ConnectNY Shared Print Archive

ConnectNY Shared Print Archive

CNY Shared Print Trust Program

The CNY Shared Print Trust Program was approved in 2014.

Goal

The goal of the CNY Shared Print Trust Program is to preserve legacy print collections across the CNY member libraries and to provide new options for sharing the costs and efforts of long-term collection management. The Shared Print Trust consists of sets of print materials that have been identified by specific projects proposed and developed by CNY libraries that would be held in trust for a specified period of time determined by each project. The Program acknowledges the importance of local need and local decision-making among the membership, and at the same time promotes and actively supports the efficiencies of acting as a consortium, with the ultimate goal of improving all collections and expanding access to them for all users. All CNY member institutions are eligible to participate in any CNY shared print project as the projects develop.

Shared Print Trust Management Committee

The Shared Print Trust Management Committee manages and reports on the operations and projects of the CNY Shared Print Trust.   The CNY Shared Print Trust Management Committee will:

  • Assess the effectiveness of the Shared Print Trust Program;
  • Track developments and emerging trends in this field and share new ideas about best practices with the CNY community;
  • Coordinate and communicate retention and review decisions for each CNY Trust project;
  • Form sub-committees and/or project task forces as needed to work on specific project and functions related to the CNY Shared Print Trust.

Trust Project Process

Each project will create a set of governing rules, metrics and other criteria for materials to be included, retention commitments, and a subsequent review period, during which modifications may be made to the original retention period.   Materials that have been selected for retention in each project must be marked in the catalog records of the holding library, identifying both the item as being held in trust and the period of time held as pre-determined by the project.

Last Copy Guidelines Policy

Unless materials have been identified in a catalog record as Trust materials, they are not included in the Trust Collection. However, in the spirit of the Trust, when any CNY member library is withdrawing items, it should follow the Last Copy Guidelines (developed by the CNY SCS Working Group 4/13), which describe a process for dealing with the last remaining CNY copy of an item. The Last Copy Guidelines Policy can be found under the "Policies" tab here.

The Future

In the current archival, library and publishing environment, any print collection management program such as this one is necessarily provisional. To be useful to members and our users into the future, the Shared Print Trust Program must be clear in its purposes, poised to anticipate change, and prepared to implement changes that are in the best interest of the membership.   The Shared Print Trust Management Committee will ensure that the CNY membership remains informed about evolving regional and national efforts in the areas of digital publishing, open access programs, and others, with the intention of both leading and joining such initiatives.

Project History

The First Project: Pod 1

ConnectNY began efforts to create a light archive shared print trust of circulating monographs for the consortium in October 2012. There was no desire to build or locate an off-site storage facility for the consortium, so it was agreed that the archive would be a light one, with the retention commitments maintained at each owning library. Sustainable Collection Services (SCS) was selected to provide the data analysis, and twelve members of CNY agreed to participate. Project Goal: To further our collaboration through greater mutual reliance on our respective circulating print book collections, and in the process relieving pressure on both library shelf space and storage space. To that end, the project will:

  1. Provide access to the maximum range of print resources while reducing the level of redundancy among low-use titles while carefully drawing down portions of our individual print collections.
  2. Equitably allocate the deselection and retention of titles.
  3. Identify uniquely held titles and establish a last copy policy for the consortium. (Note:The Last Copy Guideline Policy can be found under the "Policies" tab here.)

Project Participants ("Pod 1 Libraries")

  • Adelphi University
  • Bard College
  • Canisius College
  • Cazenovia College (no longer a CNY member)
  • Colgate University
  • Hamilton College
  • Le Moyne College
  • Medaille College
  • Pace University
  • St. Lawrence University
  • Union College
  • Vassar College

Project Partner

Sustainable Collection Services: https://www.oclc.org/en/sustainable-collections.html

Criteria and Statistics

Criteria for titles included in the ConnectNY Shared Print Trust Project (Pod 1):

  • Focus on low use circulating monographs. It was agreed that two copies of each title would be retained for ten years with data driven review at some mid point.
  • Data set include:
    • Titles that are currently held by 3 or more institutions in the group
    • Published or added to the collection prior to 2000
    • Last circulation before 2007
    • Titles with 3 or fewer circulations

Retention commitment

10 years; through January 1, 2024

 

Facts about the participating libraries:

Total number of circulating print books 3,364,553
# published prior to 2000 2,512,126
# unique copies within the group 924,962
 

Project data:

Number of allocable titles which will be retained 852,995
Number of titles which can potentially be withdrawn. Each library determines local criteria for their withdrawal process. 632,352
 

Project 2: Collaboration with EAST

The Eastern Academic Scholars Trust (EAST), https://eastlibraries.org, began its work in 2015-2016, and CNY became a collaborator in the initial development of the print retention partnership. EAST provided another avenue for CNY members to become involved in shared print retention. Five of the 12 Pod 1 libraries are retention partners with EAST: Adelphi, Bard, Hamilton, Union, and Vassar. Their CNY retention commitment data is incorporated into the analysis for the EAST shared print archive. These five libraries will maintain their commitments to CNY, and will retain titles for EAST for a period of 15 years (through August, 2031). There will be no reduction in commitment to CNY based on the EAST data. CNY paid a fee to include this data in the analysis.   Siena and Skidmore were not part of Pod 1; CNY provided a small subsidy for the analysis of their holdings for the EAST project. As EAST retention partners, they will be adhering to all guidelines set up by EAST regarding retention. These commitments will not be incorporated into CNY’s shared print trust program.