presentation at RLUK Members' Meeting, University of St Andrews, 15 November 2013

1. Right-scaling Stewardship
Shared Monographic Collections
Constance Malpas
Program Officer, OCLC Research
15th November 2013 | RLUK St Andrews Members Meeting
#RLUK2013
1

2. Digitisation
Scale
Differentiation

3. Maximising Access to our Collections in the Digital World
Library Digitisation – a US view
4

4. Cloud-Sourcing Research Collections:
Key Finding: Mass digitized corpus in HathiTrust duplicates substantial portion of academic
print
60%
Duplication of ARL University Library Holdings
in HathiTrust Digital Library
50%
Median duplication in December 2010: 33%
How does RLUK
situation
compare?
% of Titles Duplicated
40%
30%
Median duplication in June 2010: 31%
20%
10%
Median duplication in June 2009: 19%
0%
0
20
40
60
Rank in ARL Investment Index (2007-2008)
80
100
120

5. University of Leeds Library (ERL) Titles
Duplicated in Hathi Trust Digital Library - January 2012
47,624 titles
5%
349,738 titles
36%
Digitised public domain (US)
302,114 titles
31%
Digitised in copyright (US)
6

6. July 2012 HathiTrust Overlap by Collection Size
Selected RLUK Institutions
50%
45%
RLUK median overlap = 24% (titles)
US context: ARL overlap ~34%
40%
Percentage of Titles Duplicated
35%
Manchester
30%
Cambridge
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
0
500,000
1,000,000 1,500,000 2,000,000 2,500,000 3,000,000 3,500,000 4,000,000 4,500,000 5,000,000
WorldCat Holdings - August 2012
7

7. Scale
8

8. Center of gravityfor core library operations is
shifting
Many functions traditionally organised at „institution-scale‟ are
being re-organised at above-the-institution scale
Local  group, regional, national
Cataloguing, selection/acquisition, stewardship
Shared e-collections -Shared services –
Shared print –
National Monograph Strategy
UK context favors emergence of national-scale solution
9

9. Right-scaling stewardship
US:shared print efforts increasingly organised at group, regional scale
Mlchigan Shared Print Initative
Central Iowa Collaborative Collections Initiative
Florida Academic Repository
Why?
Existing-inter-lending partnerships – strong networks of trust
Constorial infrastructure – established governance structures
Strong federalist tradition – favors decentralised solutions
US context favors emergence of group-scale solution
10

10. Coherence of regional print
book collections is strong
North American print book resource:
45.7 million distinct publications
889.5 million total library holdings
11

11. Shared stewardship – at what
scale?
Supply
transition from print to electronic has
been slower for books than journals; less
redundancy in system-wide inventory
Demand
Brand
increased discoverability in the network
puts new pressure on print supply chain
library reputation still bound up with books;
organisational transition is difficult
User
affordances of digitized and e-books differ;
reader expectations are not yet fixed
behaviours
Optimal scale of collaboration for books v. journals may d
12

12. Maximising Access to our Collections in the Digital World
Differentiation
13

13. „the gap that should most
concern us in research libraries
today is not the one that lies
between physical and online
documents, but the one that lies
between commodity and noncommodity documents.‟ (p.3)
Rick Anderson. Can‟t Buy Us Love: The Declining Importance of Library
Books and the Rising Importance of Special Collections. Ithaka
S+R, 2013
15

14. OCLC Collections Grid
Library as broker
Maximise efficiency
Purchased
Then
In many
collections
Outside, in
Licensed
Commodity
High
Stewardship
Low
Stewardship
A
Distinctive
Reputation management
Maximise visibility
Inside, out
In few
collections
Now

15. How Distinctive Are RLUK
Collections?
Proportion of titles held by <5 libraries in WorldCat
60%
50%
Selective sample
(ORLP)
40%
30%
Median: 21%
20%
But: scarcity (alone) is
not a reliable indicator of
research value
10%
0%
0
2,000,000
4,000,000
6,000,000
8,000,000
10,000,000
Titles in collection as represented in WorldCat
18

16. Centers of Distinction: Subjects
19

17. Centers of Distinction: Identities
20

18. D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson (1860-1948)
Total Works in WorldCat = 146
HATHITRUST DIGITAL LIBR
TEXAS A&M UNIV SAN ANTONIO
UNIV OF ALBERTA
SIMPSON UNIV
BRITISH LIBR
PRINCETON UNIV
GOOGLE
EDINBURGH UNIV LIBR
UNIV OF MICHIGAN LIBR
NEW YORK PUB LIBR
UNIV OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY
MCGILL UNIV
UNIV OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO
CAMBRIDGE UNIV
UNIV OF OXFORD
NATIONAL LIBR OF SCOTLAND
STANFORD UNIV LIBR
BRITISH LIBR REFERENCE COLLECTIONS
AMERICAN MUS OF NATURAL HIST
NATURAL HIST MUS
HARVARD UNIV, ERNST MAYR LIBR-MCZ
SAINT ANDREWS UNIV LIBR
St Andrews indisputably the
„go-to‟ location for materials
related to Thompson
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
21

19. Shared monographic collections . . .
Less about de-selection
More about re-selection
Right-scaling solutions that maximise
value, useand syndicating distinctive
Surfacing
assets
that support and amplify institutional
reputation
22

20. Thanks for your attention.
malpasc@oclc.org
@ConstanceM
http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/usl.html
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