The White Rose Collaborative Collection Partnership Brian Clifford University of Leeds

White Rose Consortium Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York Librarians meet regularly The three library services are working together on a range of activities at different levels of consortial involvement Collaborative Collection Management Project Shared Institutional Repository White Rose Research Online Share e-theses repository White Rose e-theses Online Developing a shared training programme for digitisation Electronic key texts – aim to develop a collaborative model of activity Digitisation service – convergence model of working together

White Rose/BL CCM Partnership Drivers for collaborative collection management ▫ Space ▫ Management of collections led to the: White Rose/BL Collaborative Collection Management (CCM) Project Further drivers ▫ Conservation and preservation issues ▫ Digitisation ▫ How should scare resources be used to manage collections? ▫ What is the best way to maintain access to content in physical collections? ▫ Strategic management of our collections

Phase 1: Pilot Developed a methodology to allow for the disposal of monographs while ensuring that copies would still be available to academic researchers in the “national collection” via the British Library. Outcomes ▫ Materials (2,400 items) were selected by the three libraries for possible disposal ▫ A methodology was developed and tested ▫ Copies of items not held by BL transferred to Boston Spa  9% of the items in the pilot transferred  Materials transferred were:  Monographs that filled gaps in the British Library’s collections.  Duplicate copies of monographs heavily used at the British Library. ▫ Allowed for the disposal of significant quantities of low use monographs by the three Universities ▫ Estimated cost of approx £2 per item to dispose using this methodology ▫ British Library decided to bring forward the retro-conversion of the NCB into BLIC

Phase 2: Project Started 18 months ago 15,000 items selected for this test Develop a more robust & practical methodology which could be adopted by whole community Use the expanded BL catalogues and Copac This would allow us to take more informed and rigorous account of duplicated holdings in other UK Libraries Introduce batch-searching and multi-site comparison techniques to speed throughput Develop a series of models to inform and guide the HEI community in the best local practice to be adopted Resource Needs and Costs to be assessed

Phase 2: Benefits we anticipated Contribute to the development of a strategic approach to national research support by ensuring UK scholars retain access to any of titles withdrawn from individual libraries. Would inform development of a national mechanism allowing very low-use monographs to be withdrawn from individual HEI libraries (with assurance they will be available in sufficient numbers elsewhere in the UK). Ease local institutional space and storage issues by releasing substantial numbers of additional ‘low use’ monographs for disposal.

Phase 2: Sample Result

Phase 2: Issues Process of searching both BLIC and Copac was complex and outputs needed significant work to become usable. Questions about feasibility of scaling this activity These initial searches based on unique identifiers such as ISBN or BNB numbers. What about items that do not have these identifiers? Project Team engaged in trying to understand the mass of data generated and discussing wider issues related to the management of monograph collections How many copies do we need to keep? Do we want to keep copies or content What is the digital future for monographs? Geographical spread? Who keeps the unique? Role of the British Library? How does this fit with other CCM activities such as CoFoR and RLUK/RIN work? Role of MIMAS and RLUK/Copac in helping to improve the search processes

Copac Collection Management Tools Project Started discussions with RLUK and MIMAS about the use of the Copac database Builds up on work sponsored by the RLUK/RIN Collections Management Project The issues we were considering were also on the agenda of the JISC RLUK Resource Discovery Taskforce Led to a discussion with JISC regarding the funding of a project to develop Collection Management Tools to enable the analysis to be undertaken. Project funding agreed in the last week Project already underway and aims to be completed this summer. Will provide data that will allow us to review collections strategically

Examples of the Tools to be developed Tools to aid with collection management and associated decisions: ▫ Ability to process a list of potential discards to identify how widely held and the pattern of distribution (including according to region or other grouping of libraries) ▫ Ability to profile part of your collection to see how widely held (or unusual) that sub- collection is, and the pattern of distribution ▫ Ability to explore holdings of libraries across the country in a specific subject area Leading on to tools for active CCM ▫ Ability to record retention status (and associated preservation actions) in Copac ▫ Ability for other libraries to view the above information to inform their own decisions (cf. UKRR info in SUNCAT) ▫ Ability to include this information in limiting searches, etc. ▫ Additional tools to allow for transfer of material between libraries Vision of greater inclusion beyond current set of libraries contributing to Copac

Issues/Questions for the community Need to find ways to build upon previous collaborative collection management projects for monographs Need to take account of work in US on “managing down print collections” and preservation of legacy print How will we fund these activities? How can we make this work for the whole HE community? What about research collections beyond HE? Which body best able to facilitate this? The impact of the digital How many copies? Copy v content and digitisation Long-term preservation of print