requester or a library who could add the copy to their collection.
Matthew commented that adding a POD copy to a library’s collection part was what HathiTrust and Google Books were recommending MSCS didn’t do. Deb responded that there were lots of POD copies available to buy from commercial vendors that libraries can add to their collection, so what’s the difference between that and MSCS providing the POD copy using the same source. Clem responded that the commercial vendors were probably able to provide this service as they have an agreement with Google who financially benefit in some way from the service. Matthew also doubted whether it was technically possible to only include POD links in the MaineCat records of titles without commercial vendor links in HathiTrust and/or Google Books.
Clem wondered whether the POD service should be limited to MSCS libraries only. Matthew felt that this would not be a good solution because the demand so far seemed to be from patrons of non-MSCS public libraries and it would be difficult to enforce this in MaineCat.
Clem commented that the MSCS Project Team needs to investigate the POD service more before deciding on a final business model.
v. Building HathiTrust custom collections
Jeremy York has created a test HathiTrust Maine collection for existing items (MSCS libraries haven’t added their own items yet) that should have been based on criteria that Deb had sent him, but Deb reported that she was concerned that Jeremy had excluded “(Me.)“ in the subject and author fields from the search criteria. Jeremy said it was because they had too many false hits, but Deb found only a small number of false hits results from its inclusion. Deb also reported that it was not a straightforward process to add even individual items to a custom collection.
Deb and Sara will continue to speak to Jeremy about the custom collection.
d. HathiTrust membership update
i. UMaine membership progress
James reported that there had been progress since the last Directors’ meeting, after he and Joyce had spoken to Dick Thompson (UMaine CIO), UMaine ITS and HathiTrust began discussing again the testing required for scope elements that represent UMaine. Testing of the Shibboleth connection was due to take place the following day (February 25th).
e. Budget
i. Grant extension approval
In December, Deb and Matthew received the good news that IMLS had approved MSCS’s no-cost grant extension. The official end date is May 31, 2015, but grant funds will run out before then. There are grant funds to pay for Matthew to work on MSCS until the end of August 2014, so he is using this as this as the date to have grant activities wrapped up by. However, there will still need to be reports submitted to IMLS into 2015.
ii. Budget vs. actual spending update
Matthew presented a spreadsheet showing recent and planned MSCS expenditure. MSCS only have approx. $2,000 in unallocated funds and there could be some unforeseen costs that eat up this amount. Matthew was pleased that thanks to the extension, grant underspending is no longer an issue.
iii. National end of project event planning – agenda, location, registration & costs
Agenda
After getting the grant extension approved, Matthew was able to move ahead with planning the MSCS session at the 2014 ALA Annual Conference in Las Vegas. He presented to the Directors the online description of the event and agenda. The event will start at 10 am on Friday June 27th following a truncated Print Archive Network (PAN) forum from 9:00 – 9:45 am. Matthew commented that he was pleased to have an interesting range of presenters that included some that hadn’t previously presented at PAN such as Ben Showers from the UK National Monograph Strategy.
Matthew reported that the only presenters that still need to be confirmed are the HathiTrust presenter and for Ben Bunnell from Google Books to get back regarding who from their team is available to present.
Location
Matthew is waiting to hear back from ALA Housing after he submitted a request for meeting space. Going through ALA for housing means that the session will appear on both the online and physical conference schedules. Once Matthew knows the exact location he will update the webpage and send an update to registrants.
Registration
So far there have been approx. 30 registrants (including presenters and MSCS attendees), which seems promising this far ahead. Matthew commented that hopefully as it gets closer to the event there will be more registrants and drop-ins on the day as well.
Costs
In addition to paying the costs of the Project Team to attend and introduce speakers (those not already having their costs covered by other sources), MSCS will pay for the room hire and av equipment. The Center for Research Libraries (who are co-sponsoring the session) are going to pay for refreshments. MSCS will pay a stipend to Emily Stambaugh, the Program Manager for the Western Regional Storage Trust, to be the keynote speaker.
A discussion then ensued regarding organizing an end of project event for staff who have worked on MSCS (not using grant funds).
iv. Travel claims due 02/28/2014
The deadline for MSCS travel claims is this Friday February 28th, but Matthew will extend it to Monday March 3rd because of the MSCS meetings this week. Matthew will send a reminder about it later in the week.
f. Reporting
i. Advisory Board report submitted
In late November 2013, Matthew submitted to the Advisory Board MSCS’s update report. The final report to them will be due in May 2014 and Clem felt MSCS did not need to report to them beyond this date
ii. IMLS reports submitted
Matthew submitted the IMLS performance report to UMaine’s Office of Research & Sponsored Programs (ORSP) who in turn submitted it to IMLS on deadline (before December 31, 2013). Deb received a message back from IMLS thanking MSCS for submitting such a detailed report, and that it was good to learn some of the challenges faced and how MSCS continue to figure out the best strategy to achieve the desired results.
David asked Matthew whether he has thought about what will be included in the final report to IMLS. Matthew said he hadn’t, but that reporting to IMLS was limited to a relatively short report, so MSCS would also produce a teaching document based on the experiences of MSCS to assist other shared print projects. Clem commented that perhaps MSCS could produce a white paper on shared print. Barbara commented that she would like MSCS to have produced by the end of the grant a business model other libraries can follow.
Unfortunately, as happened last year, the financial reports that ORSP are required to submit were not submitted on deadline despite Matthew sending them reminders. Matthew was surprised at the delay because all other times ORSP staff have been very responsive in getting back to him regarding any questions he has. Joyce had looked into the issue, but had not received an explanation of why there had been a delay, but she will report MSCS concerns again as such issues do not reflect well on the University or Fogler Library.
g. MSCC Sustainability
i. Forming MSCC Collections & Operations Committee & beginning work
As MSCS are completing current grant activities the Project Team are beginning to look some of the activities that were identified originally as something the Maine Shared Collections Cooperative’s Collections & Operations Committee would be responsible for, such as collection building opportunities. The Project Team have asked Joyce to call for the Maine InfoNet Directors to appoint a Board of Directors of the Maine Shared Collections Cooperative whose first task will be to appoint a Collections and Operations Committee so their activities can officially begin.
ii. Post-grant activities – review MSCC survey
Building upon some of the discussions at the last Directors’ meeting and Project Team meetings since then, Matthew has produced a survey to send out to Maine libraries to get concrete data on interest in potential Maine Shared Collections Cooperative (MSCC) activities: collection analysis, retention in place, centralized storage, and subsidizing the storage of materials by other member libraries. The Project Team hope the survey will give them an idea of the interest in joining MSCC and something to build-upon to plan for a MSCC event with interested libraries. Matthew commented that he planned to send the survey out on MEINFO with background information about MSCS/MSCC. Clem responded that he was far more likely to get a response if he sent it to individual libraries directly via email.
Clem agreed to provide Matthew with the Maine library email addresses he received from library regional consultant Valerie Osborne for public libraries and he also has contacts for academic libraries that he can provide.
David commented that the difficult part of sustaining MSCC will be to find libraries willing to pay for MSCC libraries to CTR materials when the committing libraries will be retaining the material regardless and continue to make the materials available via ILL. David reported that he and Matthew had spoken to Brook Minner (Northeast Harbor Library Director and Maine InfoNet Board member) about this issue and she had responded that although it seems like the right the thing for libraries to do, MSCC would have difficulties selling this model. Clem commented that only a small amount of libraries would be willing to be supporting members, but at least the survey would provide concrete data.
Clem commented that the development of the Northeast Regional Print Management Project will impact on the future direction of MSCC.
h. Marketing
i. POD/EOD services promotion
Matthew sent messages about the POD/EOD services on various Maine library listservs and received some positive comments back from subscribers. Matthew also tweeted about it, which resulted in retweets and positive comments from Lizanne Payne and Lorcan Dempsey (OCLC) amongst others. Matthew added posts on the MSCS website including a gallery of sample POD books which he showed the Directors. Matthew also had Gretchen Gfeller post about the services on the Fogler Library Facebook page.
ii. ALA event promotion
Matthew has been promoting the MSCS event as widely as possible on library listservs and sending information about it to ALA sections.
iii. Increase in website hits
Both the POD/EOD and ALA event promotion led to an increase in hits to the MSCS website.
iv. Charleston Conference paper publication
Becky and Deb’s 2013 Charleston Conference paper will be published in October 2014 (just before the 2014 conference).
v. Potential for IFLA paper publication
Matthew hasn’t heard from Julia Gelfand from the IFLA Acquisition and Collection Development Committee whether the MSCS paper got selected to represent the Committee in the Journal. If it is not selected it will be published by Emerald.
vi. Timberline Conference – MSCS paper not accepted
Unfortunately, Sara’s paper for the 2014 Timberline Conference was not accepted. Matthew commented that it might be because she presented last year.
2. Conferences, Events & Meetings
a. Northeast Regional Print Management Project – MSCS involvement
Clem and Matthew continue to be involved in the Northeast Regional Print Management Project. The Project is in phase 2 of planning which involves recommending governance and business model ideas, which Matthew commented is interesting because it touches upon some of the issues MSCS have discussed for sustainability, cost factors, and post-grant activities. Clem commented that the Monographs Working Group that he sits on has been greatly influenced by the work of MSCS.
b. ALA Midwinter – PAN meeting
Matthew gave a short presentation about the MSCS ALA Annual session at the end of the PAN forum at Midwinter on January 24th.
c. OCLC Developer House – SA attendance
In early February, Sara attended an OCLC Developer House which is similar to a hacker’s camp looking at coding and OCLC project ideas.
d. WebWise Conference – MSCS attendance
Matthew attended the IMLS WebWise conference in Baltimore, MD which included some thought-provoking sessions; particularly on digital preservation. Matthew’s biggest takeaway from WebWise was that MSCS partners are fortunate to have trust and a longstanding cooperation which has helped MSCS meet its targets, Matthew thought it was interesting how many grant recipients use their current grant to plan for their next application.
e. OCLC/CIC Regional Print Management event – CG presenting
Clem will be presenting at this OCLC/CIC Regional Print Management event in March in Dublin, OH.
f. Date of next Directors’ Council meeting
Matthew will send a Doodle Poll out with choices of dates and times for the next Directors’ meeting in May.