Maine Shared Collections Strategy Collection Development
February 27, 2014
Colby College, Miller Library, Conference Room
9:00 – 11:00 am
Attendees: Deb Rollins, Matthew Revitt, Joan Campbell, Becky Albitz, Peggy O’Kane, Lanny Lumbert, Brian Damien, Sara Amato (called in)
Absentees: Clem Guthro, Toni Katz
1. Project Updates
a. Disclosing retention commitments – local catalogs, OCLC & MaineCat
Local catalogs
Matthew received the retention allocation figures for Step Two titles from SCS (see below), so Sara can begin the filtering she did in Step One and then start adding commitments in local catalogs.
The public display for the commitments is now in the new merged Colby, Bates and Bowdoin catalog, see here. Karl Fattig (Bowdoin) has been investigating having a hover for the MSCC link which he will look into more in the summer and which hopefully can be used by the other MSCS libraries. Sara has been speaking to Portland Public Library about getting the public display loaded there as well.
Sara reported that the loading of retention commitments for journals and serials is going well, she is near to completing URSUS, but has delayed work in the CBB catalog until the staff there have had time to address early transition issues with moving to the new merged catalog.
Sara presented two options for the public display of retention statements for serials/journals. The public display of the commitment can be used by other libraries to make decisions about their own collections.
Option 1:
Option 2:
The Committee felt neither option was ideal, with Option 1 making it appear like there were a separate set of MSCC holdings, and Option 2 not having volume information which is required to show which volumes the MSCC commitment applies to. Sara confirmed volume information could go in Option 2, but it would be a manual process, where’s it would be an automated process to have it in the checkin box (Option 1). Joan commented that part of the problem was how prominent the MSCC link appeared, so she asked Sara if it could be lighter. Sara responded that it could be done and she will send Matthew an example to share with the Committee.
Over time, as more volumes are added, the retention statement in Option 1 might become more distinguishable from the holdings information as MSCC would just be for the committed volumes for example, 1-30, but the holdings would actually be 1-35. However, some Committee members doubted whether this would make it any clearer and some titles might not actually grow so the two sets of numbers would remain the same.
Deb asked if these were the only options available to MSCS. Sara responded that if it shows holding information it has to be somewhere in the checkin box, but it can move anywhere in that box. One suggestion put forward was that in Option 1 the statement could be under ‘Latest Received’ with spaces in between to show it is not actually part of ‘Latest Received’. Sara produced an example to show how this would look, see here. The Committee thought this option looked better. Joan commented that she would like to consult with the public access at Bowdoin to get their opinion. Deb felt any option would be unpopular with library staff.
Matthew will send Sara’s examples to the Committee to review further and discuss with their libraries staff. The Committee will then report back to Matthew their thoughts.
OCLC
Matthew reported that OCLC haven’t processed the batch loading request Sara submitted at the end of November/beginning of December which is disappointing. The 90 day timeframe they mentioned in their automated message to the response is due to end next week, so Sara is going to chase the progress.
MaineCat
James received a Summit update email in January from Tom Jacobson (Innovative, Interfaces, Inc.) outlining planned 2014 enhancements which included mapping the 583 field to union catalogs, which is promising news. Later in January Deb, Clem and Sara provided Tom Jacobson with details of MSCS requirements for the 583 field. James and Clem are meeting with III reps in May so will mention the 583 field again.
Because MSCS doesn’t know when these III enhancements will go live, in the short-term 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 will then automatically appear in MaineCat. Matthew commented that when this is close to happening he will need to post an explanation of the retention statement to various Maine library listservs.
b. E-book-On-Demand & Print-On-Demand testing update
Record loading
Sara has completed loading into Solar the 1.3 million E-book-On-Demand and Print-On-Demand records. Once Solar goes away, the records are going to need to find a new home which is something that Sara and Maine InfoNet are looking into: one option is having them in URSUS.
Using Google Analytics, MSCS are tracking clicks to HathiTrust, Google Books, and the POD request form from MaineCat records:
MSCS are also tracking what specific titles have the most clicks. Matthew commented that these 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 included as a hit, but now that has been addressed it should make for some interesting reporting.
POD requests
There have been approx. 20 POD requests submitted so far and over the last week they have been averaging 1-2 per day. Matthew has been tracking the requests received so far and he showed the Committee some of the diverse range of titles requested thus far. Some interesting trends include:
● About half (9) required a HathiTrust partner login to download
● For 6 titles there were physical copies in MaineCat. Matthew commented that if the MaineCat records were merged to see both print and e-versions in one record there might be fewer requests when there is a physical copy. Some serial records merged unintentionally and Sara is looking into the possibility of doing this for all records when they need to be reloaded to their new home.
● 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 to on the HathiTrust and Google pages.
● 4 requests have been submitted by libraries on behalf of patrons.
● 3 requests have been from MSCS library patrons.
So far, MSCS on average is spending $26-$27 per book, so in total have spent approx. $500 of the $2,000 allocated. The grant is also covering mailing costs, but those are minimal. Matthew will be sending a survey to requesters at the end of the month to get feedback on the service.
Most of the requests have been straightforward to fulfil, but there have been a couple of 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, which only one volume was available to download anyway.
Matthew presented a gallery of POD copies. Deb commented that some of the printed books had not been the correct size compared to the original, so the text was hard to view.
Peggy reported that the Maine State Library is currently working with the HathiTrust/University of Michigan to affirm the public domain copyright status of the Maine Bulletin and plan to do this for more titles in the future.
The Project Team are currently investigating how to make the POD service sustainable once the grant funds are exhausted including who pays for the service libraries or requesters. Matthew will present to the Committee the plans once they have been formalized. Matthew reported that Jeremy York had cautioned against providing libraries directly with the POD copy 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. Matthew commented that MSCS do not want to be a legal test case that Google or HathiTrust pursues.
c. HathiTrust membership update
UMaine still haven’t joined HathiTrust, but the positive news is that UMaine ITS and HathiTrust have begun testing UMaine’s Shibboleth connection after some delays.
For POD, if a title requires HathiTrust partner login to fully download Matthew has to go through Colby staff.
d. Building HathiTrust custom Maine collection
Jeremy York has created a test HathiTrust Maine collection for existing items (MSCS libraries haven’t added their own items yet) that was based on a criteria which Deb presented (similar to local protection rules). Deb reported that she was concerned that Jeremy had excluded “(Me.) “in the subject and author fields from the search criteria. Deb has been working with Sara to have Jeremy address her concerns. Deb was OK with: (Me.) in Author limited to Language: English 978, Maine in Author limited to Language: English 6,178 and Maine or Me. in Author limited to Language: English 7,038. But Deb recommended not excluding specific authors with Maine in their name – unless HathiTrust want to take the trouble of running each exclusion by her. Also, she doesn’t want to exclude corporate authors, for example, that are Maine state departments, organizations, or businesses with the word “Maine” as part of their name.
HathiTrust had to create the collection on UMaine’s behalf because neither the public nor the programmer API options for creating HathiTrust Collections were suitable for the scope and specificity of what we wanted. The public tool for creating a collection requires items to be added one by one and in an unwieldy manner (while viewing each one; not possible to add from single or “select all” multiple checkoffs on a results list of records). HathiTrust will have to continue to update the Maine collection, perhaps monthly, quarterly, or annually, until there is a method by which we can do it ourselves.
Once Deb’s issues with the collection have been resolved it can go live and Matthew will send the Committee a link to the collection.
e. OCLC WorldCat Collection Evaluation tool – access update
Matthew spoke with Sara Randall the new product manager for the OCLC Collection Evaluation tool and Andy Noonan a programmer at OCLC about MSCS requirements for group collection analysis functionality. The group functionality is not likely to go live to 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 could have something in writing regarding the agreement for complimentary deferred access to the tool.
f. MSCC survey
The Project Team have developed a survey to send to Maine libraries to get concrete data on interest in potential Maine Shared Collections Cooperative activities: collection analysis, retention in place, centralized storage facility, and subsidizing the storage of materials by other member libraries. Matthew commented that the Project Team hopes the survey will provide an idea of the levels of interest in joining MSCC and something to build upon to plan for an MSCC event with interested libraries.
Peggy commented that she had heard from some Maine libraries that they would be interested in joining MSCC, so they can weed their collections of titles that MSCS/MSCC libraries have committed to retain. Matthew commented that this was promising news. Matthew went on that this insurance is one of the benefits that non-archive holders/builders see in joining the Western Regional Storage Trust (WEST) and which he hoped libraries in Maine would see as a reason to join MSCC.
Deb commented that MSCC needs to plan for the eventuality that no libraries want to pay to be a part of MSCC and what MSCC could do for those libraries to assist them in managing their collections.
g. ALA Annual event
Agenda
Matthew reported that planning for the MSCS ALA Annual 2014 Conference session is going well; he is just waiting for the HathiTrust presenter to be confirmed, and for Ben Bunnell from Google Books to get back to him 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. Once Matthew has the exact location confirmed he will update the session webpage and send an update to registrants. Going through ALA means that the session will be on the online and physical schedules which will help attract attendees.
Registration
Just under 30 individuals have registered (including presenters and MSCS attendees) so far. Matthew hoped that as it gets nearer to the event and after he send reminders, there will be more registrants and drop-ins on the day as well. Deb commented that she hopes the amount of drop-ins won’t exceed the room capacity, especially as it’s a free pre-conference event on the Friday most ALA registrants are arriving. Matthew will monitor registration levels and assess whether additional space will be required.
2. Retention Scenario Step Two
a. Review final allocation figures from SCS
Matthew presented the final Final MSCS-Step-2-CTR-Counts (final only) he received on Friday from Andy Breeding (SCS) for title-holdings in Step Two. Andy mentioned in his cover email that this was the most complex and difficult allocation SCS have had to run to date.
Matthew combined Step One and Two totals in the bottom table to provide an estimate of how many monograph titles in total MSCS libraries will be committing to retain as part of MSCS. The numbers will change once Sara has made the reversals like she did in Step One (using the publishers list), but in Step One the reversals only accounted for around 1% of titles, so the numbers shouldn’t change dramatically. Monograph series commitments will be included in the numbers for journals/serials, since the Committee looked at those separately as part of the journal/serial work.
The Committee started off with approximately 2.7 million title-holdings in the collection analysis, and of that amount approximately 1.4 million title-holdings have received retention commitments–just over half. The Committee felt this was a high number and welcome the opportunity to conduct CTR reversals (see below). Libraries are free to de-accession title-holdings that were not allocated a CTR and/or surplus copies of CTR titles should they choose to do so. USM have already weeded surplus copies of CTR titles that were recently water-damaged at Gorham. Matthew asked if any of the MSCS libraries were going to use this work to weed their collections. Peggy responded that the Maine State Library is going to conduct weeding. Matthew commented that it will be interesting to look at the percentage of each MSCS library’s collection it has committed to retain. Matthew will be following up with the Collection Development Committee to get the necessary collection size information.
The Committee agreed that they didn’t need to review the CTR lists before Sara adds the retention statements in catalogs. Matthew will share with the Committee the CTR lists, so they have a copy for their records. Matthew will also send updated CTR totals once the filtering has been completed.
Sara reported that she hopes to have the filtering and batch loading request submitted to OCLC by the end of April, which means the commitments should appear in OCLC in August.
Matthew asked Sara whether she thought MSCS would need SCS to provide any more services now that the CTR lists had been sent to us, and Sara has their database collection data. Sara will look into this and report back to Matthew.
3. Journals/series/serials analysis
a. Analysis complete – SA CTR figures
Matthew thanked the Committee for submitting their filtered lists for CTR journals/serials/series titles to him and Sara. Sara has updated the CTR figures on the MSCS website to reflect these commitments, see here.
Deb commented that UMaine’s CTR numbers were so large because they were mostly monograph series with fewer periodicals. Varying cataloguing practices amongst the libraries means that monograph series will appear in both the monograph commitments and journal/serials/series commitments. Joan commented that Bowdoin’s ‘local protected’ category CTR figures were high because of the amount of materials they store in special collections. Portland Public had chosen not to make commitments in the ‘Not held in Vendor Sets’ category, but they had made commitments in the ‘local protected’ category.
4. Planning next steps
a. Reversal criteria – review DR’s examples
Deb has been working on developing a set of criteria for when a CTR could be reversed. Deb presented her draft CTR reversal criteria, based on missing or damaged books she’d recently dealt with, for discussion:
1. Digitized public domain book sufficient (e.g. reference book, 1880s)
2. Local policy directs library NOT to replace it (e.g. policy is not to purchase textbooks, in general; IF we replaced would buy later edition)
3. Title is CTR at another MSCC library
4. Title is available at another MSCC library and could transfer CTR there
5. Any edition of the book will supply same content; exact edition replacement not necessary; would add CTR to new edition replacement (e.g. various Lord of the Rings paperback printings; a Leonard Cohen novel now published by diff. pub.)
6. Original edition brittle, other copies likely to be as well
7. High cost of replacement is prohibitive (e.g. volume of original artist prints / etchings / engravings)
8. Combination of various factors that add up to not being suitable for replacement (e.g. brittle, in HathiTrust, and zero circs)
Deb also presented some examples of titles she would not be willing or able to replace. She questioned title replacement for CTR titles that a library wouldn’t normally have replaced in the past. Matthew commented that the MSCC MOU does include the following which would allow librarians to use their professional discretion: “Libraries are expected to follow their usual workflows and procedures for identifying, repairing, and replacing retained materials.”
The Committee discussed how, once the criteria has been agreed, there needs to be a process to make other MSCS/MSCC libraries aware of the reversals because they might be using the retention commitments to make collection management decisions. Becky commented that the ability to reverse a CTR and remove a title should be agreed in cooperation with future supporting members of MSCC, who may be relying on the commitments made by collection holders. Barbara suggested that lists of proposed CTR reversal titles be submitted to the MSCC Collections & Operations Committee for review. Matthew responded that this might be OK if it was only a small amount of items, but it would be a lot to ask of the Committee (which the MSCS Collection Development Committee would probably transition to in the short-term) to review the lists. Joan also felt the reporting would be too labor-intensive, but Becky, for workflow reasons, would like to keep a list of reversals.
Deb asked how CTR reversals should be tracked and whether records should still be kept for missing CTR titles. Most of the Committee were not in favor of having to create lists of the titles they were not going to replace, to reverse a CTR. Also, they did not see the benefit in keeping records of CTR titles that had been identified as missing.
Brian commented that the material that MSCS libraries wouldn’t want to replace are most likely titles other libraries wouldn’t want to retain anyway. It won’t be titles in the local-protected category that libraries won’t replace, instead it will be titles in-copyright that are widely held by other libraries outside of Maine, so is it Maine’s responsibility to hold these? Brian went on that there needs to be trust in the personal judgments of the library staff and latitude for making reversals. Becky commented that there might need to be an overarching agreement that if a title is ‘Maine’ then libraries keep it, regardless of reversal criteria allowed for other types of titles.
Becky suggested including the reversal procedure as part of the MSCC MOU, so libraries know up front that reversals may occur when they agree to become a member.
Peggy commented that one of the things she had taken away from MSCS was that the partner libraries have managed to come together to make retention decisions and shown trust in each other’s professional decisions. The reversal procedure will just be a continuation of this process.
A discussion ensued regarding the fact that sometimes the reason a particular title received a CTR was because of different cataloguing practices. Also, different editions of the same title sometimes received a CTR which in some cases is appropriate, but not always.
Some MSCS libraries are already moving damaged CTR items into boxes, waiting for the OCLC batch load to take place so they can de-accession them.
The Committee agreed that CTR reversals should be allowed using an agreed set of criteria which Matthew and Deb will produce in a set of procedures for review. Matthew asked the Committee to review the draft criteria Deb produced and report back to the group if they want anything changed/added and that it would be useful to test the criteria against titles they have already identified as wanting to reverse a CTR for. Once the criteria has been agreed, the Committee can come back to look at the procedure.
The Committee agreed that CTR reversals should be addressed as they come and not saved up. Libraries will not proactively seek out titles to reverse commitments on, but will simply process them as they are discovered as part of normal workflow for missing or damaged books.
The Committee also agreed that the reversal process can be agreed at the MSCC Collections and Operations level without having to go through Directors.
b. Forming MSCC committee
As current grant activities begin to finish the Project Team have been looking at activities that were identified originally as post-grant activities of the Maine Shared Collections Cooperative Collections & Operations Committee, such as collection building opportunities.
Matthew, on behalf of the Project Team, has asked Joyce Rumery (UMaine Dean of Libraries), chair of the Maine InfoNet Board of Directors, to appoint (at their meeting next week) a Board of Directors of the Maine Shared Collections Cooperative whose first task will be to appoint a Collections and Operations Committee which can start planning for the post-grant process now rather than waiting for the grant to end. Initially, the Collections and Operations Committee will probably consist of the current members of the MSCS Collection Development Committee, but eventually it will be a smaller group representing the different member constituents.
c. Digitizing rare/local protection titles
One of the MSCS grant’s objectives is that “partner libraries will develop a stewardship/preservation model for materials that are unique and/or rare and should be kept indefinitely in print format”. Matthew commented that currently the Committee hasn’t really looked at this beyond saying which titles will be retained, but not at any methods to ensure these titles are preserved. One idea that Matthew and Deb have been discussing is digitizing a group of titles that are in the public domain, but are not available digitally in the HathiTrust or Internet Archive. The Committee could use OCLC holding levels to prioritize what is digitized and perhaps look at opportunities for coordinating this at a group level so libraries are not digitizing the same material.
Matthew presented overall totals and spreadsheet examples of titles that fit into the category of public domain, but are not available digitally in the HathiTrust or Internet Archive. The spreadsheet also included OCLC holdings levels that can be used to filter the data. Sara produced the counts using the SCS data for commitments in Step Two. Matthew commented that things are added all the time to the HathiTrust, so it always just a point in time.
Matthew asked the Committee whether the digitization work described would be something their libraries would be willing and able to be a part of.
Peggy reported that the Maine State Library have acquired a book scanner and are using a grant to start digitizing state government documents. The data Sara produced will help them prioritize what else to scan.
Deb commented that it would make the most sense for Colby and UMaine to digitize to HathiTrust standards and deposit in HathiTrust as well as locally, so the content would be widely available. Peggy responded that the Maine State Library wants to scan to HathiTrust standards as well.
Deb commented that one possibility for MSCS is to have a Digitize-On-Demand model where titles would be digitized as requests are received.
The Committee agreed that in principle the digitization of groups of CTR titles was something they would be interested in doing and that it should be coordinated across the group to avoid duplication. However, there will still be practical issues that need to be addressed such as when and where the scanning can take place (there is a backlog at UMaine). The Committee liked the idea of focusing the scanning efforts on ‘rare’ in OCLC titles, but will review the lists of titles Sara produced and report back to Matthew their thoughts.
d. Reviewing ‘rare’ titles in stacks
Another preservation related activity is looking at situations where there are items of ‘rare’ title-sets (0-9 OCLC holdings, edition specific) which were tagged as ‘Circulating’ by SCS, with the goal of identifying items that might need to be transferred to special collections. Sara again has used SCS’s spreadsheets to filter and create spreadsheets of titles that fit into this category:
The totals were:
● Bangor Public Library: 811
● Bangor Theological Seminary: 19
● Bates College: 692
● Bowdoin College: 832
● Colby College: 152
● Maine State Library: 2,965
● Portland Public Library: 391
● Univ. of Maine – Orono: 1,106
● Univ. of Southern Maine: 474
● Total: 7,442
Matthew asked the Committee whether the review work described would be something their libraries would be willing and able to be a part of.
The Committee agreed that using Sara’s spreadsheets they could all identify examples of items which should not be in circulating areas (particularly open stacks) and transferring these items to special collections would be something they would be interested at looking into. However, the Committee felt that this wasn’t necessarily something they could get to in the short-term. Joan suggested it could be a summer project and could be completed within 12 months. One issue some of the libraries will face is that their special collections areas are already full. The Committee will review the lists of titles Sara produced and report back to Matthew their thoughts. This work might also result in the identification of candidates for digitization.
Matthew asked the Committee whether it would make a difference if there was already an item of the same title already in special collections. The Committee will consider this when they review the spreadsheet. Peggy commented that it might be interesting to see when another MSCS library has the title in special collections.
e. Collection building opportunities
An activity discussed in the past by MSCS Committees and included in the MSCC MOU is collection building, whereby a library will agree to ingest and validate retained materials potentially because of a collection strength they want to build upon. Matthew commented that there were two main options for looking at this: option 1 is to use the subject data SCS provided MSCS (at the request of the Project Team) to identify collection building opportunities, or option 2 the less scientific approach of libraries nominating themselves as wanting to build on collection strengths.
Barbara commented that the ARRCs might be interested in collection building literature as MSCC goes further in the process.
The Committee agreed that option 2 was preferable, whereby libraries nominate themselves as wanting to build on collection strengths to be collection builders. Brian commented that libraries could also nominate themselves as wanting to do some collection un-building as well because Portland Public has subject areas they would like to weed from their collections that other libraries might want.
5. Travel claims due 02/28/2014
The deadline for MSCS travel claims is this Friday February 28th, but Matthew will extend it to Friday March 7th because of the MSCS meetings this week. Matthew will send a reminder about it tomorrow (Friday February 28th).
6. Date of next meeting
Matthew will delay arranging the next Committee meeting until it is clearer what the Committee’s next steps will be, as an in-person might not be required.