Information Alliance
Counterpart Projects: Collection Managers
Information Alliance Collection Managers Meeting
Friday, November 18, 2005
William T. Young Library
University of Kentucky, Lexington
Present: Beth Cackowski (SOLINET Trainer), Mary Beth Blalock (VU Collection Development VU), Brad Carrington (UK Chief Bibliographer), Helane Davis (AD for Public Services, UK Law Library), Ann Doyle Fath (UK Head, Collection Development Department), John Haar (VU AUL), Gordon Hogg (UK Director, Academic Liaisons), Delight Jobe (UT Collection Management Staff), Bryan Kurowski (VU Collection Development Staff), Linda Phillips (UT Head, Collection Development & Management), Jane Row (UT Social Sciences Coordinator), Mary Beth Thomson (UK AD for Collections & Technical Services), Rebecca Trammell (Director, UK Law Library), Sarah Vaughn (UK Social Sciences Bibliographer), Sara Williams (UT Collection Management Coordinator)
WORLDCAT COLLECTION ANALYSIS TRAINING SESSION
Beth distributed printed copies of her slides. The training agenda include an overview of the WorldCat Collection Analysis Service, the mechanics of the group analysis function, applications of the service to collection development, operation of the administrative module, creating reports, and additional resources.
OCLC will be FRBRizing WorldCat to bring together various editions of a title.
A logical starting point to understand the scope of the WorldCat database is to see the OCLC conspectus (in spreadsheet format) at: http://www.oclc.org/collectionanalysis/support/conspectus.xls
A concise description of the conspectus is available at:
http://www.oclc.org/support/documentation/collectionanalysis/quickreference/default.htm
One may join the WorldCat Collection Analysis listserv by going to https://www3.oclc.org/app/listserv/. Select the OCLC-WCA option.
APPLICATIONS TO COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT
Beth suggests creating a WCA group that consists of the main libraries only so that the results will be comparable.
We can target portions of the collection to review in the aggregate. Such a strategy will consider the number of titles as if the collections were in one library. The WC records can be used to compare the collections at given points in time, so that collection development actions may be tracked. There will be too much lag time to use them for current ordering.
We reviewed some specific areas to practice interpreting results. We saw that there is 75% overlap and 25% unique titles in the Information Alliance ANTHROPOLOGY call number ranges.
Cooperative preservation is a potential application, using date and uniqueness as relevant variables.
Other potential applications of the WCA include allocations, weeding, developing benchmarks, and identifying subject depth.
QUESTIONS
Beth forwarded two questions from the group to Ann-Marie Weher at OCLC.
1.
The WCA administrative module seems to permit changes to FirstSearch authorizations.
Is this intended?
Ann-Marie’s reply:
There really isn't much damage a non-WCA person can do to a subscription.
The worst they could do was delete a comparison, but the library could go
and request it again if that happened. For group subscriptions there isn't
much to mess with....
2. Why does the total number of unique titles shown in the analysis not always match the total number of titles held by each of the participants?
Ann-Marie’s reply:
Re: uniqueness, what they can tell with the existing analysis is what they hold uniquely (obviously) and also what they hold in common with one other, two other, three other (etc.) libraries. If they decide they don't want to keep anything that anyone else in the group owns then they can go through each of the Shared by columns for their library and get titles that way.
If that is too time consuming, then they could go to the Admin module and create a subgroup of all the other libraries (naming it "Everyone else" let's say). Then they create another subgroup using their library and the "Everyone else" aggregate. This will create an analysis comparing their library to the combined holdings of all the other libraries. On this new analysis, the "Shared by 2" column will contain all of the items the library owns in common with at least one other member of the group.
NEXT STEPS
We will conduct sample studies in assigned subject areas to demonstrate the mechanics of WCA. We want to determine how bibliographers can use WCA to see existing overlap and measure progress in reducing overlap. We may wish to have a meeting of subject group coordinators within the Information Alliance to discuss priorities for collection analysis.
By February 1, 2006 we will run reports and share them with everyone in the collection managers group. The following agreed to compile reports:
John Haar—History
Gordon Hogg—PG, PH, Slavic Languages, Finnish, Hungarian
Sara Williams—Philosophy
Mary Beth Blalock—Anthropology
Linda Phillips—Physics, Mathematics
Brad Carrington—American Literature, Classics, Linguistics
E-mail addresses are: john.haar@vanderbilt.edu, gehogg01@uky.edu, mary.b.blalock@vanderbilt.edu, ann.fath@uky.edu, mbthomson@uky.edu, bcarring@uky.edu, swilli16@utk.edu, llphillips@utk.edu
Someone suggested looking at Duke or other collections to see what is missing from the Information Alliance.
We noted that the capability for the user to receive items quickly will strengthen chances of using the Information Alliance as a single collection.
Participant E-Mail Addresses:
| Helane Davis | hdavi4@email.uky.edu |
| Mary Beth Blalock | mary.b.blalock@vanderbilt.edu |
| Brad Carrington | bcarring@uky.edu |
| Gordon Hogg | gehogg01@uky.edu |
| John Haar | john.haar@vanderbilt.edu |
| Mary Beth Thomson | mbthomson@uky.edu |
| Ann Fath | ann.fath@uky.edu |
| Delight Jobe | jobe@email.lib.utk.edu |
| Sara Williams | swilli16@utk.edu |
| Jane Row | row@aztec.lib.utk.edu |
| Bryan Kurowski | bryan.kurowski@vanderbilt.edu |
| Sarah Vaughn | kliscv@uky.edu |
| Rebecca Trammel | rstram@email.uky.edu |
COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT MANAGERS MEETING
March 18, 2005
University of Tennessee
Present:
University of Kentucky: Ann Doyle, Head, Collection Development; Brad
Carrington, Principal Bibliographer; Gordon Hogg, Academic Liaison; Kate Seago,
Interim Associate Dean, Collections & Technical Services
University of Tennessee: Linda Phillips, Head, Collection Development &
Management; Sara Williams, Collection Management Coordinator
Vanderbilt University: Mary Beth Blalock, Head of Collection Development;
John Haar, Associate University Librarian
Actions:
1. Compared approvals profiles and processes
Librarians shared documentation about approval plans, including conspectus
levels (from VU) and publisher lists from the vendors used.
UK uses YBP for an undergraduate approval plan. YBP is also the largest vendor for firm orders. Librarians presently select scholarly materials from a YBP slips-only plan, but will conduct an in depth review of the entire plan soon. Books arrive preprocessed. The vendor Front provides music scores. Specialized plans with other vendors are primarily set to receive slips.
VU Central, Science & Engineering, and Education ( Peabody ) libraries uses Blackwell book and slip approvals for undergraduate and graduate-level materials. The Management Library has a small YBP approval plan, and the Divinity Library has a small YBP plan limited to slips.
UT uses YBP for core and scholarly materials. Specialized plans with other vendors are primarily set to receive slips. YBP is the largest vendor for firm orders, and books arrive preprocessed.
Mary Beth distributed a spreadsheet with the results of a study of 1,038 titles available through the Blackwell approval plan during three weeks, one week each, in January, March, and April. Of the 1,038 titles in the study, 622 were purchased by at least one of the libraries. All three libraries purchased 92 (15%) of the titles. Two libraries purchased 225 (36%) of the titles. Only one library purchased 305 (49%) of the titles. An additional 416 titles were not acquired by any of the libraries.
2. Participated in a demonstration by OCLC of the WorldCat Collection
Analysis Program
OCLC has just released a collection analysis product designed for individual
and groups of libraries to analyze and compare collections. Since all three
libraries contribute records to OCLC, the program offers immediate potential.
The group discussed benefits of identifying collection overlap and gathering
comparative data on collection strengths and weaknesses. Subject librarians
and bibliographers can use such information to design projects that will reduce
overlap and increase unique acquisitions.
3. Brainstormed about approaches to reduce overlap and increase collection
breadth
Bibliographers, collection managers, and subject librarians have several
options for collection assessment that leads to increasing unique purchases.
These include:
- Identify core titles
- Seek areas of specialty
- Begin with narrowly focused areas
- Compare publishers
- Target areas with high overlap
- Look at the non-subject parameters of approval plans, such as language, geographic area, format, etc.
- Focus on geographic areas and subdivisions
- Target specific countries of specialization
- Systematically review each LC area to identify areas of specialization
- Leverage specialties in non-English language and literature collections
- Journalism is strong at UT and UK ; receives less attention at VU
- Why does linguistics get slips only at UT?
- Anthropology subdivisions may lend themselves to division
- Leverage the existing collaboration of Sociology and Social Work librarians; Social Work is of greater interest to UT and UK .
- Other areas of possible concentration are political science, women's history, and history (because of the many subdivisions). These areas have considerable multidisciplinary interests that may be conducive to dividing collecting responsibilities.
- Use the OCLC collection analysis program to map overlap and areas of uniqueness. Then identify titles in specialized areas that no one holds.
- Art counterparts used brief tests of collection strength and decided to build African art holdings at UT
4. Discussed potential Serials Archives additions
UT librarians distributed a spreadsheet of A-class materials that have
been designated for withdrawal. Counterparts may wish to add some of these
titles to the Information Alliance Serials Archive.
5. Discussed possibility of extending loan period for books loaned among
Information Alliance Libraries
Convenient access to books is essential for librarians and users to depend
on a shared collection. Users must be able to identify holdings easily and
receive borrow privileges comparable to those offered by the home library.
A one-month loan for undergraduates and a three-month loan for faculty and
grad students would be ideal. The current ILL loan period among the libraries
is six weeks plus a two-week renewal for all patrons. The patron's borrowing
status is unknown to the lending library. It might be possible to lengthen
the renewal period for faculty and graduate students, which would need to
be done at the initiative of the borrowing library.
6. Identified next steps
Subscribe to the WorldCat Collection Analysis service. John, Kate, and Linda will seek funding.
- As soon as subscriptions are active, create an overlap report for all
three collections and give special attention to the following:
- Date (Ann)
- Language (Sara & Gordon)
- English literature, 20 th century American (Brad)
- Anthropology (Mary Beth)
- Mathematics (Linda)
- Introduce the service to subject librarians and bibliographers.
- Ask subject counterparts to identify ways they wish to reduce overlap.
- Set goals for increasing unique purchases that are subject-specific.
- Examine specific titles that are duplicated-are they core, or could one or two copies support information needs for all three libraries? What was the source of the purchase?
- Areas in which overlap can be reduced include firm orders, approvals, and continuations.
- Hold a conference call among collection managers in July 2005 to review the results of overlap analysis in the areas listed above.
- Plan an October meeting of collection managers and selected bibliographers/subject librarians in Lexington . Agenda will include introductions to new counterparts and library tours in addition to collection management work.
- By July 1, 2005 UK and VU collection managers will identify titles from the UT A-class discard list that should be included in the Serials Archive. Brad Carrington will represent UK , and Mary Beth Blalock, Vanderbilt.
- Discuss with Interlibrary Loan colleagues options for loan periods that
enable users to share collections transparently.
