Lizanne Payne
Historically collaboration and resource sharing have been vital parts of library operations. In recent years, more and more libraries have been planning and implementing programs to share print holdings as a strategy to manage limited campus shelf space, leading to fundamental integration of their collections and services. Unlike traditional resource sharing agreements, which were designed to provide materials that most likely were outside the borrowing library’s established collecting areas, shared print collections may involve materials that were part of each library’s primary collection. The degree of commitment required is substantially higher than for a traditional interlibrary loan (ILL) or consortial lending agreement, because some participants are likely to give up some of their own primary holdings and rely on the shared print collection. Libraries participating in a shared print collection need guaranteed long-term access to the shared holdings in order to reclaim current or future space by deselecting or choosing not to buy their own corresponding copies.
This chapter will describe the elements of governance and business models that libraries need to define and adopt in order to ensure the long-term sustainability of a shared print collection. It will outline the elements of shared print agreements, identify how those elements contribute to sustainability, and describe how selected shared print programs have chosen to define their agreements.
Shared print collections rely on long-term agreements that govern the relationship among the participating libraries. During planning, any group of libraries considering a shared collection will need to consider and define these attributes:
• membership
• policy (services to and obligations of the participants)
• business model (costs to be incurred and how those costs will be shared)
• governance and administration (organizational and administrative structure)
• Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) or other agreement that embodies the group’s decisions
The following sections describe the nature of these decisions, how they affect sustainability, and how some current shared print collection programs have defined them.
Any collaboration across multiple organizations requires that membership be defined: which organizations are eligible to participate (membership criteria) and which organizations actually commit to participate.
Most shared print programs in the United States have developed in the context of existing library consortia and their current member libraries. In these cases, the pool of eligible members is defined by the membership of the consortium. In some cases the entire consortium participates in the shared collection program, while in other cases a subset of consortium members elects to participate.
Existing consortia constitute trust networks, where libraries usually have a relationship with consortial partners across a spectrum of activities, often including borrowing and lending. This trust relationship sometimes makes it easier for libraries to enter into a long-term shared print collection agreement and, especially, to trust that their partners will honor the agreement in the future. A consortial shared print agreement has a head start on sustainability because a long-term relationship already exists and is presumed to continue outside the context of the shared print program.
A few examples of consortium-based shared print collections include:
• The Committee on Institutional Cooperation Shared Print Repository (CIC SPR), a shared print journal program with centralized holdings at Indiana University, which serves CIC’s fifteen member institutions.
• Five Colleges, Incorporated, which founded one of the very first shared print collections at its library depository shared by Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith colleges and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
• The Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL), a thirty-eight-member consortium supporting a broad array of programs to members, including a Collaborative Journal Retention Program.
In some cases, libraries look outside of a formal consortium, or multiple consortia join together, to create a new participant group for a shared print collection. In these cases, a different non-consortial group of libraries may be interested in a shared collection among members in a common geographic area or with common academic programs. Sometimes new or larger groupings are encouraged by funding agencies to increase the scope of participation.
A few examples of new extra-consortial shared print collections include:
• The Western Regional Storage Trust (WEST), a distributed print journal retention program established in 2010, with more than one hundred members in eighteen states, including consortial members Orbis Cascade Alliance, Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium (SCELC), and the California Digital Library.
• The Eastern Academic Scholars’ Trust (EAST), a distributed monograph and journal retention program among forty-seven academic libraries in New England, New York, and Pennsylvania, which began implementation in 2015.
• The Academic Libraries of Indiana (ALI) and Private Academic Library Network of Indiana (PALNI), which are implementing a distributed shared monograph collection among thirty-six members across both consortia.
• The Central Iowa Collaborative Collections Initiative (CI-CCI), an agreement established in 2013 among five Iowa colleges (Central College, Drake University, Grand View University, Grinnell College, and Simpson College) for distributed retention of monographs.
Whether organizing through an existing consortium or a new extra-consortial group, planners should identify possible members or categories of members while defining the program. However, individual libraries usually wait until after the policies and business model have been defined before making final membership commitments.
Policies and services are the decisions that usually receive the most attention when planning for a shared print collection. Libraries considering a shared print collection must define the nature of the program, as well as the obligations of and benefits to the participants, in the following areas:
1. Selection. What kinds of library holdings will be included in the shared collection: journals, monographs, both, or other materials (e.g., government documents)? How will they be identified: corresponding to electronic availability (an approach typical for journals), library-nominated titles, monograph title circulation history, or collection analysis based on holdings overlap among participating libraries or with other groups (e.g., HathiTrust or OCLC)? Will the emphasis be on rarely held materials to preserve them, or on widely held materials to create more opportunities for space reclamation, or both? The selection or definition of shared print holdings often drives many other decisions, costs, and benefits.
2. Retention commitment. How long will the designated volumes be kept? There is sometimes tension between members who want a very long retention period to ensure long-term availability and those who want a shorter retention commitment to reduce the burden on collection holders. A longer retention period could support longer sustainability for the collection, but if the required retention period is too long, it may deter participation by holding libraries, and thus might actually reduce sustainability of the program. Each shared print group needs to determine the appropriate balance for its own members.
3. Holding location(s). Will the shared print volumes be moved to one or more central repositories or maintained at the original owning library locations? Shared print monograph programs almost always maintain holdings at the original library, while shared print journal programs may transfer holdings to central locations in order to build complete backfiles.
4. Ownership. Will the print volumes continue to be owned by the original library or will ownership be transferred to a new holder or to the group as a whole? In practice, ownership is almost always maintained by the original owner because of legal and financial requirements, especially for state institutions.
5. Validation. Will libraries be required to review the physical volumes to verify holdings or condition as a requirement for participation? The question of validation also requires balancing competing needs. Confirming that volumes exist and are in good condition supports sustainability of the shared print collection by encouraging libraries to trust the collection. On the other hand, the effort and cost of validation may deter participation and raise member fees, thus increasing risk to the shared collection as a whole.
6. Disclosure and discovery. Will libraries use a common metadata format to record the shared collection information (e.g., the retention commitment) in local catalogs, consortial catalogs, or broader registries such as WorldCat and the Center for Research Libraries (CRL) Print Archives Preservation Registry (PAPR) system? Will a separate searchable catalog be desirable and if so, how would it be implemented?
7. Access and delivery. What mechanism(s) will be used to request shared materials? What kinds of delivery will be provided (physical, electronic, both)? Will shared collection partners get preferential access compared to other borrowers (e.g., no-fee ILL, longer loan periods, faster fulfillment)?
A business model identifies what costs will be incurred, which of those costs will be shared among the participants, and how shared costs are divided among members.
Certain activities necessary to support a shared print collection will potentially incur costs for the group or for individual participants.
1. Collection analysis. Some form of collection analysis is often required to help identify materials to share, especially in the case of monographs. This may range from preparing local and group spreadsheets to contracting for sophisticated automated analysis of holdings overlap and usage across the member group and comparison to other holdings. Collection analysis costs include the associated library staff time to prepare holdings data and to evaluate resulting reports, in addition to any vendor costs.
2. Space. Libraries that agree to retain print volumes over time incur the cost of providing and maintaining that space, plus the opportunity cost of not being able to use that space for something else. In some cases, it may be necessary to upgrade the physical facility to support long-term preservation to agreed standards (e.g., environmental conditions, security).
3. Validation. If the program requires inventory and/or condition review, libraries will incur the labor cost to retrieve, review, and reshelve the print volumes and document the findings in metadata.
4. Transport. For shared print collections based at one or more centralized facilities, or for shared print journal programs that actively build backfiles by filling gaps, there are costs to ship physical volumes from the original location to the new holding facility. Depending on the geographic proximity of participants, the program may also provide bulk delivery of requested items (e.g., a van service).
5. Disclosure and discovery. There will be staff costs to record the shared print collection information (e.g., retention commitment) in various catalogs and registries as may be required by the shared print collection disclosure policy.
6. Lending and borrowing. There may be additional staff costs to support lending from the shared print collection, particularly if new workflows are required, as when the program accords special privileges to shared collection partners (e.g., free borrowing where normally there would an ILL fee).
7. Deselection. Libraries that choose to reclaim space in their own collections will incur the costs to identify and remove their copies.
8. Program staff. During the planning stage, defining policies and services requires significant amounts of staff time across library departments (e.g., collection development, access services, and metadata). Even after the planning stage, considerable time still is required to implement the program and, later, to oversee operations. In addition to staff required to perform regular library operations as described above (e.g., for lending), it is often necessary to identify a project manager (which may be an individual or shared role) to monitor progress against the schedule, evaluate shared collection usage, prepare internal and external communications about the program, and manage revision of policies as needed.
9. Administration. Additional staff time may be necessary to support payments to vendors, grant accounting and reports (if applicable), and billing for member fees (if any).
Once planners have identified the cost categories that will be required to build and maintain the shared print collection (preferably with cost estimates where feasible), the next step is to determine which of the costs will be shared among the group and which will be absorbed by the participating libraries and not passed along to the group.
Most of the earliest shared print programs, particularly those focused on print journals, did not choose to collect fees from the members, and all costs were absorbed by the participating libraries. The thinking was that all members incurred similar costs and received similar benefits, and the cost of administering fees would be more trouble than it was worth. In such cases, typically the administration of the program was handled by the sponsoring consortium as part of their ongoing service to the libraries. An example of this kind of no-fees business model is the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL) Collaborative Journal Retention Program.
In other cases, programs defined certain costs as part of a program budget to be supported by members. Note that the choice of which costs to share reflects the goals and principles of the program.
One of the issues that almost always arises is the question of whether libraries should be compensated for holding volumes designated as part of the shared print collection (i.e., for the cost of space). The argument in favor of compensating collection holders is that such payments encourage libraries to commit to long-term retention by supporting the costs associated with using their own shelf space. The argument against compensating collection holders is that it increases the program cost for all members, including those libraries that may have been likely to keep at least some of those volumes anyway. There is no one right answer to this question; each group of libraries planning to share a collection will need to resolve the issue as it sees fit.
Two examples of shared print collection programs that explicitly share costs via membership fees are:
• WEST, which includes the following cost categories in its shared print program budget: program staff and administration, automated collection analysis, and payments to holding libraries to support “archive creation” (completing backfiles, validation, and disclosure). All other costs are absorbed by the member libraries (e.g., for lending/borrowing, deselection, etc.). Originally the WEST business model also provided a discount to holding libraries as partial compensation for the space they were allocating for shared print collection volumes, but in 2014 WEST changed the business model to eliminate such compensation. WEST planning documents explicitly stated that a goal of the business model was to encourage sustainability by not building in long-term costs for space usage; that is, the costs of WEST are primarily the expenses to build backfiles.
• The CIC SPR program, which shares program management staff and administration, ingest and ongoing storage at the host site(s), and support for costs to ship materials to the host site. Contributing CIC libraries absorb local expenses incurred to identify and contribute materials, record holdings in local catalogs or other discovery tools, and provide additional metadata as needed by the central host facility.
If planners agree that participating libraries will provide a direct financial contribution to support shared costs, they need to develop a cost-sharing model or formula to determine member fees. Important goals of any cost-sharing model are to
• encourage participation
• provide sustainable revenue for the program over time
• ensure equitable contributions among participants
Member fees are often constructed with up to three components: annual fees to support ongoing fixed costs such as staffing and space (if compensated), per-unit activity fees to cover occasional and unpredictable activity costs such as borrowing a volume, and project costs that may vary based on participation, such as collection analysis.
A pure cost-sharing formula simply divides the total fixed costs by the number of participants to determine individual member shares. This approach might work well in a heterogeneous group with similar costs and participation patterns (e.g., the CIC SPR). For shared collections with more diversity among members, a tiered approach is often used so that libraries of similar size would pay similar fees. WEST, for example, originally defined member fee tiers based primarily on library collection size, but in 2015 changed the tiers to use library operations budget.
Libraries planning a shared print collection are often concerned about the “free-rider problem,” that is, libraries that are not official members of the shared print collection program that receive benefits but do not provide financial support. The shared print collection program can be designed in such a way that services are provided only to member libraries and their patrons, which requires implementing workflows to check membership credentials at appropriate points. Other shared print collections may decide that the overhead to prevent free riders is more trouble than the problem it is intended to solve. In some cases a very low entry-level membership fee is set to encourage libraries that might otherwise be free riders to join.
Like any program, shared print collections need governance and administration to support the necessary activities.
Governance refers to the bodies or roles that provide oversight, manage long-term change, and render decisions about the program and its policies. Governance bodies may include an overarching group such as a Board of Directors (however named) and one or more operational groups to advise about policies and services. In the case of a shared print collection developed within an existing consortium, governance may be handled by the existing consortium’s governance, or a separate program governance may be defined. If the shared collection is composed of a small number of members, it is feasible to have each represented at each level of governance. If the program includes many member institutions (more than a dozen or so), it may be more feasible to define a representative governance in which a smaller number of participants represent other libraries of a similar size or type.
Administration refers to the organizational structures that handle any staffing or financial activities that may be required. If the program incurs central expenses for staff or collection analysis services, collects cost-sharing fees from members, or receives grant funding, it will be necessary to identify or create an organization to support the program’s financial and legal obligations.
If the program’s business model does not require any central funding or incur any central expenses, formal administration may not be necessary.
Once the services, policies, business model, governance, and administration have been established, these decisions should be embodied in a written agreement. The agreement also should outline procedures for handling future changes or problems. Typical clauses include provisions for:
• Decision-making. Should specify who makes future decisions (the governing body) and how and when changes will be considered
• Withdrawal by any member. May define a minimum notice period and a requirement to continue paying the member fee in the interim to minimize the financial impact on other members.
• Withdrawal by a collection holder. May require that shared collection print holdings be transferred (or at least offered) to other member libraries.
• Adding new members. May determine how and when new partners may join the agreement, and what obligations they may have upon joining (e.g., collection analysis).
• Replacement of lost or damaged volumes. May require that holders (or borrowers) find replacement volumes.
• Periodic review of the agreement. May define a future time period for explicit review of the retention commitment to allow for future changes in the scholarly communications and/or technology environments. For example, future members may decide that changes to copyright status or digital availability or other retention commitments means that certain holdings no longer need to be maintained.
The shared print collection agreement may be a relatively informal MOU or a more formal contractual agreement that reflects the nature of the program and its membership. CRL’s PAPR maintains links to shared print agreements that have been developed at a number of programs (www.crl.edu/archiving-preservation/print-archives/service-agreements).
It is important to note that, whether the agreement is formal or informal, it probably is not ultimately enforceable in a strict legal sense. It is unlikely that one academic institution would sue another in a court of law over breaking the shared collection agreement. The value of a written agreement is to document for current and especially for future staff and administrators that a long-term commitment has been made between partner institutions with certain services promised. The agreement serves as a point of reference for member libraries within their own campuses in discussions with faculty, students, and administration.
Libraries working together to define parameters for a shared print collection set the stage for deep collaboration. By giving careful thought to the policies and business model that will govern the relationship, partner libraries can promote sustainability or, unwittingly, discourage it. Planners should ask these questions:
• Would this policy create significant additional costs for participating libraries in a way that may deter joining or encourage future withdrawal (less sustainable)? Would the policy provide enough benefit on the whole to justify the cost (more sustainable)?
• Does the business model obligate libraries to pay fees long into the future (less sustainable) or only while active work is occurring (more sustainable)?
• Does the member fee formula apportion costs in a way that is transparent and feels equitable to most members (more sustainable)?
Carefully designed shared print agreements embody community values that contribute to long-term preservation of and access to library print holdings that are central to study and research at their institutions.
For further information about shared print programs and descriptions of many of them: Center for Research Libraries (CRL) Print Archives Preservation Registry (PAPR) (www.crl.edu/archiving-preservation/print-archives).
For further information about the specific programs mentioned in this chapter:
Shared Print Program |
Website (as of fall 2015) |
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ASERL Collaborative Journal Retention program |
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Central Iowa Collaborative Collections Initiative |
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Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) Shared Print Repository |
www.cic.net/projects/library/shared-print-repository/introduction |
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Eastern Academic Scholars’ Trust (EAST) |
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Five Colleges, Inc. Library Depository |
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Academic Libraries of Indiana (ALI) and Private Academic Library Network of Indiana (PALNI) Shared Print Collection Initiative |
http://academiclibrariesofindiana.org/home/sharedprintproject |
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Western Regional Storage Trust (WEST) |