Storage Policies & Practices Round Table (Nov 2, 2007)
Storage Policies and Practices Round Table
November 2, 2007
Attendees:
Lisa Lister-Colorado College; Betty Meagher & PeggyKeeran-DU; Pam Blome-School of Mines; Joan Lamborn-UNC; Sandy Barstow-UW; RoseNelson & Alan Charnes-Alliance
Introductions and whatbrought us here:
Rose handed out an article that Scott Seaman wrote aboutusing PASCAL for collaborative collection management. See: www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlpubs/crljournal/backissues2005a/crljan05/seaman.pdf
Sandy-UW*
UW is building an addition to the library. They are trying to decide which things to putin a storage facility. Currently, theyare sending bound issues to storage. They grapple with many of the same issues other libraries face such ashow long should items be kept in storage?
Joan-UNC
UNC is not a participant in Pascal. Joan was interested in assuring that lastprint copy of a JSTOR be retained. Thereis added value to having a print copy of a JSTOR item. The print editions include ad’s, letters tothe editor and other things that aren’t necessarily reserved in the digitalcopy.
Pam-CSM
CSM is concerned with space issues. They are considering off storage facilitiesthat are within a reasonable distance of their library.
Lisa-CC
CC has already withdrawn most of their JSTOR printcollection because of limitations on physical space in their library. They do not participate in PASCAL.
Betty & Peggy-DU
DU is a very active participant of PASCAL and they sharedwith the group how they use this storage facility. They get few requests for PASCAL itemsbecause only items that get little use are sent there. They have very specific criteria for the typeof item that is sent whether it’s an edition, monograph or journal.
Generalconsiderations of PASCAL were discussed
Libraries cannot put duplicate bound volumes in PASCAL. However, they can place duplicate copies ofmonographs in PASCAL.
There is not a definitive list of everything that is inPASCAL. It is not a separate ILS, it’slisted as a shelving location within the libraries that use PASCAL.
Libraries that put items in PASCAL agree to keep the item inperpetuity.
The group also discussed creating an Alliance wide policy for retaining the lastcopy of an item.
After much discussion it seemed easier to consider a subsetof the collection rather than the entire collection. So we focused on what it would take to setup an agreement to retain the last copy of a JSTOR item, which was the originalagenda item for this round table.
Considerations of Alliance Wide Policy
Commitment to keep the volume in perpetuity—this meanspaying for storage space
Perpetuity may be too long there needs to be some room forevaluation.
CU discards very few items. Perhaps it would be better to focus on items that CU doesn’t have and besure that your library keeps those items. However, there is a lot more uniqueness in Alliance library collections (Prospectorstatistics reveal this) so there are probably several items that CU doesn’thave.
Alliancelibraries could collectively pay to keep all JSTOR items in PASCAL. Some libraries may be hesitant to do thisbecause they would like to take some of their issues back. Setting up such anagreement would require contracts with all libraries many of which are notcurrently in PASCAL.
It was reiterated that the policy does not force librariesto get rid of items it just provides the option of discarding something withthe assurance that another library in the Alliancehas it. Libraries can choose to retaintheir volumes, but those who don’t want to have the option to discardthem.
The group agreed that an Alliance wide policy should probablyoriginate from the Shared Collection Development Committee (SCDC) since thefocus of the policy is on collaboration among libraries to retain materials.
JSTOR Issues
There may be gaps in the JSTOR print collection because ofthe moving wall.
Does the Alliancehave the entire JSTOR collection?
What collections of JSTOR do Alliance libraries own?
Does CRL have the entire JSTOR collection?
Concluding Actions
Joan is going to share with the SCDC committee a summary ofthis meeting. She will also find out howreceptive they are to an Alliancewide policy to retain the last copy of JSTOR items.
Some issues of discussion for SCDC:
Who will assess the library collections to determine whatthey have: What do we do about movingwalls and print runs?
The JSTOR agreement could be a pilot project to see if thistype of agreement is successful.
Lisa offered to do a sample assessment of checking for thelast copy in Prospector to give us an idea of how much work this reallyentails. She will share the results ofthis sample with the SCDC committee which meets on November 19th.
Joan will look at the Committee on Institutional Cooperation(CIC) website to determine if they have the entire JSTOR collection and if it’savailable through CRL. CRL is a memberof Prospector.
Alan is going to share the minutes of this discussion withMember Council at their next meeting in November (which is after the SCDCmeeting). He will also mention theproposal for an Alliancepolicy to keep the last copy of JSTOR volumes.
Other Topics
The group did go off on some tangents and those items havenot been captured in the minutes. However, they did come up with two new round tables. The first is document delivery andinformation literacy. The idea behind thisone is to look at to what extent libraries are providing services to theirpatrons. For example, UW providesscanned articles delivered to the desk top for requests. Other institutions use the process of findinginformation as a tool to teach information literacy. So searching catalog and retrieving the itemis part of the teaching process. Thesecond topic for a future round table is Innovation & Web Design inlibraries—how are you using your website to deliver services to students,faculty and patrons?
Minutes prepared by Rose Nelson 11/2/2007