[Mcls-print-storage] SCS thoughts on sharing retention lists, etc.

[Doug Way]

Hi Rick,

A week later I finally have time to digest what you wrote...  I think I understand what you're saying here, but let me double-check.

The scenario that is problematic is to provide Oakland a retention list that is primarily matched against EMU, CMU and WMU, that would simultaneously allow for those schools to immediately remove items from their retention lists.  This would lead to a lot of shifting to the master lists, and the problems you lay out below.

If I remember our conversation from a few weeks ago in Lansing correctly, one of the things we had discussed was whether it would be possible to match Oakland's list against those three school's list, but that they would not be able to move those items off their retention lists UNTIL the data refresh in three years.

Essentially this would lead to three copies of books being retained in the state for a few years, but would provide those schools the promise of relief once the data is refreshed.  That would also eliminate the concern of a library joining the group early, being able to match against our data for withdrawal purposes, and not immediately having any retention responsibilities.  Theoretically a school could then weed like mad and limit the benefit of them joining to the rest of the group.

So I guess the question I have is whether this sort of interim step is possible and does it eliminate some of the problems you raise below.  If not, that is fine, I just wanted to make sure we were exploring every possibility.

BTW, nice write-up in this month's ATG.

Best,
Doug

From: mcls-print-storage-bounces at mail.mlcnet.org [mailto:mcls-print-storage-bounces at mail.mlcnet.org] On Behalf Of Rick Lugg
Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2012 2:53 PM
To: mcls-print-storage at mcls.org
Subject: [Mcls-print-storage] SCS thoughts on sharing retention lists, etc.

Hello all,

Ruth, Andy, Eric and I spent some time yesterday with the group's idea of sharing responsibility for this round of retention lists with newcomers. We understand the desire to share the responsibility and to lessen the burdens in particular on CMU, EMU, and WMU. In our view, though,  it's a fairly daunting logistical challenge.

In order to control the situation and to maintain an accurate master list, we think it would be necessary to completely re-run all the allocations for the group each time a new library joins. While we could probably find a way to do this, it renders both withdrawal and retention lists dynamic-complicating project management.

While it might be expedient to make side deals (e.g., CMU transfers 20,000 retention commitments to Oakland), there would have to be some mechanism for deciding and documenting such actions. And there would be additional work involved: CMU's retention list would need to be matched against Oakland's holdings to see which titles they actually have. Given the relatively small size of Oakland's collection (350,000 monographs), the degree of overlap with retention lists from larger libraries may not be as great as needed. In short, this puts several variables into play simultaneously, which is also difficult to predict and manage.

A couple of other things to consider:


1.       Retention responsibilities could be adjusted over time. When the next round of analysis takes place, retention commitments could be minimized for CMU, EMU and WMU. If we think of this on a 25-year horizon, there would be numerous opportunities to recalibrate commitments.


2.       Long-term, what's really needed is something like a shared print inventory system, set up to dynamically re-allocate responsibility as new members join the group. But that's a very complex system to design and build, and it's not clear that it can provide enough value to pay for itself.


Bottom line: we don't have any great answers either, but we're more than willing to keep thinking it through with the group.

Cheers,
Rick

Rick Lugg
Sustainable Collection Services LLC
63 Woodwell's Garrison
Contoocook, NH 03229

rick at sustainablecollections.com<mailto:rick at sustainablecollections.com>

p. 603-746-5991
f.  603-746-6052

www.sustainablecollections.com<http://www.sustainablecollections.com/>

blog:  Sample & Hold<http://sampleandhold-r2.blogspot.com/>

twitter:   @ricklugg

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