Reports

Report of the Working Group on Cooperative Collection Development

The Cooperative Collection Development Working Group has developed a pilot project for music acquisitions, in collaboration with the Music librarians from the six participating institutions: Brandeis; UConn; UMass, Amherst; UNH; Wellesley and Williams. All six institutions will participate in a separate approval plan with YBP that will cover books in all aspects of Music. Within the part of the Music LC schedule that covers popular and world music (ML 3410-3776), participating institutions have agreed to divide up primary collecting responsibilities. All selectors will work on-line and receive up-to-date information about the decisions being made by their colleagues through YBP’s GobiTween and GoBeyond features.

Music was initially chosen because statistical analysis done by the working group revealed a high degree of duplication in the book acquisitions of the four members who were current customers of YBP. There was also general interest in extending the breadth of BLC resources in world music and interdisciplinary aspects of music. Having a group of selectors who already knew and respected each other from their participation in existing subject groups and projects, and an enthusiastic leader who already had the trust and respect of the group, helped immeasurably.

We believe our partnership with YBP will contribute substantially to the success of this project. We wish to applaud Brandeis and UNH in particular, for taking on the added burden of working with a new vendor in order to support this effort. We will be asking most of our Music selectors to look at an expanded list of publishers and profiling parameters. For some, this will be their first exposure to reviewing British imprints on approval. Decisions on how this effort will be funded have been left to each institution; however, we believe that the libraries all intend to do this without allocating additional funds.

We expect to achieve measurable improvement in the number and diversity of titles acquired and a decrease in the extent of duplication. We are not, however, mandating numeric copy limits or seeking comprehensive coverage of all the music books handled by YBP. No one will be asked to purchase works they do not think belong in their collection.

Music isn’t a very large area (in FY2005 YBP handled 904 titles in class M); but we believe it is a good place to start. We anticipate that the shared approval plan will offer selectors a collaborative space where they can share thoughts about specific titles and observe other libraries’ buying patterns and title-specific decisions. Over time we think this experience will cause selectors to rethink what materials they must own locally and to derive as much satisfaction from increasing the pool of titles available to the BLC community as they now do in building local collections. We are also optimistic that success in this effort may lead the Music librarians to extend their cooperation into other formats in the future.

The charge for this project assumed the “purchase, installation and implementation of OCLC’s WorldCat Collection Analysis product”. However, when we examined this product more closely, we saw a valuable tool for analyzing our collections retrospectively but not prospectively. Since we were charged with changing prospective collection development behaviors, we determined that this product was not the right tool for this task. We felt that YBP’s new GoBeyond service, enhanced (for a nominal fee) beyond GobiTween to provide greater functionality (electronic slips, peer history at the title level, library notes, reports, book reviews and tables of contents) was judged to be a better and more cost-effective way to proceed. We do see potential uses of the OCLC product in the BLC in the future. For instance, if several BLC libraries should decide to commit to a cooperative weeding project, along the lines of the Tri-College effort, this tool would be invaluable. It may also prove to be a good tool for assessing the effectiveness of this pilot in the future. But for our immediate purposes, the WorldCat Collection Analysis seemed a frustratingly segmented and overly-expensive product that didn’t seem likely to help us accomplish our goals.

Our charge also asked us to consider the approval plan as a device for implementing decisions made among the participants about distributing collection development responsibilities. We have been successful in doing that to some degree, but we are skeptical that vendor pre-selection alone can achieve greater diversity and reduce duplication in ways that will really work for our users. Formulas and profile differentiations might work if our curricular offerings were locally distinctive, but in the majority of cases—particularly for the monographic dependent disciplines—there is more replication than differentiation in teaching and even research focus.

We are excited to have the music project on track to begin operation July 1st.YBP representatives are currently visiting all participants to work out local profiles for the new shared plan and to explain the new publishers and services that will be included. At the start of June all the participants who have been purchasing some or all of their music books from other vendors will supply YBP with a list of these purchases from 2004 to date. All participants will similarly provide YBP lists of their English language standing orders. YBP will load this information into their database. This data will help selectors make better informed decisions and constitute a baseline for measuring our progress at the conclusion of fiscal 2007. We expect to use YBP’s report-generating capabilities to measure the level of duplication in our acquisitions before this project and after the end of its initial year of operation.

The Music librarians have indicated that one or more of their other BLC colleagues might wish to join our project. We indicated that any additional affiliate must receive explicit authorization from their Director to join this pilot. Since any new affiliate would need to schedule a profiling session with our YBP liaison before the end of May and be prepared to provide the required data on non-YBP purchases and standing orders by June 1st, we set May 1st as a deadline for such commitments. At this writing, Northeastern has forwarded a request to join the pilot through its Director and has scheduled profiling sessions with YBP. We think the enthusiasm of this group can’t help but influence other selectors to take cooperative possibilities more seriously.

Most of us want to see more agreements modeled after the Music plan, but not necessarily limited to just approval plan materials. We have begun discussions about parceling out primary responsibilities in Asian studies. The dispersal of this field across the LC grid, the absence of a self-conscious group of selectors and the availability of English language materials from sources not covered by our approval vendors, makes Asian studies a greater challenge. We remain optimistic though, that something useful can be accomplished. At the same time we want to build on the enthusiasm and shared learning of the Music selectors to expand into other areas in the arts and humanities: Art, Film Studies and Philosophy have been repeatedly mentioned as possibilities.

We have identified three factors we think will be foundational to the success of future efforts of this kind within the BLC:

• The Virtual Catalog must function with seamless interoperability so that all BLC libraries can use it to share collections.
• BLC must foster and support the development of communities of subject selectors.The Virtual Catalog must function with seamless interoperability so that all BLC libraries can use it to share collections.
• BLC must continue to develop resource sharing agreements for formats other than books and must recognize the need of both scholars and teachers for semester length loans when circumstances permit.

Our understanding is that with this report, this group goes out existence, in a formal way. The five of us who are not in a position to follow Robert Evensen’s path into a well-earned retirement, expect to continue to promote the possibilities of cooperate collection development within the relevant Communities of Interest in which we participate. Leslie Button will maintain close contact with the Music librarians group during their initial months of activity. We are also asking this group to provide preliminary feedback on their work together to the first meeting of the Heads of Collection Management COI in 2007. Peter Allison has agreed to work with Leslie Button to see that a formal assessment of the accomplishments of the Music project’s initial year is prepared, reviewed by the COI, and transmitted to the BLC Board in the fall of 2007.

We continue to believe that the logic of cooperative collection development will spread, particularly as more of our selectors have the opportunity to easily see the decisions being made at other BLC libraries. We anticipate that the success of the Music pilot will lead to additional interest in similar ventures. Until such time as the Board decides otherwise, we assume that our role should be to try to work with interested parties to see that the most promising proposals go to the Board as requests to charge specific groups with specific measurable outcomes.

Respectfully submitted,
Peter Allison, University of Connecticut
Judith Brink, University of New Hampshire
Sandra Brook, Williams
Leslie Button, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Robert Evensen, Brandeis
Eileen Hardy, Wellesley


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January 15, 2005

Report to the Board of the Boston Library Consortium on Opportunities in Cooperative Collection Management and Cooperative Collection Development

Peter Allison, Collection Development Team Leader, University of Connecticut Libraries and BLC Visiting Program Officer, January-February 2005.


Collection Management




There is widespread interest in the idea of a last copy repository for the print copies of JSTOR titles. Most respondents thought this model could be applied to other commonly held electronic titles as well. The large archive of American Chemical Society titles and several commercial publishers were mentioned. Not all BLC libraries have immediate space needs. Brown, MIT, MBLWHOI, New Hampshire, Wellesley and UMass Amherst have, or shortly will have, off-site storage facilities. The Five Colleges Inc. repository is assembling an archive of JSTOR titles. Williams has formally affiliated with the Five Colleges for purposes of having a claim on the JSTOR archive, Wellesley is examining a similar opportunity.

Libraries recognize that the JSTOR titles constitute core scholarly materials, many of which come from humanistic disciplines where most journals still come in print formats. Having something to say to concerned faculty regarding back-up access to JSTOR, if or when a library withdraws its print, seems widely appealing. However a common understanding of what services this repository might be expected to perform is not as widely shared. The possibility of rapid delivery of scanned articles or the physical delivery of artifactual copy may be possibilities we would like our users to imagine, but the liklihood that we will actually want a repository to deliver either of these services seems slight.

JSTOR was designed to be a fully functional alternative to print. It’s coverage of the original journals is cover to cover. Its architecture offers good protection against local systems failure. The California Digital Library and Harvard are both creating “dark archives” to protect the intellectual heritage represented within JSTOR against catastrophe. JSTOR has its own paper archive. Many libraries in New England and across the country will doubtless hold on to parts of their print for years to come. In this environment having one accessible archive in New England would appear to be a sufficient solution for the purposes of most BLC libraries.

If for some reason the Five Colleges are not willing to extend an affiliation with their shared archive to all interested BLC libraries, there appears to be a willingness among current members to cooperate toward the establishment of a distributed archive, housed in a combination of offsite storage and on-site restricted access facilities. It speaks well for BLC that member libraries such as Wellesley and MBLWHOI appear willing to take actions to support such an initiative, even though they have less costly alternatives in place or under consideration.

Permanent commitments are difficult to make. If BLC develops its own distributed archive a ten-year commitment made between the interested libraries (which would be binding whether or not all parties remain in BLC) may be easier to reach. At the end of such an agreement the need for further extension or a different set of arrangements could be assessed. BLC libraries may wish to consider covering only current JSTOR back-file offerings under their agreement. Since only some JSTOR titles are currently available for electronic-only subscription, it does not seem critical, and might prove unnecessarily burdensome, for libraries to annually add volumes when, or if, the JSTOR moving wall advances. Creating a similar agreement for ACS or other professional society backfiles probably makes good sense for those libraries with such holdings, even though scientists are generally more comfortable relying on electronic access. Although ACS and similar society publications are ongoing, BLC’s archival commitment need not be.

Commercially provided electronic titles are inherently riskier long-term bets for stability in than are the offerings of JSTOR or professional societies such as ACS. However these titles now include strong incentives for libraries to rely on purely electronic provision. In most instances the overlap between a library’s print and electronic holdings for commercial titles doesn’t offer the magnitude of space savings offered by JSTOR or the ACS collections. BLC libraries might be wiser to focus on understanding and evaluating the emerging alternatives for trusted, third-party digital preservation, than on attempts to maintain print archives backing up their commercial titles.

Recommendation: Investigate an affiliation for all interested BLC libraries with the Five Colleges repository for a shared claim on the backfiles from JSTOR and potentially other scholarly society backfiles.

Cooperative Collection Development

Background

BLC has had a mixed history with cooperative collection development.

Journal lists in the neurosciences and chemistry were reviewed and titles held by few libraries were identified and retention responsibilities assigned. Despite the cancellation of some of these titles by a holding library with hard choices to make, many retention agreements continue and are overseen by the COI’s for Biology and Chemistry. It isn’t clear at this point whether such efforts should be expanded. The acceptance by some BLC members of the “big deals” offered by the largest commercial publishers has greatly increased title availability within the consortium, but libraries are likely to be reluctant to make commitments for many of these titles. The importance of retaining journal diversity within the consortium will depend almost entirely on the success of BLC’s efforts to create a Virtual Catalog journals. Many BLC libraries now use a mix of interlibrary lending and commercial document delivery to meet large volume demand for the fastest possible desktop delivery. It remains to be seen whether BLC libraries can effectively populate a shared platform and offer end user initiated services that will compete on quality and timeliness while driving down costs.

Cooperative collection development agreements for monographic acquisitions—many of which focused on expanding the reach of BLC collecting into new areas—were begun in the late 1990’s in business, art, film, music, health science literature, small press poetry and Latin American Women’s Studies. As the consortium grew to include additional members who were generally further from Boston, the heavy commitment to meetings that fostered many of these cooperative activities began to seem burdensome. With the demise of the Cooperative Collections Committee many of these agreements lost a forum for review and oversight necessary for their ongoing vitality. In 2003, a Collaborative & Complementary Collection Development Task Force concluded that these efforts should be formally abandoned. The door was left open for groups to continue specific collaboration under the aegis of particular Communities of Interest, but the report was explicit that central support for any of these projects from BLC would not continue.

This mixed history of hard work and cooperative spirit frustrated by a perceived withdrawal of central support sets the stage for any new initiative. BLC librarians understand that we are stronger collectively than individually and they are willing to work together to achieve common purposes, but they are skeptical that written agreements will be kept or that the consortium can organize itself to guide and direct their efforts.

Our Current Situation

The digital revolution in the provision of scholarly information is forcing us to reexamine our existing assumptions about collecting. Usage data we receive from our digital products is changing the way we understand our core commitments. User demand is being substituted for scholarly reputation in many instances. Declining monographic circulation has caused some of our institutions to seek better data on the use of our print resources. Most importantly, expanding numbers of electronic journals and a host of attractive new and reformatted web offerings is outpacing our budgets, not to mention our vetting routines and record maintenance procedures.

If our users can now request a monograph from another BLC library and receive it, on average, within 3-4 days, should we not rethink what our local collections must contain?

Once the immediate, understood needs of local instruction are met, shouldn’t library selectors be encouraged to give increased consideration to the enrichment of the total universe of resources available to their users through BLC?

Though the logic behind these questions appears compelling, it is hard to exaggerate the challenge they represent to existing collection development practice. We are all accustomed to trying to build the best possible local collections our resources will permit. We have created, in many instances, selective but coherent collections that make sense to us and to our users. We have collected defensively; buying titles whose absence from our holdings we could not easily defend.

If BLC libraries want to create richer and more diverse monographic collections and/or free up resources for new digital initiatives, they will need to invest time and effort to change the cultures of local collecting. The librarians upon whom we rely to build our collections will not change their current practices without direction and reinforcement from within their libraries and support through some sort of formally established group within BLC.

Challenges

We face many impediments to cooperative activity.

Some of us lack the resources to support collecting beyond what is absolutely necessary for local use in some or all of our collecting areas.

Many of us are not yet generating or analyzing the kinds of detailed circulation reports that can help selectors develop a sophisticated understanding of local collection use.

Few of us have given systematic thought to distinguishing between material we need on site and that which users can be expected to request through the Virtual Catalog.

Most of us have streamlined our work processes by focusing on expanded use of approval plans and standing orders. The acquisition of large numbers of titles following vendor profiles, without local selector review, cuts library costs but greatly increases collection uniformity.

Most of us do not have written documents that explain what we are and are not collecting in specific areas in a mode that would be useful to our counterparts across BLC. Where such documents do exist, significant stakeholders may be uncomfortable with their wide distribution.

BLC libraries have fewer of the foundational commitments to specific subjects that have underwritten the most successful cooperative collection development arrangements of the past. Brandeis can be counted upon to collect Judaica. Boston College can similarly be looked to for extensive coverage of all aspects of Catholicism and Irish Studies. Brown can be expected to remain extremely strong in Egyptology and the ancient Middle East more generally. MIT also has several outstanding collections in areas not widely collected elsewhere in BLC and MBLWHOI has unique strengths in the marine sciences. At this point though, only Brown and MBLWHOI among the above institutions is participating in the Virtual Catalog. Most BLC libraries and “VC” participants collect selectively across a wide range of subjects, but few have institutional strengths to which they can comfortably make in-depth collecting commitments. Collecting in this context involves a continual re-examination of the level of support we offer to an evolving curriculum and the more rapidly changing research interests of our students and faculty.

For BLC libraries in, or close to Boston, the vast collections of Harvard University provide an important resource for selected constituencies. MIT has reciprocal access agreements with Harvard that cover both faculty and graduate students. Many faculty from BLC institutions have access to Harvard collections through various joint appointments and special arrangements including the purchase, by their home institutions, of access privileges at Harvard. The purpose, scope, level and necessity of cooperative collection development activities within BLC is likely to be perceived somewhat differently by libraries who have such arrangements than by those further removed from Cambridge.

Most of us have committed in various ways, to act to promote a sustainable future for scholarly communication. We do not want our efforts to diversify our collections to further undermine the financial situation of the publishers upon whom we most rely. If a 30% reduction in the titles we buy from a particular university press leads to a 30% rise in that publisher’s prices, we will not have served our interests or those of the scholarly community. At the same time, highly specialized scholarly studies, likely to be consulted by only a few readers, can only be sustained as print publications by direct subvention. Libraries cannot be expected to perform this function. The migration of some kinds of academic monographs to refereed, specialist websites, seems inevitable, and need not be mourned.

Opportunities

BLC has a robust mix of libraries, whose collective holdings far exceed those of even the largest of its member libraries.

The staffs of BLC libraries collectively possess a great range of subject expertise that we have not begun to tap for our shared benefit.

At least thirteen BLC libraries, including most of the largest members, do much or all of their domestic acquisitions business with the same book vendor, YBP. YBP has had significant experience working with library consortia, most particularly OHIO LINK, and offers a variety of services in support of consortial activities. Although part of the challenge of cooperative collection development is to move more of our activity outside the universe of material offered by our domestic vendors, YBP covers a wider array of publishers than most of us could review without their assistance, and will be a valuable partner in our efforts.

Recommendations

BLC should move immediately to establish a Cooperative Collection Development Steering Committee to guide and support efforts in this area. This steering committee should be small and able to conduct most of its work through email and conference calls. Its focus should be on monitoring, coordinating, facilitating and providing technical and statistical support to the voluntary efforts of individuals and groups, not formulating policy or assigning formal responsibilities to institutions.

Members of the CCDSC should be in regular, informal touch with cooperating libraries, through the responsible collection development administrator or a designee. The CCDSC should also prepare periodic progress reports for review by the BLC Board and the wider BLC community.

The CCDSC should:


• Work with YPB, and other vendors and library service providers as appropriate, to establish a benchmark figure for unique new titles added across the consortium against which we can measure our progress.
• Investigate the value, cost and feasibility of attempting to produce measures of collection overlap.
• Based on an assessment of where the best opportunities presently exist, foster the development of at least two volunteer counterpart groups of subject selectors, and help prepare them to begin their work in a new way beginning this June.
• Develop a process and a format for the sharing and updating of monographic standing order commitments across BLC libraries.
• Act as a clearinghouse for information on subject and language expertise across the consortium. Investigate the feasibility of creating guidelines or model agreements under which a selector at one institution might also acquire material for the collections of other BLC libraries.
• Investigate the feasibility of a web-based BLC representation of library collecting levels that could give selectors and administrators useful information without raising issues of confidentiality.

Conclusion

BLC faces an opportunity not a crisis. The available data, much anecdotal information and some highly unscientific samplings from WorldCat, suggest that we already share a rich and diverse collective resource. If a small number of individuals from only some member libraries take up the challenge to work together to increase the diversity of BLC holdings, significant further gains can be made. The structure, leadership and measures of accomplishment that a steering committee can provide should provide the support and sense of accomplishment that individual participants will require. If we start moving in cooperative directions, continue to promote the Virtual Catalog and invest in its functionality and associated services, more and more of our users will become advocates and supporters of the direction in which we want to go.




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