Stewarding the Collective Collection: An Analysis of Print Retention Data in the US and Canada
Percent of items with a given LC Class that are retained in the United States and Canada Drilling down to individual programs, the overall trends are similar, but some differences do appear. Comparing the four programs in the US with the largest number of retention commitments—EAST, HathiTrust, ReCAP, and SCELC—demonstrates that ReCAP is less technology- and science-rich as a percentage of total retentions, but it includes more world history than the other programs.
SCELC retains the lowest percent of world history, but has the largest percent of philosophy, psychology and religion. All programs had a similar distribution of retention commitments across social sciences, fine arts, and language and literature, with language and literature being the largest percentage of all programs’ retention commitments, as the chart below shows.
C O N C L U S I O N
Shared print is the effort to work together to meet an acceptable risk threshold by retaining an adequate number of copies. To meet that risk threshold sustainably, we need ongoing, more reliable, and granular data analysis to support informed print strategies and decision-making. Shared print is not intended to be a last-copy
strategy—the approach many libraries employed a few decades ago.
It is unrealistic to think that every library has the means to commit to retaining copies in perpetuity. The shared print community needs to consider what to do when there is a scarcity of not only the number of titles, but also time, human capacity, and financial resources needed to meet a minimum threshold of risk tolerance even if all copies were committed. We do not know how often unique or scarcely held copies are being withdrawn each year. However, one can easily imagine technical infrastructure in the not-too-distant future that facilitates the migration of scarcely held but intellectually valuable items from smaller libraries that can no longer retain them to larger libraries with that capacity. There is reason to believe that many scarcely held materials could be outside the scope of shared
print, residing in the many special collections, archives, or locally produced ephemeral collections.10 Narrowing down the titles to those most suitable for shared print activities is a necessary step. Shared print alone will not preserve our collections. It is likely that even after reducing the scope of shared print from all titles in WorldCat to a narrower band, many titles will still be scarcely held.
Current automated cataloging workflows were created based on operational logic that is no longer congruent with today’s collective operational practices. Historically, knowledge organization descriptive practice centered on creating a local context for local use. As libraries increasingly evaluate local collections against collective collecting, it is imperative that metadata workflows are reexamined with an outward mindset. Recontextualizing local workflows within larger collective business needs, especially as they relate to data quality, is the first
step to creating data collections that are fit for the purpose of collective collection stewardship. Investing in this change to operational practice will maximize individual organizations’ investment into metadata to gain the most collective benefit. As evidenced by the data engineering and analysis required for this
research, improved metadata workflows and quality assessment, based on shared retention business operational needs, are fundamental to successfully moving the collective effort forward.
strategy—the approach many libraries employed a few decades ago.
It is unrealistic to think that every library has the means to commit to retaining copies in perpetuity. The shared print community needs to consider what to do when there is a scarcity of not only the number of titles, but also time, human capacity, and financial resources needed to meet a minimum threshold of risk tolerance even if all copies were committed. We do not know how often unique or scarcely held copies are being withdrawn each year. However, one can easily imagine technical infrastructure in the not-too-distant future that facilitates the migration of scarcely held but intellectually valuable items from smaller libraries that can no longer retain them to larger libraries with that capacity. There is reason to believe that many scarcely held materials could be outside the scope of shared
print, residing in the many special collections, archives, or locally produced ephemeral collections.10 Narrowing down the titles to those most suitable for shared print activities is a necessary step. Shared print alone will not preserve our collections. It is likely that even after reducing the scope of shared print from all titles in WorldCat to a narrower band, many titles will still be scarcely held.
Current automated cataloging workflows were created based on operational logic that is no longer congruent with today’s collective operational practices. Historically, knowledge organization descriptive practice centered on creating a local context for local use. As libraries increasingly evaluate local collections against collective collecting, it is imperative that metadata workflows are reexamined with an outward mindset. Recontextualizing local workflows within larger collective business needs, especially as they relate to data quality, is the first
step to creating data collections that are fit for the purpose of collective collection stewardship. Investing in this change to operational practice will maximize individual organizations’ investment into metadata to gain the most collective benefit. As evidenced by the data engineering and analysis required for this
research, improved metadata workflows and quality assessment, based on shared retention business operational needs, are fundamental to successfully moving the collective effort forward.
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