Virginia's Academic Library Consortium

Key Links and Documents

Searchable Database and Visualization Tool for Protected Titles

Findings

• The Evolution of Collaborative Collection Development within a Library Consortium: Data Analysis Applied in a Cultural Context. In Space and Organizational Considerations in Academic Library Partnerships and Collaborations, pp. 157–181. IGI Global (2016).
   
• Collaborating to Build: Using Consortial Collection Analysis to Inform Collection Development. Against the Grain,vol. 27 (3), pp. 67-70. (2015). Reposted with permission from ATG.
   
• It’s Not Just About Weeding: Using Collaborative Collection Analysis to Develop Consortial Collections. Charleston Conference Proceedings, 2014: The Importance of Being Earnest. pp 200-212.

VIVA Monographic Collection Analysis

VIVA conducted two collection analysis projects in recent years:  a monographic collection analysis described below and a video collection analysis.

Background

In 2012-2013, the Steering and Collections Committees discussed a collection analysis for VIVA.  A group of potential pilot participants was constructed from a survey about this project that went out to the Collection Development contacts at all of the VIVA institutions in Spring 2013.  The resulting Monographic Collection Analysis Pilot has included the main (non-health, law, etc.) libraries at twelve institutions across VIVA:  George Mason University, Old Dominion University, University of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University, Virginia Tech, James Madison University, Radford University, Germanna Community College, J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College, Mountain Empire Community College, University of Richmond, and Washington & Lee University.

Sustainable Collection Services, a library vendor selected as the best option for the project by the VIVA Collection Analysis Subcommittee in Fall 2013, ingested the bibliographic records, holdings/items, and circulation data from all of the participating libraries’ Integrated Library Systems, normalized the data, and analyzed it for the libraries to review.  This analysis, specifically of the English language, print, non-reference monographs, has shown overlap and uniqueness of holdings within the pilot group, the VIVA libraries not in the pilot group, Virginia as a whole, the United States, and the HathiTrust archive. 

Following this initial analysis, in late 2014, a second run that included the larger public institutions (George Mason University, Old Dominion University, University of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University, Virginia Tech, James Madison University, and Radford University), and a new library participant, The College of William & Mary, was used to create the distributed repository described below.

Project Goals

• Pilot a coordinated, consortial approach to collection assessment.
• Use the data and analysis to inform future, collaborative collection development.
• Identify scarcely-held titles in need of protection.
• Begin a discussion about the possibility of reducing unnecessary duplication and saving local space through strategic weeding.
• Provide remediated and enhanced records back to the participating schools.

 
Associated Initiatives

A kickoff meeting for the pilot project was held on Friday, September 13, 2013 at the University of Virginia. Sustainable Collection Services' slides from the session are available here.

A memorandum of understanding for the rare and unique materials found in the main stacks of the participating libraries was approved by the Collections and Steering Committees.

A memorandum of understanding for the widely held materials was approved by the Collections and Steering Committees. In this approach, all title-holdings of the seven original research institutions in the pilot (GMU, JMU, ODU, RU, UVA, VCU, and VT), with the addition of CWM, were split by SCS into two categories:  Safe to Weed and NOT Safe to Weed.  A maximum of two holdings were deemed NOT Safe to Weed for every title currently owned by one or more of the eight participants.  For titles that did not circulate, only one copy was retained.  The copies that are NOT Safe to Weed were specifically allocated to the participating institutions. A searchable list of these protected titles can be found on this page under "Further Resources". This list allows all VIVA libraries to benefit from this work.

Numerous shared e-book collections were negotiated and acquired using data from the collection analysis.

A project with a recommended threshold of four print copies within VIVA started in 2015.

Further Resources

• A searchable database and visualization tool for protected titles is available here. To request all protected titles in a LC class as an excel spreadsheet please email viva@gmu.edu.
• A Widely Held Retention Commitments Process Document is available for participating institutions. This document includes instructions for using GreenGlass and supports participating institutions in implementing local workflows in the management of allocated retention titles.
• A VIVA Holdings Threshold of Four FAQ is available for participating institutions.

Task Force Members

Alison Armstrong (co-chair)
Radford University

Beth Blanton-Kent
University of Virginia

Ruth Bueter
Germanna Community College

Tom Campagnoli
University of Richmond

Karen Cary
Virginia Commonwealth University

Stephen Clark
College of William & Mary

Gene Damon
Virginia Community College System

Cheri Duncan
James Madison University

Stuart Frazer
Old Dominion University

Tracy Gilmore
Virginia Tech

Madeline Kelly
George Mason University

Rick Lawson
Mountain Empire Community College

Jason Mickel
Washington and Lee University

Genya O'Gara (co-chair)
Virtual Library of Virginia

Anne Osterman
Virtual Library of Virginia