Maine Shared Collections Strategy:
Print Archive Network Update
Dr. Clem Guthro,
Director of the Colby College Libraries
MSCS Project Co-PI
www.maineinfonet.net/mscs/
The Library Context in Maine
 Academic Libraries
 University of Maine, University of Southern Maine, and 5
small campuses
 Colby, Bates and Bowdoin
 University of New England
 7 Community Colleges
 Small private colleges (Unity, Thomas, St. Josephs, College
of the Atlantic, Maine Maritime Academy, Maine College
of Art, Husson, Beal, Kaplan)
The Library Context in Maine
 Public Libraries
 265 public libraries
 2 flagship publics –Bangor and Portland
 150 with collections smaller than 20,000 vols
 Maine State Library
 Maine Law and Legislative Reference Library
 Special Libraries
 23 hospital libraries
 2 Independent Labs (Jackson and Bigelow)
The Library Context in Maine
 Maine InfoNet
 MaineCat – Statewide catalog
 Marvel – Statewide databases
 Larger Libraries
 9 largest libraries in Maine
 Directors meet twice a year
 Annual staff development day
 CBB (Colby, Bates, Bowdoin)
 Cooperative collection development
 Common loan periods & 6 day a week delivery
 State-wide delivery -1.25 million items/year
IMLS Grant background
 Larger Libraries Group- 9 largest collections
 Long tradition of collaboration and trust (100 years)
 Most libraries were running out of space and unlikely to get
additional space
 The collections of the Larger Libraries Group represent ¾ of
the print collections in Maine
 Wanted a shared approach to managing legacy print
collections for the long term
 Looking to be leaders in the print collection space
IMLS Grant & Project Partners
 2 public universities, 3 private colleges, state library, 2 public
libraries, 1 state-wide library consortium
http://www.maineinfonet.org/MSCS
IMLS Grant – The original
 $821,000 three year grant to create a shared print collections




strategy
Create a collection analysis system to analyze the collections and
assist in decision making
Examine the presence of large scale digital collections (Hathi
Trust and Internet Archive) as a determiner of what to keep in
print
Integrate Print on Demand for large scale digital collections
where local print copies are unavailable
Integrate Electronic on Demand for large scale digital collections
Grant focus
 Focus is monographs and journals (Government document are






excluded)
The goal is to determine which volumes should be retained long
term and by whom
Develop a method to make retention decisions at scale
Libraries may discard materials or not once retention decisions
are made (downsizing is not the predominant focus)
Provide a framework for other libraries to participate once the
initial grant period is complete
Expose our retention decisions to the world
Be part of the emerging national conversation
Political Goals
 Build on the collaboration that is a norm in Maine
 Help faculty and the public to think of our libraries as
collaborative partners in building and preserving collections
 We wanted the emphasis to be on print retention and not on
weeding. Our message to our community is that we are
preserving the print heritage in Maine.
 We wanted to capitalize on the robust physical delivery
system and tradition of sharing to help us
Governance and Business
 Wanted a sustainable business model
 Wanted a formal Memorandum of Understanding to guide the
ongoing work.
 Wanted a governance and operational structure that was “light
weight” but workable
Project Management
 Project Team
 Contracted Systems Librarian
 Director’s Council
 Collections Committee
 Technical Services and Systems Committee
 National Advisory Board
 http://www.maineinfonet.net/mscs/about/people/
http://www.maineinfonet.org/MSCS
Data Wrangling
 OCLC reclamation
 OCLC WorldCat Collection Analysis
 Sustainable Collections Services
 2.9 Million records
http://www.maineinfonet.org/MSCS
1,200,000
Zero Circulations
1,000,000
1-3 Circulations
800,000
374,062
600,000
267,658
4 plus Circulations
204,219
403,284
341,231
400,000
232,054
200,000
295,425
393,391
208,430
1
2
Number of MSCS Libraries Holding Title
3+
Scenario 1- Commit to Retain
 Held by 1 or 2 libraries (1,076,188 titles/1,258,195 items)
 Retain copies if any circulation or reserve activity
 Retain “protected” category copies even if no circulation
(Maine and/or institution specific items)
 Retain Special Collections/Archives copies even if no
circulation
 Retain unique in OCLC (only 0‐9 copies in OCLC) even if no
circulation
 Compare remaining 0 circulation copies with both HathiTrust
and Internet Archive – “Needs further examination”
http://www.maineinfonet.org/MSCS
Scenario 1- Further refinements
 Scenario 1 titles split into two groups
 Titles with a single item record per bib record approximately
900,000 items (about 91% of the titles and 78% of the
items) (Commit to retain)
 Titles with multiple item records per bib record
approximately 100,000 items (about 9% of the titles and
22% of the items) – “Needs further examination”
 Divide these further into multi‐volume sets and multiple
copies and add to “Needs further examination”
http://www.maineinfonet.org/MSCS
Next Steps
 Get MOU’s signed
 Add 583 Commitments in our local catalogs and create LHRs
to load these holdings to OCLC – about 900,000 titles ready
to go.
 Integrate retention commitments into MaineCat
http://www.maineinfonet.org/MSCS
http://www.maineinfonet.org/MSCS
Next Steps…
 Examine the “Needs further examination group”
 Develop criteria for the remaining part of the collection that
has 3+ holdings.
 Join the Hathi Trust
 Integrate Print on Demand and E on Demand
Work on journals
 See how our project plays with the newly evolving North
East Regional Print Library Management Project
http://www.maineinfonet.org/MSCS