Prospectus for a New ATG Column Sam Demas Sam Demas Collaborative Consulting, [email protected]
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Against the Grain Volume 23 | Issue 6 Article 46 December 2011 Curating Collective Collections -- Prospectus for a New ATG Column Sam Demas Sam Demas Collaborative Consulting, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/atg Part of the Library and Information Science Commons Recommended Citation Demas, Sam (2011) "Curating Collective Collections -- Prospectus for a New ATG Column," Against the Grain: Vol. 23: Iss. 6, Article 46. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7771/2380-176X.6066 This document has been made available through Purdue e-Pubs, a service of the Purdue University Libraries. Please contact [email protected] for additional information. Curating Collective Collections — Prospectus for a New ATG Column Column Editor: Sam Demas (College Librarian Emeritus, Carleton College & Principal, Sam Demas Collaborative Consulting) <[email protected]> ooperative management and development to ensure that mistakes are not made that we Are these assumptions sound? What are we of collections are an elusive holy grail of will regret tomorrow. Some articles will report not thinking about as move towards irreversible Clibrarianship. Many approaches have and comment on the emerging infrastructure collective action as a long-term strategy for been tried from realizing the promise of collec- — technical and institutional — designed to addressing these challenges? tively offering physical and intellectual access to manage what promises to be an unprecedented a broader scope of resources than is possible indi- level of resource sharing and interdependence. Promises vidually, to cooperating in ensuring the long-term Others will offer advice and perspective on What promises will libraries make to their preservation of the record, and to systematically thoughtfully managing collections locally constituents as they moves to realize cost-sav- helping each other save space and contain costs. within the framework of regional and national ings by sharing their print storage, keeping Today the availability of digital surrogates for an initiatives to curate collective collections. only several copies nationally or regionally and ever-increasing proportion of the materials in our The pieces in this column will be journalistic withdrawing redundant print holdings? Our general collections is re-framing this noble aspira- rather than research-based in approach. In keep- long-term promises to society should include: tion, asking us to consider: can we collectively ing with ATG’s editorial style, the news will be • Long-term preservation of and access to manage our print general collections more cost- fresh and eclectic, and the articles lively and a sufficient number of complete versions effectively as a formal, national shared resource often provocative. While I will write some of of our print and digital cultural heritage than is possible by continuing to manage them the articles myself, many will be co-authored or of books and journals to meet national as individual, isolated collections informally knit written by others. Perhaps you’d like to propose needs for generations to come; together by a loose patchwork of retention and a piece? • There will be tangible benefits for library resource-sharing agreements? This introductory article provides an outline users, including sophisticated discovery Equipped with new technology and nascent of issues in shared print archiving for those new systems offering improved intellectual examples of radical collection cooperation, and to the conversation, and suggests the range of access and delivery options, and that motivated by the most serious economic pres- possible topics for future articles. This is a far address ever-changing expectations sures in generations, libraries appear to be on the broader scope than one small column can pos- for new approaches to pedagogy and cusp of an ambitious move towards cooperative sibly cover, so you, dear reader, are invited to research, such as support for new forms collection management at a national scale. participate in shaping this column today by of serendipitous discovery, for social “Shared print archiving” and “collective suggesting three topics for articles over the learning/networked intelligence, and collections” are the terms currently in use to coming year. Keep this in mind as you peruse print-on-demand. describe the move towards a national network this outline of the many complex and challeng- • A robust, nationally coordinated service of collective print collections. They are used ing facets of re-developing1 our collections as program that provides friction-free, in- interchangeably to denote carefully coordinated collectively curated, shared resources. stantaneous delivery of digital texts and efforts among libraries to reduce the footprints speedy delivery of print originals when of their on-campus general collections by with- Premises needed; drawing redundant print holdings in favor of se- The following underlying assumptions • A sustainable trust network that guaran- cure digital access, within the context of regional provide the seemingly inexorable impetus to tees each participating institution will and national schemes for sharing systematically shared collections, and to more radical col- uphold its commitments to the national archived print copies of these materials. For laboration generally: trust over many generations. background on this movement, check out the No- • U.S. academic libraries hold about 1 Can we to deliver on these promises? Who vember 2010 issue of ATG (v.22#5) for a special billion print volumes and are growing will coordinate and support an ambitious na- feature on shared print archiving edited by Roger at a rate of 25 million print volumes per tional cooperative program, and how? How Schonfeld with six very useful articles, including year; can we guarantee enduring discovery of and profiles of some promising early initiatives, e.g., • budgetary constraints are forcing librar- access to sufficient print copies once we have WEST, UK Research Reserve, Association of ies to reduce their staff and physical discarded the redundant holdings? Southeastern Research Libraries. footprints, branch libraries are closing, The aims of this new bi-monthly column and there is pressure to convert high Programs and Partnerships — Curating Collective Collections — are to value central campus collection storage Operationalizing the conceptual shift from keep librarians current with issues and develop- space to user services space; curating local collections to conducting collec- ments in shared print archiving, and to broaden • most academic libraries, including the tion management as a system-level collabora- the conversation about how we can collectively 80+ high-density storage facilities, are tive effort will require a range of local, regional, and thoughtfully re-select (and de-select) and already at or are quickly approaching and national programs. These must be carefully care for our massive print general collections storage capacity; knit into a coherent whole. The initial building for which digital surrogates exist. Articles will blocks of a nationally coordinated program are focus on emergent efforts to ensure preservation • increasing reluctance to build more under development today in programs that will of and access to a sufficient number of print space for books; be profiled, and articles will track developments copies regionally and nationally of materials • about 6% of print holdings account for such as: 80% of print circulation2; withdrawn locally, i.e., curating collective col- • Evolving archiving models, such as: • digital surrogates are available for a lections. Yes, the word curating is overused o Optimizing and managing existing significant and growing portion (e.g., today, but for reasons I’ll outline in a future high density storage facilities to serve median duplication rate between Ha- piece, it fits the bill. as nodes in a national collection; Each article will present both news and thiTrust corpus and ARL libraries is at 3 o Establishing new centralized facili- commentary on the growing movement to 45% ) of the contents of an academic library; making it unnecessary to retain ties, for dark and light storage, based collectively curate our print collections in the on risk management parameters; national interest. News from the field will redundant copies of lesser used print include reports on programs, best practices, materials; o Distributed archiving, or “archiving publications, and professional development • the annual cost of central campus storage in place.” opportunities. Commentary will explore the and preservation of print is much higher • Regional business and governance nature of the safety net being fashioned today than the cost of digital storage.4 continued on page 77 76 Against the Grain / December 2011 - January 2012 <http://www.against-the-grain.com> ation and stewardship of a collective collec- e-books 140,000 Curating Collective Collections tion will require a robust set of infrastructure from page 76 elements, such as: • Nationally adopted and uniformly models, and ownership and retention applied protocols for disclosure of agreements; o holdings of journals and other %RRNVMultiMedia • Regional and national service models materials in series, that build on and extend existing re- 5 million item o retention commitments, source-sharing capacity; vhs dvd’s cd’s o copy-level usage data, and • Policy-based leadership structures to database shape and coordinate a national