Council of Prairie and Pacific University Libraries
Shared Print Archive Network
(COPPUL SPAN)
Gwen Bird
Executive Director, COPPUL
Leonora Crema
AUL Client Services & Programs, UBC and
Chair, SPAN Management Committee
About COPPUL
23 university libraries in Canada’s four western
provinces
• range in size from <8k-10M vols
• covering land mass of 1,122,320 sq miles
Long tradition of resource sharing:
• ILL, discovery systems, e-licensing, digital archiving
One of several Canadian consortia involved in shared
print
• also national ‘last copy’ discussion in Library &
Archives Canada
Hi.
We’re
up here.
Canada’s geography
is a driver for:
 regional systems
spanning vast
distances and
jurisdictions
 pooling assets and
technologies to
solve problems
• but outside urban
areas a ‘relatively
attenuated
infrastructure to
support flowbased model’
What precipitated action?
Several factors:
• changing use
• shared print had reached scale
• on Canadian campuses, space pressures with funds for
public infrastructure renewal
Within COPPUL:
• history of trusted relationships
– continue building on what we have
• invested in learning events and consultancy
• kept it simple, practical, low-risk
– driving goal was space repurposing rather
than collection management protocols
Emily Stambaugh of WEST
Governance
Where many efforts bog down…
COPPUL went for governance ‘lite’
• sought commitment, not consensus
• 5-person management team composed by role
rather than region or institution
• modest fees paid to COPPUL to host
• no permanent agreement: 5-year renewable
Agreement available at:
www.coppul.ca/projects/SPAN%20AgreementApril2012revWEB.pdf
The result?
After our first 6 months:
• 19 libraries signed membership and paid fees
• 1,700+ journal titles (60,000 vols) designated for
retention by 10 libraries
• working to expose in WorldCat and PAPR
• attributes of distributed and repository model
• FAQs and learning events for staff, users planned
….for about $27,000, ‘all in’
Collection analysis phase
• commissioned custom report from OCLC
>19M vols; % unique & % overlap; list of
serials held at 10+ sites; but some flaws
• collected serials holdings lists from largest
members
• developed tool to scrape serial holdings from
catalogues of other members
• grant-funded summer student provided
analysis brainpower
Built for co-operation
• years of study & investigation…but at
implementation, not an early starter
• designed for co-operation beyond own
borders from outset
• risk analysis framework
– Phase 1 = all low risk (build trust!)
• node in an optimal copies network
Local development of tools
– registry to expose retention commitments;
currently suspended
– collection analysis tool; weighed against
PAPR’s collection analysis module – will be
re-evaluated for subsequent phases
“Thin consortial layer”
“Analog preservation needs to be in the
background, something that happens but
not something we fuss about. Simplicity
and ‘no noise’ are important features.”
-COPPUL Board member
Canadian context
• 4 regional university library consortia
(COPPUL, OCUL, CREPUQ, CAUL) and
one national consortium (CRKN)
• Library and Archives Canada,
Pan-Canadian Documentary Heritage
Network
• global view of collaboration across
jurisdictions
What next?
• template to report weeding has been
distributed; awaiting responses
• assessment of Phase 1
• establish priorities for Phase 2
• policy & procedures for higher risk items
• 20th member poised to join
• records in PAPR, WorldCat
• links with other groups
leonora.crema@ubc.ca
execdir@coppul.ca