Maine Shared Collections Strategy Wrap-up Meeting Summary<\/p>\n
August 7, 2014<\/p>\n
Colby College, Diamond Building, Room 145<\/p>\n
10:00 AM \u2013 1:00 PM<\/p>\n
Attendees: Clem Guthro, James Jackson Sanborn, Matthew Revitt, Deb Rollins, Sara Amato (on phone), Joan Campbell, Becky Albitz, Peggy O\u2019Kane, Lanny Lumbert, Brian Damien, Patrick Layne, Sarah Campbell, Sharon Fitzgerald, Mary Saunders, Marjorie Hassen, Steve Podgajny, Linda Oliver, Alisia Revitt, Jessica Thomas, Mary Macul, Judy Montgomery, Gene Wiemers, Linda Lord<\/p>\n
Absentees: Sharon Saunders, Joyce Rumery, Karl Fattig, David Nutty, Kathleen Spahn<\/p>\n
1.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n Goals of meeting: Matthew Revitt<\/strong><\/p>\n Matthew had attendees play a game where they had to guess what the numbers he displayed quantified in relation to MSCS.<\/p>\n The primary goal of the meeting was to celebrate the achievements of the project and the end of three plus years of work on MSCS. The subjects in the agenda were activities that MSCS agreed it would carry out in its IMLS grant proposal. Matthew hoped that those participants who only worked on individual parts of the project would find it useful to see the full picture of what the project did and achieved. But, instead of having formal presentations on the subjects with descriptions of what MSCS did step-by-step, the meeting was structured to be more conversational, looking at the successes, failures, and the usefulness of the activity for the libraries going forward. Each subject had assigned individuals who facilitated discussions on it. The resulting conversations would be valuable both for reporting to IMLS and shaping future projects.<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Origins of MSCS<\/strong><\/p>\n How did it all start?: Clem Guthro<\/strong><\/p>\n Clem went over the origins of MSCS from a hallway conversation at the 2009 Maine Library Association\u2019s Annual Conference to a grant proposal submitted to IMLS in 2010.<\/p>\n Clem and Marilyn Lutz (UMaine) only had a small window of time in which to submit the grant application to IMLS. Clem felt that any delays in submission could have resulted in another shared print project securing the funding. Clem reiterated how important grant funding had been to the success of the project, particularly as it had allowed MSCS to fund the roles of program manager and systems librarian.<\/p>\n Clem went over the goals of the project which were:<\/p>\n \no\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Create a collection analysis system to analyze collections (a goal that MSCS fairly early on in the project decided was not going to be feasible and Clem commented that thankfully MSCS made the decision to contract with SCS.) 3.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Collection and use analysis<\/strong><\/p>\n The saga of the OCLC reclamation: Sara Amato and Sharon Fitzgerald<\/strong><\/p>\n Sara presented the results of the reclamation which MSCS partner libraries conducted from November 2011 to early 2012 to reconcile holdings in the local catalogs with OCLC, using OCLC\u2019s Batchload Services which included updating over 250,000 OCLC numbers (see here<\/a>).<\/p>\n Note: Portland Public Library had gone through a recent reclamation at the time of the MSCS project, so didn\u2019t take part.<\/p>\n Sharon commented that although the reclamation was definitely a saga, taking a lot longer to complete than envisaged, it was a long overdue process that the libraries needed to go through in order to clean their records. The process surfaced some long-term cataloging anomalies.<\/p>\n At UMaine, the benefits of the reclamation went beyond MSCS. As holdings information for titles was updated some interesting titles became more discoverable. For Colby, Bates, and Bowdoin (CBB) it was very useful to go through reclamation prior to the implementation of their merged catalog.<\/p>\n Attendees agreed that the reclamation was necessary to accurately compare collection data and that it was the first example of doing the work required at scale. Clem commented that although SCS validates, transforms, and normalizes collection data prior to the analysis; they don\u2019t clean the data in the system, so you are still left with the same problems in the catalogs. Matthew commented that the data clean-up was also needed when it came time to disclose retention commitments in catalogs as the data matching points used for adding commitments were corrected in the reclamation.<\/p>\n Clem observed that although OCLC does not charge a fee for the reclamation, the process required significant staff time on the part of MSCS libraries.<\/p>\n Matthew asked whether anyone felt the reclamation should have been conducted prior to the grant to avoid the delays seen in years one and two of the project. Deb responded that she felt that the grant was the catalyst for the reclamation and that without it, the libraries might have been less willing to undertake the work. Attendees agreed that waiting until the grant period to carry out the reclamation was a good thing because it meant participants knew what work was required and grant funds could be used to employ Sara (as systems librarian) to coordinate the process to ensure it was carried out in a consistent manner across all the partner libraries.<\/p>\n The tale of two collection analysis vendors: Deb Rollins <\/strong><\/p>\n Deb outlined a pattern of persistent communications from Sustainable Collection Services (SCS) going back to a month after MSCS was first formed in November 2010. However, because at that stage SCS\u2019s product was still in development and MSCS libraries had an existing relationship with OCLC and had received promises from them regarding the future development of their analytics tool, MSCS made the decision after a year of the project (November 2011) to subscribe as a group to OCLC WorldCat Collection Analysis. MSCS also had to pay OCLC (on top of the subscription to WCA) for a circulation report. At the time, WCA seemed to be MSCS\u2019s only option, however, it quickly became apparent the product had many shortcomings and could not be used to meet MSCS goals.<\/p>\n In March 2012, MSCS spoke with OCLC regarding the possibility helping them with development of a next-gen analytics product and to work with a program called \u201cUser-Driven Accelerated Development\u201d (UDAD). The goal of the program is to provide a mechanism for allowing library-requested development, either to the core product or for \u201ccustom\u201d applications. Although this work never took off, it did help MSCS come up with a good list of deliverables. Throughout 2012 MSCS continued to communicate with OCLC regarding the development of their analytics tool and MSCS kept being told it would meet the project\u2019s needs once it was released.<\/p>\n SCS had remained in contact with MSCS and had asked representatives from the project to speak at a shared print pre-conference event they were organizing at the 2012 Charleston Conference; it was at this conference that MSCS representatives first met in-person to discuss the possibility of contracting with them to deliver collection analysis services. Later that month (November 2012) SCS submitted a draft proposal to MSCS and Matthew informed OCLC that MSCS didn\u2019t want to renew its subscription to WCA. After a couple months of negotiations MSCS and SCS signed an agreement to work together in February 2013 and soon after, the Collection Development and Technical Services Committees met with SCS representatives for the first of many meetings. Deb commented that the sole source document UMaine had required MSCS to submit for SCS had been easy to complete because they were able to document the issues MSCS had with WCA, which helped show why SCS were the sole option.<\/p>\n Matthew commented that MSCS were not the only project to experience issues with WCA which is why OCLC had offered a number of projects a refund for their subscription. Group functionality for OCLC\u2019s new analytics tool Collection Evaluation was still not available and Matthew had not heard from OCLC in over six months regarding MSCS\u2019s deferred access to the tool.<\/p>\n Barbara commented that when the project started she had envisaged that MSCS would use subject strengths to assign retention responsibilities and develop collection building opportunities. Matthew responded that MSCS had subject data which could be looked at post-grant, but SCS had reported that adding subject strengths to an already complicated set of retention rules would not have been feasible. Also, collection building responsibilities had been assigned to the Maine State Library for Maine related material and Portland Public for fiction and poetry.<\/p>\n Gene and Clem both commented that MSCS set out with the intention of developing a strategy for managing legacy print collections; instead the partners had actually agreed upon retention commitments and finished the work.<\/p>\n Attendees agreed that at times SCS\u2019s focus on identifying withdrawal candidates had not met MSCS\u2019s needs, but that overall the experience of working with them had been very positive The consensus was that SCS had also benefited from working with MSCS as they can now say they have worked with public libraries and provide services (e.g. comparisons with the Internet Archive) which before MSCS they had not offered.<\/p>\n 4.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Retention and preservation of legacy print collections<\/strong><\/p>\n Developing retention criteria and assigning retention responsibilities: Joan Campbell and Brian Damien<\/strong><\/p>\n Joan and Brian presented the final figures for MSCS retention commitments and the total numbers and percentage of titles that were included in the MSCS monograph collection analysis that were subsequently committed to retain by MSCS libraries (see here<\/a>).<\/p>\n Deb felt that in hindsight, the one-circulation rule MSCS used for retention of many titles was perhaps too conservative, as many titles that libraries would have otherwise weeded had been assigned commitments. Deb felt that MSCS should have looked at the bigger picture, more of what a retention commitment means in practical terms i.e. more than just committing to retain a title libraries were also committing to replace it. Attendees agreed that the policies and procedures for making retention commitment reversals helps give libraries the flexibility to make local collection maintenance decisions.<\/p>\n Sarah wondered whether the threshold for retention should have been influenced by the inclusion of public libraries because while one circulation may be enough at academic libraries, the same can\u2019t be said of publics, so perhaps the number of publics involved should dictate how many uses something has before it is committed to retain.<\/p>\n Lanny commented that including in-house stats towards usage at USM had meant that some titles were retained solely on the basis of one in-house use, which was a low bar.<\/p>\n Steve felt that the rules MSCS had developed as part of the project were only a starting place and in five years MSCC will come back to review decisions including looking at circulation rates since the commitments were made. Brian suggested that a sampling of what was retained could be included in the review.<\/p>\n Attendees expressed their thanks to CBB, and particularly Colby, for agreeing to a higher proportion of commitments for step two titles (those held by three or more MSCS libraries).<\/p>\n Steve believes that as more public libraries join MSCC, retention requirements for the original MSCS partners may be affected going forward. He noted that MSCS had laid the foundations for good future collection-building opportunities in the future, with the Area Reference and Resource Center (ARRC) libraries taking the lead.<\/p>\n Brian felt that MSCS committee members should have done a better job at communicating with their local staff and the wider library community in Maine what a retention commitment means in practical terms and what the formula was for the agreements. Sarah commented on how quickly patrons had noticed the \u201cMSCC\u201d retention note in catalogs.<\/p>\n Matthew showed how the \u201cMSCC\u201d statement in catalogs links to an explanation of what the commitment means. The note will hopefully ensure other libraries and patrons understand what the retention commitment means (see here<\/a>). Matthew will add his contact information to the web page for visitors who want to find more information about MSCC, including the process for joining the Cooperative.<\/p>\n Attendees agreed that removing the works of specific publishers from the retention lists had made important inroads on removing materials that didn\u2019t warrant a retention commitment.<\/p>\n Continuing to store committed to retain titles: Barbara McDade and Lanny Lumbert<\/strong><\/p>\n Barbara and Lanny went over the distributed storage model that MSCS had chosen to implement. Attendees agreed that retention responsibility had been allocated equitably across the group.<\/p>\n Matthew asked whether a centralized storage model would have helped to alleviate local space issues. Lanny responded that one of the goals of MSCS was to ensure committed to retain items were still accessible to patrons, which he felt couldn\u2019t be guaranteed with a central storage facility. Linda L. commented that going forward, having a centralized storage facility would be important for smaller libraries because of their space concerns. However, attendees agreed that for the MSCS partners there was no political will for a centralized facility and they also had concerns about the logistics of establishing such a facility.<\/p>\n Attendees agreed that the 15 year retention period is still appropriate. Steve commented that 15 years signified a serious commitment from institutions, rather than having open ended commitments.<\/p>\n Linda O. commented that as MSCS starts to look at titles published post-2003 it will need to consider the large numbers of self-published titles added to collections since then and whether different retention rules, including higher circulation thresholds should be considered for these titles.<\/p>\n Preserving rare titles: Peggy O\u2019Kane and Patrick Layne<\/strong><\/p>\n Peggy and Patrick presented the results of their work on using MSCS retention lists to preserve rare titles.<\/p>\n At the Maine State Library (MSL), Peggy had used MSCS data on rare items with circulating copies to identify items that need to be moved to closed stacks. Peggy provided the example of community or local interest cookbooks which MSL does not systematically collect, but has approximately 75 such titles acquired through donation and purchase. All of them have been in MSL\u2019s open stacks. Even single copy titles were available for circulation. Examining them against the information supplied by MSCS has resulted in the majority of them now residing in closed stacks. In contrast, despite their rare status, most items which are of specific interest to genealogists,\u00a0 including town and family histories, remain in open stacks. These items are used frequently by researchers who bypass the catalog and go immediately to the relevant call number ranges.<\/p>\n In terms of digitization, MSL has recently purchased a KIC Bookeye scanner which has been used to carry out some back scanning. They also have a digital repository based on the bepress Digital Commons software. Given the age and historic significance of so much of MSL\u2019s collection, setting priorities as to what to digitize first has been a challenge. The lists provided by the MSCS project allowed them to identify Maine material that is not digitized in HathiTrust and also is not widely held compared to WorldCat holdings. With this data individual items have been selected to be digitized.<\/p>\n Peggy reported on the exciting news that the MSL had been approved as a digital hub for the Digital Public Library of America.<\/p>\n Patrick highlighted the work he had carried out at Bangor Public Library (BPL). Using a list of 811 titles that were not available in the HathiTrust and were published before 1930, he assigned the items to one of\u00a0 three categories:<\/p>\n \no\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Items still under copyright (based on date or Stanford Copyright Renewal Database). Patrick showed some interesting examples of titles added to BPL\u2019s Digital Commons and how in some cases their availability there had resulted in increased usage rates. For example, one title that had zero circulation for the physical copy had received 129 views in Digital Commons.<\/p>\n Peggy discussed the importance of not duplicating digitization efforts; for example, she had looked at the Maine HathiTrust collection to identify what was already available there. Deb commented that there are some Maine items in the HathiTrust which are missing from this collection, so it would be wise to search the entire HathiTrust database when looking to see if an item has already been digitized.<\/p>\n Deb discussed the possibility of Maine libraries offering a Digitize-On-Demand patron-initiated service for public domain materials, rather than just having librarians identifying interesting items to digitize.<\/p>\n Documenting and disclosing retention commitments: Sara Amato and Jessica Thomas<\/strong><\/p>\n Sara presented her guidance for applying Committed To Retain (CTR) statements in library catalogs (see here<\/a>).<\/p>\n Jessica and Sharon both reported that the process of adding retention commitments had resulted in them identifying holding records that needed to be cleaned.<\/p>\n Attendees were surprised how soon they had received queries from both staff and patrons regarding \u201cMSCC\u201d appearing in the catalog.<\/p>\n Sara reported on the excellent news that all retention commitments have now been loaded into OCLC. Matthew reported that he and Sara had been contacted by other shared print projects that were also opposed to paying the ILL fee for using the OCLC Shared Print Symbol in ILLiad and wanted to know how MSCS went about adding two symbols on holding records. Matthew felt that if more projects go the same route as MSCS, it might result in OCLC developing a more acceptable solution. Sharon reported that based on her experiences of working in OCLC there now appears to be better connectivity between the regular symbol and the shared print symbol. Deb warned the other libraries that it appears from the recent OCLC holding counts she saw for UMaine, OCLC is, as expected, now including holding counts for a library\u2019s shared print symbol in addition to counts for other, regular symbols, which means library holdings have (falsely) seemed to jump by large amounts.<\/p>\n MSCS are still waiting to see Innovative\u2019s long-term solution for the display of retention information in MaineCat, which should be in their July beta release of Inn-Reach. Understandably, with the URSUS migration to Sierra underway, James turned down the opportunity to be one of the beta projects for testing the display.<\/p>\n
\no\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Develop a strategy to make retention decisions at scale.
\no\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Examine the presence of large scale digital collections (HathiTrust and Internet Archive) as a determiner of what to commit to retain in print.
\no\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Integrate Print-On-Demand and E-book-On-Demand for large scale digital collections.
\no\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Expose MSCS retention decisions to the world and to Maine libraries.<\/p>\n
\no\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Items that Patrick digitized because he felt they were \u201ccool\u201d titles. Digital copies of these titles have and either already been added to Bangor Public Library Digital Commons or are slated for future addition.
\no\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Items that are a low priority for digitization by Bangor Public Library.<\/p>\n