This document discusses the growing issue of limited physical space in academic libraries in North America, with nearly 1 billion volumes currently held. It outlines the lack of good options libraries face, such as mass weeding or stopping new acquisitions. The rise of shared print agreements across regions is presented as a solution, allowing libraries to archive print collections cooperatively while retaining access. Key shared print programs and their features are summarized, as are emerging efforts focused on archiving print monographs. The document argues for continued collaboration on shared print to help preserve the overall print record in a sustainable way.

1. SHARED PRINT COLLECTIONS
IN NORTH AMERICA:
GOING MAIN STREAM
Lizanne Payne
Shared Print Consultant
lizannepayne03@gmail.com

2. Libraries Have Hit the Wall (Literally)
2
Almost 1 BILLION volumes
Over 980 million volumes About 25 million
in academic libraries volumes added
in North America each year
About 70 million volumes in
library storage facilities
NCES ALS + ARL statistics 2008

3. There are No Good Options
3
ASRS
Offsite
Storage closed
stacks
Mass
Stop Buying
Weeding
3

4. 4
Faculty and
scholars object.
Vociferously.
4

5. 5
5

6. It’s Not That We Want to Remove Books…
6
“…for a librarian
it's like your best friend just got bitten
by a zombie
and you're the only one
with a gun.”
S. Peter Davis. “6 Reasons We're In Another 'Book-Burning'
Period in History” Cracked, October 11, 2011
http://www.cracked.com/article_19453_6-reasons-were-in-
another-book-burning-period-in-history.html
6

7. Libraries Face Hard Choices
7
“Libraries have a certain
amount of space and a
certain amount of money…
It's easy to argue that …
these books are …
important…
But if you're the library,
how many…can you keep,
at what cost?”
http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2011/10/
12/141265066/hard-choices-do-libraries-
really-destroy-books

8. The Rise of Shared Print Agreements
COPPUL OCUL
CRL
CIC ReCAP
WEST
ASERL

9. Shared Print Operating Policies (A Template)
9
Retention •Perpetual, 25 years, 10 years, unspecified?
Commitment
Selection Criteria •How are items chosen for retention
•Centralized or Distributed?
Archive Locations •Storage facilities and/or libraries?
Ownership •Original library? Or archiving group or library?
•Review for completeness, condition
Validation •Volume, issue, page, none
•Who can borrow
Access/delivery •Access/Delivery methods

10. Shared Print Agreements in North America (Partial List)
10
Shared Library-
By By Custom
Storage Nominated By Domain
Publisher Analysis
Copy Titles
UC RLFs CRL JSTOR Western Regional
Archive ASERL Collab Fed Storage Trust
ASERL Journal
Depository (WEST)
Retention
Program
OhioLINK
CIC Shared Print
Repository
Maine Shared
Collections (TBD)
PASCAL
TRLN Single Copy Orbis-Cascade CRL/USAIN
Archive Alliance Agriculture
WRLC
COPPUL
PALCI
Minnesota MLAC
OCUL Thunder
CRL/LLMC Law
Bay Agreement ReCAP
Florida Statewide Five Colleges (MA)
Shared Collection

11. Mega-Regional Shared Print Journal Programs
11
CIC
Western Regional 10 libraries in 9 states
Storage Trust (WEST)
103 libraries in 17 states
ASERL
40 libraries in 12 states
More than 50% of all ARL libraries
participate in one of these

12. What’s Happening in the Northeast?
12
 Individual high-density storage facilities: Harvard,
Yale, Brown, Cornell
 Shared facilities: Five Colleges (UMass, Amherst,
Smith, Mount Holyoke, Hampshire), Johns
Hopkins/Maryland, Washington (DC) Research Library
Consortium, ReCAP (Columbia, Princeton, NYPL)
 Shared print agreements: PALCI, WRLC, ReCAP
(planning), Maine Shared Collections Strategy
(planning)
12

13. Key Features of Major Programs
13
WEST CIC-SPR ASERL
Members 103 10 40
Archive facilities Libraries and storage Indiana U. storage Libraries and storage
facilities facility facilities
Selection Journals by risk Journals from Journals nominated
profile Elsevier, Springer, by library
Wiley
Ownership Archive Holder/ Original Owner Archive Holder/
Owner Owner
Retention 25 years (to 2035) 25 years (to 2035) 25 years (to 2035)
Access Digital preferred; Digital preferred; At owning library’s
physical in-library physical in-library discretion
only only
Business Model Share upfront costs Share upfront costs No cost sharing,
of ingest of ingest AND libraries absorb own
ongoing retention costs

14. Monographs are the New Frontier
14
 Hathi Trust
 Maine Shared Collections Strategy
 Greater Western Library Alliance (GWLA)
 Midwest Collaborative for Library Services (MCLS)

15. Shared Monographs Require a Different Model
15
 Delivery issues
 Searchers more likely to want full print version
 Keep more copies available?
 Print on demand?
 Copyright issues: Only ~27% of Hathi titles in public
domain
 Space reclamation issues: How to make monograph
deselection cost-effective

16. Shared Print: Getting to Scale
16
Library
Collections
Digital Shared
Volumes Print
1. Disclose holdings that have been digitized or committed to shared print
2. Develop community standards and agreements to preserve print

17. Emerging Bibliographic Infrastructure
CRL’s PAPR Knowledgebase
OCLC WorldCat Print Archive Archived
Program Journal Titles
Directory and Holdings
Archived Holdings Unarchived holdings
(MARC Holdings) for analysis
(MARC Holdings)
Library
Catalogs
17

18. Print Archives Pilot Project: Metadata Guidelines
18
 Recommendations issued April 2012: http://t.co/I7NHnE0c
 Define a new Institution Symbol to indicate “print archived
material” at your institution. Needed for resource-sharing and
discovery in OCLC systems
 Create MARC Holdings Record for each title using the new Symbol
 Include 583 Action Note(s) describing the preservation action
(retention period, program, validation if any)

19. We Must Work Together
19
“No single library can or should acquire and retain everything.
To do so would be to disregard our home institution’s mission and
to squander its resources.
However, collectively we should be concerned with the survival of
the print record broadly conceived.”
Stephen Enniss, “Collaborative values and survival of the print record”,
College and Research Libraries News, June 1999.
(now head Librarian at the Folger Shakespeare Library)

20. Let us create the safety nets.
COPPUL
OCUL
New
England
CIC Mid-
WEST Atlantic
ASERL