The White Rose Collaborative Collection Partnership

1. The White Rose Collaborative Collection Partnership Brian Clifford University of Leeds

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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.

7. Phase 2: Sample Result

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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