Maine Shared Collections Strategy Project Team
October 10, 2013
Fogler Library Conference Room
2:00 – 4:00 PM
Attendees: Sara Amato (called in), Clem Guthro, James Jackson Sanborn, Barbara McDade, Matthew Revitt, Deb Rollins
1. Project Updates
a. Collection Analysis
i. Retention Scenario One – Outcomes from 10/8 Collection Development Committee meeting inc. finalizing CTR reversals
Following the MSCS Collection Development Committee Meeting on Tuesday October 8th, Sara has updated the saved search named “MSCC Publishers to Remove” to exclude “Holt”, “Houghton” and Special Collections locations from the reversals list. Sara has circulated revised reversal lists to the Committee and if she hasn’t heard any feedback before Wednesday of next week (10/16) she will request approval to go ahead and reverse the commitments in the respective local catalogs.
Matthew commented that he knows some of the Committee are already looking at the lists because Joan Campbell (Bowdoin) is going to send Sara some locations she wants removing from the CTR list.
Sara plans to remove location check/reversals at the same time as status reversals, directly before exporting to OCLC. Matthew commented that after next week the commitments should be ready to be made in OCLC.
ii. Retention Scenario Two – Outcomes from 10/8 Collection Development Committee meeting, inc. agreed criteria & discussion of retention allocation
Matthew asked the Project Team to review a list of key decisions he considered had been made at the 10/8 MSCS Collection Development Committee Meeting.
The Project Team agreed that the Committee wanted to be consistent with Retention Scenario Step One and would ask SCS to apply the same set of criteria to title-sets in-scope in Retention Scenario Step Two.
The Project Team discussed the content of the reports that the Committee wanted SCS to produce for circulation rates of in-scope titles.
The Project Team agreed that because the reports were going to include total aggregate circulation across the group, then the figure of 100 or more circulations should be included to the circulation levels. Also, totals for year of last circulation because when a title-holding last circulated makes a difference when deciding the maximum amount of title-holdings that need to have a CTR. The Committee also agreed that two separate bar charts would be needed, one for circulation totals and one for last year of circulation.
The Committee had agreed that they would come back to look at allocation with SCS, but that using subject as a factor in the allocation process might be too complicated. However, Barbara commented that the public would be interested in using subject strengths to allocate retention. Clem asked Barbara what she would use subject data for. Barbara responded for allocating retention responsibility to those libraries who want to become collection builders for particular subjects. Matthew commented that this might be something that is looked at post-grant by the Collections and Operations Committee. Clem added that allocation was only briefly discussed at the meeting and still needs to be finalized.
iii. Journal analysis update – Outcomes from 10/8 Collection Development Committee meeting inc. Sara filtering work & retention policy
Matthew asked the Project Team to review a list of the key decisions made at the 10/8 MSCS Collection Development Committee Meeting.
The Project Team agreed with Matthew’s assessment that:
● The Committee members will review their respective title lists and have their commitments agreed in time for their next meeting, which will be in mid to late November.
● MSCS libraries will auto CTR titles in the protected category, many of which are in special collections.
● MSCS libraries will only CTR the titles which they currently hold with the proviso that libraries are free to cancel serials (and thus any future retention commitment).
However, the Project Team would like the Committee to look again at the title overlap across the MSCS group. Barbara and Clem felt that, as with monographs, decisions should be made as a group whenever possible. Sara commented that the overlap was actually very small because these are titles which there are less that 50 holdings in OCLC for and are not in the list of aggregators and publishers list that she compared MSCS holdings with. Clem commented that if libraries want to get rid of titles it might be useful to know whether other MSCS libraries hold the title in case another library wants to act as a collection builder and ingest the title. Clem went to say that libraries might use the lists Sara provided to weed their collections, which might result in titles being lost from the collective collection. Matthew responded that he didn’t get the impression from the Collection Development Committee that libraries were going to use the lists in this way, but he did agree that making decisions as a group was more in keeping with the original philosophy of the project, which is why he had raised the question originally at the Committee meeting. Clem commented that libraries have already gone through extensive weeding exercises looking at journals.
Clem wondered whether it was possible to run a test comparison of 20 serial titles between MSCS holdings and the CRL PAPR database.
Sara reported that it was possible to compare overlap of titles rather than complicated holdings comparisons. Clem asked whether it was possible to pull out journals for holding overlap comparisons. Deb and Sara responded that it would not be easy because all the titles were coded as ‘S’, but that perhaps by using location it could be possible to identify just journals.
The Project Team agreed that Sara should identify the total overlap of titles.
Note: Since the meeting, Sara identified that of the ~4,400 titles in the series lists, only 3% (~130) titles are held by more than one library. The Project Team have asked Sara to produce a list of these titles, which will be shared with the Collection Development Committee.
iv. OCLC WorldCat Collection Evaluation tool – proposal update
Matthew sent Meghan Hopkins another email regarding access to OCLC’s WorldCat Collection Evaluation tool, but again has not received a response.
v. Access to SCS database
Nothing to report. Matthew commented that this work was relatively low priority compared to Sara’s other work, which was why no progress had been made.
b. Loading & display of retention information in catalogs
i. Local Catalog – single copy & multi-item loading updates & public display
Sara has continued to add retention commitments to the local catalogs of MSCS libraries. Sara has begun the process of adding commitments for multi-item bibs. A running total of commitments can be found on the MSCS website.
Matthew reported that there seems to be agreement on the public display of the retention commitment that the wording of commitment should be “MSCC” and should be in a column labeled “Shared”. A discussion then ensued whether having the column “Shared” added any value or meaning.
Sara confirmed for the Project Team that for items without a CTR the “Shared” column would not exist.
Clem commented that as long as Colby, Bates and Bowdoin (CBB) and Portland Public use the same text for the link “MSCC” it can be their decision where it is displayed in the OPAC message.
The Project Team agreed that the column heading “Shared” should be removed from the URSUS OPAC message. The column heading will remain blank. Only “MSCC” will remain which is the retention commitments that the Project Team wants other libraries to be to see and make their own retention decisions based on. Matthew will send a message on the URSUS listserv explaining the purpose of the message. The message will be sent out just prior to the links being added to URSUS records. This is an example of the display in the public display of the URSUS catalog. The message should be in URSUS by next week. CBB are going to wait until the new shared catalog is implemented before they have their display implemented.
ii. OCLC WorldCat – batch loading LHRs & recording multiple copy works
Once Sara has completed the reversals she can move along in the batch loading process.
Deb asked how quickly this could be done because she would like the commitments in OCLC in time to present at the Charleston Conference. Sara responded that Bill Carney is also keen to get the commitments disclosed and MEU (UMaine) will act as the test case. Deb commented that even if it just some test examples she would like to show them. Matthew commented that now the reversal process has been finalized the other MSCS libraries will be ready to go soon after.
iii. MaineCat
Nothing to report on here because having commitments in MaineCat is reliant on having commitments in OCLC first.
c. HathiTrust/Google Books
i. Loading records into SOLAR & displaying links in MaineCat – loading update, hiding URLs and added icons
Matthew reported that since the last meeting Project Team meeting he had asked Sara to add icons for the HathiTrust and Google Books. There is also a “Request Print Copy” link and information icon which will take users to the guidance Matthew produced on POD/EOD (see below).
Albie has managed to hide the URLs for the HathiTrust and Google Books by switching the URL display on MaineCat staging. Albie pointed out to Matthew that this would switch all MaineCat URLs (ebooks, etc.) to display this way so he was going to check to see if James wanted this. The alternative solution is to use JavaScript for the links. James will speak to Albie about this.
Sara reported that she had used the OCLC Collection Management tool (using Colby’s login) to pull all the HathiTrust records. Sara commented that it was a straightforward process to get the records into Solar and should be easily reproducible by staff when an extract is required again. She is going to conduct some testing of the records in MaineCat with Albie before going live by the end of October.
Clem asked what the shelving location will be for HathiTrust records. James and Sara responded that it will eventually say “Online” as the library and “HathiTrust” as the shelving location.
ii. Custom collections
Nothing to report. Matthew commented that this work was relatively low priority compared to Sara’s other work, which was why no progress had been made.
iii. Membership update – status of membership checklists & data extract
Both Colby and UMaine have signed their contracts with HathiTrust and are currently in the process of working their way through the membership checklists.
Clem reported that Colby are close to completing the process and are just waiting for Sara to submit the holding data to HathiTrust. Shibboleth is up and working and he hopes Colby will go live by November 1st, 2013.
Sara reported that she had submitted the holding data for Colby that morning after confirming with Jeremy York that it was OK to submit updated bib numbers next year once Colby’s have changed (with the implementation of the shared CBB shared catalog). Sara has also completed the extract for UMaine’s monographs, with only serials remaining.
James commented that he was waiting to hear more from Matthew about James’ role as UMaine’s HathiTrust technical representative. Matthew will speak to Jeremy about what needs to be done, in-particular regarding checking UMaine’s Shibboleth installation.
d. Print On Demand
i. EOD/POD guidance – Review content and MR questions
Matthew had sent out for review some guidance he had produced for the E-book-On-Demand and Print-On-Demand services. Matthew commented that although the Project Team hadn’t discussed him doing this he thought users and libraries would find it useful to know what the links mean and what services are available to them. Also, the grant application includes a requirement for EOD/POD policies. The Project Team were pleased with the content of the guidance and agreed it met the requirements of the grant.
Matthew commented that in producing this guidance he had identified some issues/subjects he wanted to discuss with the Project Team:
1. Who is going to act as the support (including technical) for these services if any issues are identified by users?
The Project Team agreed that Maine InfoNet staff would act as the first point of contact for issues with links in MaineCat being down. Greg Curtis and Deb at the University of Maine will be the contacts for any issues with the POD process.
2. Is the Project Team going to specify dates for the test period? What happens when this period is over? Do Maine InfoNet disable the POD link?
The Project Team agreed that there wouldn’t be a specified end date for the test period. POD requests would continue to be fulfilled. MSCS needs to agree on a business model which Clem commented in the current economic environment may require introducing fees to pay for the POD costs.
Matthew commented that there are sufficient grant funds available to meet the likely demand for the foreseeable future. Deb and Barbara responded that they thought it wouldn’t take too many requests to spend the allocated grant funds.
3. What is the best way to market that these services will be available? MELIBS?
Clem commented that although MELIBS (Maine libraries listserv) would be one avenue for announcing the availability of the services, not all academics libraries subscribe to the list. Clem has some other mailing lists that MSCS can use to announce the services on.
A discussion then ensued regarding the pros and cons of advertising the availability of the services.
The Project Team agreed that until a formal business model is implemented any announcements regarding the availability of the services will be limited to MELIBS (and other identified lists). Included in any announcements will be a link to the guidance Matthew has produced.
4. Matthew asked the Project Team to confirm that the only requirement for receiving a POD copy is that the requestor has a Maine mailing address?
Will requestors be also asked which Maine library they are a member of and their barcode number?
Matthew commented that although requestors will be asked for their library membership details there is no way to authenticate they are correct. Sara confirmed this was the case.
The Project Team agreed that Maine P.O. Box addresses will be accepted as a Maine address.
Matthew asked whether Maine library patrons who don’t live in Maine will have their requests fulfilled.
The Project Team agreed that requests will be reviewed on a case by case basis by Greg and Deb. Testing will hopefully flag any additional rules that are required to prevent the system from being abused.
5. There will be links to government documents available in HathiTrust. Does this mean users can request a POD copy of a lengthy government document?
The Project Team agreed that government documents will be requestable, but again requests will be reviewed on a case-by case basis by Greg and Deb.
Deb commented that if she received a request for a 2,000 page government document she would point them in the direction of requesting an existing physical copy using ILL.
Barbara asked if it will be possible for a user to know (when they are in MaineCat HathiTrust record) whether there is already a MaineCat record for a physical copy of the same title. James responded that it would show in an “Advanced Search”, but not in the record itself.
A discussion then ensued regarding the likely demand for the POD services and the availability of material from other sources including Amazon’s POD service.
ii. Status of workflow procedure
Matthew asked Sara and James whose responsibility it will be to design and implement the POD request forms.
Sara responded that she will put the form together for the request.
Matthew asked Sara if she could provide an estimate of when the POD service will be up and working. Sara responded that she is going to spend some time working with the records and hopes to have it done by Halloween.
e. Budget
i. Budget vs. actual spending update
Matthew met with Susan Clement from Fogler to look at MSCS spending and identified that the grant has a total of $47,927.45 remaining funds, which includes Matthew’s salary (actually up to June because of the period in-between Valerie leaving and him starting) and $68,270 for Sara’s consulting costs (which she is unlikely to bill for the full amount).
Known expenses:
● Deb’s Charleston hotel & expenses costs, approx. $1,345.
● Matthew/Deb NELA Conference costs, approx. $600.
● Matthew potential trip to ALA Midwinter Conference?
● Matthew travel to Northeast Print meetings. 2-3 trip to Amherst, MA. $700. Not sure how much NERD will cover?
● MSCS participant in-state travel to MSCS meetings (2-3 quarter submissions). $3,444.
● RainStorm Annual Subscription. $299.
● Advisory Board Stipends. $1,000.
● Testing POD. $2,000 allocated.
Total: $9,388.
Added to that is $23,175 for Matthew’s wages and benefits for June-August would leave MSCS with $15,364.45 for the national event and other unforeseen costs. MSCS would probably have more than this because of under spending for Sara (probably only 75% the $68,270), so actually a more realistic number is $32,431.
ii. Grant extension update
Deb and Matthew have submitted a request to IMLS (via UMaine Office of Research & Sponsored Programs) for a no-cost extension of three months until the end of August 2014. However, because of the federal government shutdowns, Matthew does not expect a response any time soon.
f. MSCC Sustainability
i. MOU – update on submission of signed copies
All signed copies of the MOU have now been submitted to Matthew.
ii. Post grant activities – review MR sustainability document
Based on discussions at the last Project Team meeting, Matthew had produced a draft document of some recommended activities for establishing a shared print project. Matthew asked the Project Team for their thoughts on the document.
James commented on the inclusion of the need for a project manager to coordinate the work of the project. The Project Team agreed that having a dedicated project manager was essential to the success of the project. Matthew commented that he had included collection management experience as a requirement for the project manager role, which was not something he had at the start of working on MSCS. James responded that both Matthew and Valerie had shown that project management experience was more important than collection development experience. Matthew commented that Deb and the Collection Development Committee were the collection development experts on the project–not the program manager. The Project Team agreed that a lesson learned from MSCS is that the program manager role needs to be a dedicated position.
The Project Team discussed the need to show how other Maine libraries could participate in Maine Shared Collection Cooperative (MSCC) and what the process is for joining. Specifically: Will there be a fee for joining? Who is going to do the work? What level of commitment is required from the partners? Deb commented that Joyce had previously asked the Project Team what staffing was required at UMaine beyond the grant. Clem responded that the costs of MSCC would need to be shared across the partners and not just at UMaine.
The Project Team went on to discuss the need for someone to coordinate the work of the post grant committees.
Clem commented that MSCC had actually accomplished far more than he had originally thought, going beyond just a strategy for shared print and actually implementing shared print. However, there would still need to be work done post-grant such as looking at the issue of reference works (raised previously by Joan Campbell, Bowdoin).
The Project Team agreed that in addition to the document Matthew had worked on (a how to guide for shared print) MSCS also needs a separate piece of work on how to extend Maine Shared Collections Cooperate (MSCC) beyond the grant period and original partners.
g. Website maintenance
i. Content updates & resolved issues
Matthew and Sara have produced a glossary on the MSCS website that includes definitions of terms used in MSCS that not everyone will be familiar with. They have also been working on adding pages to explain the two retention scenario steps one & two.
Matthew had RainStorm fix an issue with the MSCS calendar and upcoming events not displaying correcting. However, he has since noticed another issue with the list of MSCS events that he will report to RainStorm.
ii. Upcoming payment for RainStorm yearly plan
MSCS’s yearly RainStorm payment will be due in a couple of months. Matthew asked James whether he thought MSCS needed to pay another year, or whether Maine InfoNet could handle the work. James responded that he thought MSCS should pay for another year.
The Project Team agreed to renew the RainStorm yearly plan (which based on previous years should be $299).
h. Marketing
i. Library Journal information docket post
Matthew’s August 12th Bangor Daily News article got a mention on the Library Journal’s information docket, which Matthew commented shows they are still monitoring MSCS progress.
ii. Chronicle of Higher Education article
Matthew commented that it was good to see the Chronicle article on shared print, which featured MSCS. Matthew did receive an email from Steve Podgajny (Director of Portland Public) disappointed that Portland Public Library weren’t mentioned in the list of partners and Matthew noticed Maine InfoNet weren’t either.
iii. Publish through ALCTS
Matthew commented that the opportunity is still there for MSCS to submit an article.
2. Conferences, Events & Meetings
a. MSCS presentations & reports
i. NELA Conference, Portland, October 21, 2013
Deb and Matthew have met to discuss their presentation.
ii. Charleston Conference, November 8, 2013
Deb and Becky have been working on their Charleston presentation.
iii. Potential for IFLA Paper publication
Matthew and Clem haven’t heard from Julia Gelfand at IFLA regarding whether their paper is going to be published in the IFLA Journal.
iv. National end of project event planning – proposed agenda ideas & costs
Matthew asked the Project Team how much of the funds still remaining (see above) should be set aside for the national event. Clem responded that it will depend on the costs of speakers and whether sponsors can be found to pay for some of the costs of organizing the event.
Bob Kieft (Advisory Board) had previously mentioned that the deadline for booking ALA Annual Conference 2014 meeting space was the end of October, which means that the Project Team needs to decide ASAP how far in the organizing process it should go before knowing that IMLS had approved the no-cost extension and the use of grant funds to organize the event. Matthew commented that although the costs of booking space was quite small MSCS will need a contingency plan for covering the costs of the event should IMLS not approve the extension, which may involve support from MSCS partners.
Clem discussed potential sponsors and speakers including from: CRL, RECAP, Ithaka, WEST, Library of Congress, British Library OCLC, and ACRL. Matthew commented that although grant funds had been using previously to bring Jeremy York (HathiTrust) to present in Maine, he wasn’t sure whether IMLS would have restrictions on what grant funds could be used for (particularly the costs of bringing in overseas speakers).
Matthew reviewed the subject ideas that had been discussed during the October 3rd conference call with the Advisory Board:
● How to move from local projects (like MSCS) to national project? Lizanne potentially a good presenter on this concerning the Northeast Regional Library Print Management Project? Also, Constance?
● Willingness of libraries to rely on digital copies available from large-scale digital collections such as the HathiTrust and Internet Archive.
● Role of public libraries in shared print. MSCS is unique in the respect of public libraries being included in the project. MSCS could have a presenter from Bangor and/or Portland Public libraries present, or from a large public library (like Boston or Philadelphia) that are not currently involved in shared print.
● How do we do this without a title-by-title review? Again relate to experiences of MSCS and the common question of “why are we committing to retain this for 15 years?” Also discuss the practical and financial obstacles to conducting condition checking.
● Is collection analysis as currently conducted enough to base retention decisions on? How do we know that the holdings available in OCLC are being preserved? Do we also need to know what is already held in storage facilities?
● Vendor panel (who could also be possible sponsors).
Clem commented that this was going be too much content to fit into an afternoon session (following PAN). Matthew responded that Bob had proposed having a truncated PAN session, which would give MSCS more time. Clem went on that often on the afternoon of the PAN session is an OCLC event, so MSCS would need to consider the audience of their event and consider what else is on at the same time. Clem felt that because this was MSCS’s one chance to organize such an event it should be an all-day pre-conference event on the Thursday (day before PAN). Deb commented that the pre-conference events are organized by the different ALA divisions. Clem responded that the MSCS event could be an unofficial ALA session. Matthew commented that this would give MSCS more time to book space if they weren’t required to meet ALA booking deadlines.
Matthew commented that Lizanne had wanted MSCS to be clear that they weren’t claiming that this event is the end of the national shared print debate, it is just part of the ongoing national conversation, and MSCS like all other projects can learn from the experiences of others. This was one of the reasons why having it as part of an extended PAN (with CRL) had seemed like a good solution. Clem asked Matthew to contact Lizanne and get a contact at CRL to talk about the event and make it clear the intention isn’t to lay claim to the national conversation, but to use IMLS funds to further the conversation.
The Project Team discussed the involvement of MSCS in the event. The consensus was that although MSCS are going to be the main feature of the event the Project Team don’t want it to be just about MSCS. Any lessons learned section should include a panel of representatives from other projects and be on subjects that will be of interest to similar projects. MSCS could discuss what it takes to do this sort of work and any outstanding questions that still need to be answered post-grant.
v. Timberline Conference – call for papers
The Timberline Conference has issued a call for presentation papers for their 2014 conference. Matthew asked the Project Team whether they wanted to submit a paper (after Sara had presented at the 2013 conference).
The Project Team agreed that Sara will submit a presentation paper on behalf of MSCS.
Clem commented that a potential presentation subject could be the complexities of data wrangling.
vi. MSCS representation at ALA Mid-Winter Conference
Matthew reported that other than the Print Archive Network event (which Clem will be attending) he was not aware of any shared print sessions at the ALA Mid-Winter Conference. Therefore, he wasn’t sure whether his attendance at the Conference was required.
The Project Team agreed that Matthew does not need to attend the Conference and that Clem will represent MSCS at the PAN meeting.
b. North East Regional Print Management Project – MR participation in 10/17 Journals & Serials Working Group meeting
Matthew will be attending the North East Regional Print Management Project Journals & Serials Working Group meeting on Thursday October 17th at UMass Amherst. Matthew will feedback to the Project Team anything of interest to MSCS.
The Project Team agreed to use grant funds to pay for any costs of Matthew’s attendance at these events not covered by the North East Regional Print Management Project.
c. OCLC shared print webcast, October 15, 2013
Matthew will be attending a webcast on October 15th titled “Getting off the Island: Collaborating to Create Boundless Collections” which has been organized by OCLC. He will report back to the Project Team anything that might be of interest to MSCS.
3. Upcoming meetings
a. November 13, Project Team Meeting, Fogler Library
Deb reported that she will be unable to attend this meeting.
James reported that he and Clem will not be able to attend the December 11th Project Team meeting from 2-4 PM.
The Project Team agreed to go ahead with the November 13th meeting, but to change the time of the December 11th meeting to 8:30 – 10:30 am.
b. November 21, Directors’ Council Meeting, Miller Library