Maine Shared Collections Cooperative Collections and Operations Committee
July 29, 2025
2:00pm – 3:00pm
Attendees: Jeff Eastman, Patrick Layne, Tim Morton, Shiloh Parker, Matthew Revitt, Krystie Wilfong, Meg Gray, Ana Noriega, Sarah Skawinski
1. Update on the Display of MSCC commitments in MaineCat
Matthew has met with Summer Unsinn (Bowdoin) and Alisia Revitt (Maine InfoNet) regarding fixing the display of MSCC commitments in MaineCat for Alma libraries. Alisia is working on a fix and will put it in place later this summer.
2. Meeting to Discuss Recording & Display of MSCC commitments in Polaris (Dirigo Libraries)
Matthew has arranged a meeting with representatives from the Dirigo libraries and Maine InfoNet to discuss the recording and display of MSCC commitments in Polaris. Matthew hoped the meeting would generate some creative solutions for ensuring the notes are discoverable and staff know not to withdraw the titles.
3. Using OCLC Data on Potentially Over Retained Titles
At the Committee’s previous meeting, Krystie had brought up the idea of looking at how many titles are retained in the state as another area where MSCC could reduce the number of titles committed to retain.
Matthew presented data that OCLC had provided him a few years ago (prior to recent commitments reviews) showing overlap for MSCC commitments in WorldCat. At the time OCLC ran the comparison there were a total of 295,731 titles with multiple commitments. Matthew commented that overall the number of titles with multiple commitments is relatively low when compared to with the other 1 million plus titles that only have one commitment, but that there are still some potential space savings to be had.
Matthew commented that he can envisage situations where having two commitments might be a good thing, but others where it’s overkill (e.g. where there are only two copies of a fiction title in Maine and both are committed). Matthew felt that it makes sense to reduce commitments for those with three or more and take that down to two commitments.
Matthew went on to show the specific OCLC numbers with multiple commitments, which libraries hold them, and the total WorldCat counts. Matthew reported that in terms of which library should be left with the commitment, Sara Amato has developed a deallocation model for EAST, but that he felt it’s probably more intricate than MSCC needs with fewer than 10 libraries. Instead Matthew proposed that knowing each of the Committee member institution’s appetites for retention they could use AI to develop an algorithm/script to prioritize specific institutions. So, for example, the first rule could be that if the Maine State Library owns a title they always keep the commitment because it’s presumed that if they have it’s Maine related. Then if it’s not held by them, but Bowdoin owns, it they keep the commitment. And then if either of those two libraries don’t have it one of the smaller UMS schools keeps it as their commitments are relatively low. However, there will be situations where none of these libraries owns the title and the Committee will need to agree on which library should take it.
The Committee discussed how many copies it felt should be retained. Ana wondered whether it might make sense to work with the Internet Archive. Matthew reported that UMaine is working with them on a project for titles being discarded and that he and other UMaine colleagues plan to present the results of the project at the MLA conference.
The Committee discussed the MSCC criteria and the rationale for keeping multiple copies. Matthew reported the decision was made to keep all copies of titles where there were 10 or fewer holdings in OCLC. Because of this most of the titles with multiple commitments were probably Maine related.
In response to Matthew asking for a gut reaction to committing 1 copy or 2 copies of a title, there were 4 votes for 2 copies, 1 vote for 1 copy, and 1 vote for 1.5 (with Ana requesting that more analysis is done to analyze Maine related titles). The consensus was only retaining 1 copy was too risky. Sarah was in favor of two copies because she wouldn’t have to replace a book if lost or damaged. However, Krystie pointed out that just because a title isn’t committed for MSCC does not mean a library will weed their copy. However, others felt that if everyone weeded their copies a title could be lost from the collective collection. Matthew asked that the group to consider the question of 2 copies or 1 copy more and come ready to discuss it at the meeting, by which time hopefully UMaine will have appointed a new head of collection development.
Matthew confirmed for Ana that adding circulation data to the OCLC data would be difficult and time consuming.
The CBB representatives plan to discuss their thoughts on how commitments should be deallocated in light of them thinking more of themselves as a single collection, with duplication across the libraries not making sense. To help this work Ana suggested it might be useful for the CBB libraries to see how many of the 281,000 titles held by two libraries are assigned to them. Ana and Tim felt there might be CBB staff who could help with developing algorithms (possibly using AI) to deallocate commitments.
Action Item: Matthew will share the spreadsheet with the Committee and check with Sara Amato about using the OCLC API to add title information and HathiTrust overlap information to the spreadsheet so the Committee can see which titles are Maine related and available online. Matthew will also check with Sara on the feasibility of using AI to deallocate retention responsibility.
The Committee will review the spreadsheet and consider whether MSCC should only ever keep one holding of a retained title.
4. Status of Review of MSCC Commitments & Next Steps
Matthew asked whether any Committee members had anything to report regarding reviews of their MSCC commitments. And whether anyone was interested in him reviewing commitments and/or doing some review work in Alma Analytics, following what Kristie did.
Action Item: Matthew will follow with both Sarah and Shiloh regarding their review of commitments.
Patrick reported that Bangor PL has removed almost 35,000 commitments from the list Matthew generated — almost all are out of date & poor condition JUV items.
Ana reported that Krystie had shared the query in Alma Analytics with her in their shared network zone.
Action Item: Krystie will investigate whether it’s possible to share her query more widely in Analytics.
Shiloh reported on weeding that USM are carrying out and asked how best to notify Matthew when they identify material with MSCC commitments that are in poor condition. Krystie responded that she sends Matthew lists of MSCC titles Bates wants to withdraw twice a year as part of the MSCC transfer process.
Krystie would like MSCC to discuss removing commitments on titles available in the HathiTrust and multi-volume sets. And felt it would be useful to see HathiTrust overlap data, as Bates considers the availability of titles from in the HathiTrust in its weeding workflow. Tim confirmed that Bowdoin also considers HathiTrust availability when deciding whether or not to keep a title.
The Committee discussed that while it might not make sense to remove all commitments on titles available from the HathiTrust, on an individual basis while conducting weeding projects libraries could identify specific titles that are available on either HathiTrust or Internet Archive and remove them from their collection. Then similarly for multi-volume sets if most volumes have no circulation, if the series isn’t complete, commitments could be removed on a title-by-title basis.
Looking at the data from OCLC a lot of the titles had multiple commitments at other shared print programs, so the Committee discussed whether those commitments meant MSCC could retain fewer copies.
Action Item: Krystie will draft a proposal for how to handle MSCC titles in the HathiTrust and multi-volume sets that MSCC libraries identify as withdrawal candidates.
Matthew will ensure that “encyclopedia” is included in the retention review document because these are out of scope for MSCC, but still appear to have received commitments in some cases.
The Committee confirmed for Matthew that their libraries currently don’t have any issues with their serial and retention titles which tend to Maine related titles.