About Us

Quick facts regarding the Maine Shared Collections Cooperative (MSCC):

  • Founded in 2013 by eight of the largest libraries in the state and Maine InfoNet.
  • 42 member libraries, including 18 academic institutions and 24 public libraries.
  • Collectively agreed to retain approximately 1.5 million print books.
  • Books will be retained for a minimum of 15 years (through June 30, 2028)
  • Agreed to make retained materials accessible to library users across Maine and beyond.
  • Commitment allow other libraries to consider withdrawing their own local copies safe in the knowledge that the content is being protected for future use. 

Current Work

During 2019, 28 MSCC libraries worked on a group collection analysis project with the vendor OCLC Sustainable Collection Services (SCS) using their online analytics tool GreenGlass® to analyze titles considered too new (those published or added to collections 2003-2012) to make retention decisions about at the time of the original analysis. See this SCS-MSCC Press Release and Committee meeting material to learn more about this project.

The MSCC Collections & Operations Committee agreed a set of retention rules that were approved by the participating libraries and MSCC Executive Committee in the fall of 2019. As of November 2019, the participating libraries are reviewing lists of titles they’ve been allocated retention commitments, with a deadline of January 1st, 2020 to confirm commitments by.

See Joining the Maine Shared Collections Cooperative for more information about joining our Cooperative.

History

MSCC was founded in 2013 by eight of Maine’s largest libraries, plus the state’s consortium, Maine InfoNet. MSCC builds upon the work of the Maine Shared Collections Strategy which was a four-year project, funded in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) that established MSCC as one of the pioneers of a library practice known as, shared print, whereby libraries share responsibility for protecting library print resources.

In 2014, the Maine Shared Collections Strategy (MSCS) grant partners analyzed approximately 3 million print monograph titles in their collections and developed retention criteria for which titles they would commit to retain and those that they could safely withdraw. They then allocated retention responsibility across the group. As a result of this work the MSCS partners agreed to retain approximately 1.4 million titles for a 15-year period (June 30, 2028), during which time they won’t withdraw these titles. The titles will be retained in-place by the libraries and remain accessible via existing resource sharing agreements. The retention commitments have been documented and disclosed in MaineCat, OCLC WorldCat, and in the local Sierra catalogs of the partners.

Another of the project’s activities were the implementation of Ebook-On-Demand and Print-On-Demand services, with 1.4 million public domain HathiTrust records loaded into the union catalog MaineCat, with links to HathiTrust, Google Books, and Print-on-Demand options. These services were terminated in 2017.

See History of the MSCS grant project to learn more about the history of MSCC.

Expanding MSCC

The Maine Shared Collection Cooperative (MSCC) was established in-part to oversee the post-grant activities, including recruiting new members. The University of Maine agreed to support these efforts by funding the role of Maine Shared Collection Librarian.

Although the grant partners made a large volume of retention commitments, there are rare and interesting titles held by other Maine libraries that should be protected, which is why in 2015, following the completion of the MSCS grant project, a collection analysis service was developed for MSCC to work with individual Maine libraries on identifying books they might consider committing to retain and also those titles they can safely weed because they are being committed to retain by other MSCC libraries. To date 41 libraries have gone through this collection analysis process, ranging from small public libraries to University of Maine system libraries. Of the 41 libraries, 35 have so far joined MSCC and have collectively agreed to retain approximately 2,000 titles.

See MSCC Collections Analysis Services to learn more about how to participate.