Collection Management Initiative

A two year grant awarded to the University of California and funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

Mellon grant project is a collaborative and cooperative effort of the nine campuses of the University of California

What does the Project involve? Removing from campus libraries

selected print journals for which electronic access is available, and relocating these journals to storage

Gathering objective data, including cost and usage data, for both print and electronic versions of 300 journals

Surveying user attitudes and preferences about acceptability of digital journals vs. print journals

Why UC was motivated to assume such a project Overcrowded physical facilities

coupled with continually growing collections

Limited opportunities to add new library buildings

Deteriorating campus infrastructure Anticipated increase in student

enrollments

UC’s motivation Need to develop long term

strategies to guide future collection management of digital and print formats

Need to explore the feasibility of user reliance on the digital versions of journals

How UC libraries participated in the project As Experimental libraries:

These libraries removed selected print journals for which electronic access is available from campus libraries to remote storage

As Control libraries:These libraries are maintaining print journals for which electronic access is available on their shelves

Sample Journal Title

Henry James Review Control journal located in the

library at UC Riverside Experimental journal relocated

from UC Irvine library to storage facility

Electronic version of journal available on all campuses

Research: Use Data

Use data was collected for:

Print journals on library shelves (control)

Print journals in storage (experimental)

Electronic journals

Usage Data: Print and Digital

5,077155

67,802

118,835

0

20,000

40,000

60,000

80,000

100,000

120,000

Print - ControlPrint - ExperimentalDigital - ControlDigital - Experimental

Research: User preference data

Surveyed users who requested journals from storage

Made available comment cards Conducted interviews Will administer a user

preference survey on all UC campuses

Research: Costs Cost of staff time for consultation,

selection of titles, training, processing, bibliographic control, transportation

Cost of print subscriptions, ejournal licenses and system infrastructure

Cost of storage of journals

Ongoing cost analyses Developing cost models to

predict costs for processing, cataloging, transporting, storing print journals in regional repository

Calculating savings if print subscriptions were cancelled

Potential cost savings

Elimination of redundancy of print journals held

Recovering space in campus libraries

Reduction of processing, binding, shelving, and circulation costs

Where do we go from here? Review campus journal subscriptions

and holdings for Cancellation of print Relocation to storage

Develop plans for a shared print journal collection located in a regional storage facility

Leverage UC’s patron initiated request service, desk top delivery and systemwide courier service when access to print is preferred