The Importance of Outreach in Shared Print Projects.
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Transcript of The Importance of Outreach in Shared Print Projects.
The Importance of Outreach in Shared Print Projects
The perspective from a mid-sized academic library participating in the Central Iowa Collaborative Collections Initiative (CI-CCI)
Teri Koch, Drake University
Charleston Conference
November 6, 2015
ci-cci.org/
CI-CCI key facts: Formed in 2013
Monographs only
No shared catalog
Schools: Central College, Drake University, Grand View
University, Grinnell College, Simpson College. Added University
of Northern Iowa in 2014
Characteristics:
Small, Private Academic libraries (FTE’s: 1388-4400)
UNI=Regent University. FTE=11,000
Holdings (1,000,000 without UNI), with UNI = 2,000,000-ish
One of few collaboratives to do physical verification of retention
Hired SCS for collection analysis
Goals of the Collaboration (from MOU):First, to responsibly reduce the size of local print collections by reducing duplication among the participating libraries so that library space may be freed up for other uses. Second, to create and maintain a distributed, shared collection ….to ensure that circulating copies of them are retained within the group, readily accessible to group participants Third, to coordinate acquisitions with the goal of developing a “shared collection” among the participants to reduce duplication and to leverage acquisition funds.
Guiding principles:•Decisions be data driven•Guarantee 24 hour delivery of materials
Why Retention Verification?
Only one retention copy among the group
Relatively small number of titles to verify (around 154k total, Drake=45k)
Web app developed to facilitate process (faculty involved in this process)
Important to faculty (they didn’t want to withdraw books unless guaranteed another CI-CCI school would FOR CERTAIN retain)
Project Communication Process
Two Phases:
1.Roll out of overall project and project goals (including prospective collection development)
2.Book Withdrawal Project
Project Communication Process: Phase I
Roll out of overall project and project goals (including prospective collection development)
Project Kickoff: Faculty Forum Faculty Forum on February 18, 2014 (with Rick Lugg)
https://blogs.library.drake.edu/2014/02/13/from-stacks-to-the-web/
Includes FAQ of the project, slides presented, as well as a recording of the session
Background reading (with local notes) was provided to Liaisons prior to the meeting to help put presentation in context (note: not likely many read!)
Brief discussion period at end of Faculty Forum. Some faculty expressed strong desire for more venues for discussion and feedback (see next slide!)
Faculty concerns expressed after the forum
“I have a concern about the lack of discussion. A set of lectures is not a forum. Several people in this room have interesting and well-researched perspectives on these questions and issues….You left no time for active discussions or exchange of ideas, which is fairly insulting to the faculty who took the time to attend.” (English faculty member)
“I appreciate the session. I would have preferred more time to discuss face-to-face.” (Art faculty member)
Steps following Faculty Forum
Qualtrics Survey was distributed to all Faculty Forum attendees
Multiple Liaison meetings. Every Library Liaison was reached during this process, some individual sessions.
Offered to meet with individual Departments; only English Dept accepted.
E-mail that went out to Library Liaisons following Faculty Forum
Dear Liaison Colleagues:
Due to your feedback we would like to have one more discussion-based opportunity to get together.
The session will be one hour long and will be entirely discussion-based
We are available to come talk to your department
There is a web page that contains an FAQ for issues that have been raised to date
For those who weren’t at the earlier meeting, there are links to the slides and a video of the presentation
Concerns & Issues raised by Faculty in post-forum discussions How quickly can we get something from another
school if it is needed (as this affects withdrawal decision)? (delivery time)
How long can we have it? What about renewals? Faculty basically laughed at initial 10 weeks loan period
with no renewals(which was originally written into MOU)
Can we “protect” a title from being loaned during the semester we’re teaching a certain course?
We’d like a special category for Faculty with longer loan period
Concerns, Issues Raised by Faculty (continued)—comments from Humanities faculty Concern expressed about the archiving and access of digital
content over time
“I don’t agree with the assessment of a dollar value of any books. You cannot accurately gauge a book’s use-value. I deal with artists’ books, and small press pubs, which I’m not sure this plan accounts for….Universities have to always be careful of assessment that is cost-benefit analysis—no university should be run like a business.”
“Our confidence in whether or not this system will work is really liked to the nuts and bolts details of how it’s going to function.”
From a discussion with a Music faculty member: By doing this project, we (the library) are making it too easy for the administration to not fund an addition to the library. Use is not an important criteria in determining whether to purchase or retain an item.
Concerns, Issues Raised by Faculty (continued)—comments from other areas
“I’d like to know whether we plan to revisit how we make additions to our print holdings—43% of what we get might never circulate—not even once. So, does this mean faculty are making acquisitions that they never even consult?” (noted with irony)
It seems like you’ve got a good plan. Please keep us updated.
How we addressed concerns Contacted EVERY faculty library liaison to review process &
solicit input
Changed the MOU to reflect a 120 day loan period instead of 10 weeks (3 week recall free period at the front of the loan, automatic 2 week renewal if requested)
Revised FAQ to better reflect questions that were arising in e-mail and face-to-face discussions Criteria that were employed for inclusion in the potential
withdrawal database New loan period Encouraged faculty to place items “On Reserve” if they wished
to protect them from check-out “Guaranteed Turnaround” moved from 24 hours (weekday) to
2-3 days (Iowa is currently exploring a courier service)
How we addressed concerns (continued)
Regular e-mail communications
Updates on Cowles Library web site
Not all “philosophical” questions can be addressed, obviously. Important for faculty to air them, and feel heard.
Updated Project FAQs
Blog posts, e-mail communication, newsletters
Newsletters, Blogs, etc.
Project Communication Process: Phase II
Book Withdrawal Process
Book Withdrawal Process
Drake’s Web Developer developed a prototype web app to facilitate the withdrawal project
Met with Library Liaisons to discuss book withdrawal web app and what features they wanted/needed Wanted 50 rather than 100 titles to display on a page Ability to search the database by call number and publisher (in
addition to author/title) Ability to share web app with departmental colleagues and see
where each other left off Not much consensus about what metadata to include for making
the “keep” decision; so we opted for a hybrid approach
Had a 2 week “beta” period for the web app & solicited additional feedback
Collection Evaluation (book withdrawal) web app
Web app: Filters
Example of record in web app
E-mail to Library Liaisons about book withdrawal project/web app
Book Withdrawal Project Results
Faculty monograph review process was completed in March 2015 (after a couple of faculty asked for extensions).
52,659 withdrawal candidates
59 faculty participated in the evaluation process, representing 18 different departments
11,703 (22.2%) titles were flagged for retention
40,957 titles were withdrawn in Summer 2015
We added a MARC583 field to the bib record for each title that faculty asked to retain that says (for example): “Retained 20141008 Melisa M. Klimaszewski Collection Evaluation Project 2014/2015”
Feedback from the most vocal faculty member initially complaining about lack of faculty involvement in process
“I would like to share positive feedback about the work (Cowles) did to design a web application for the overwhelming task of evaluating the titles that are candidates for removal from the library. The web app took into account the feedback that faculty members provided. Several very specific requests made are now accommodated in the system.….The evaluation of the print collection is a very difficult task to accomplish, and I have seen the Cowles faculty and staff work diligently to try to involve university-wide faculty in the effort…”
Takeaways:
Faculty want to be heard. Cowles librarians made the mistake of doing too much “presenting” at the Faculty Forum at which Rick Lugg presented. Allow more time for discussion.
Get the word out in as many ways as possible, and frequently (meetings, blog posts, videos, newsletters, e-mails).
Make it as easy as possible to facilitate the book withdrawal process (the web app went a long ways towards this goal for us)