Bangkok95 Papers -- George J. Soete

PLANNING MODELS FOR LIBRARY RESOURCE SHARING

Presented by

George J. Soete

Pacific Neighborhood Consortium Conference

Bangkok, Thailand, January, 1995

During my last twenty years, I have been involved in a journey. As with many interesting journeys that we make, I was not even fully aware of it until recently. The journey has been through the many stages of library resource sharing, from tentative exploration to active program development. During the journey, I have been a library bibliographer, a collections program manager, a library administrator specializing in collections, a trainer, and a consultant. Most recently, most of my activity in resource sharing has been in helping consortia through the process of developing plans and programs.

In this presentation, I want to share with you what I have been recently drawing from my experiences and trying to incorporate into models to assist in my training and consulting in the area of resource sharing. I am not a scholar, and these are not theoretical models: when I use them in my work, they have a very practical intent. In a very real sense, these are works in progress, and I hope to benefit from the discussion today in further refining the models. I also want to present some model projects--not in the sense that they are perfect, but in the sense that they provide, I hope, stimulation to the creative problem solving process. And finally I want to suggest a few model types for the PNC, again in hopes that they will stimulate further discussion.

A number of factors have attracted me to resource sharing as an area of interest and work. First, I believe in it. I believe that it makes sense to collaborate, to enhance and strengthen what we dc for our customers by working together, to reduce unnecessary duplication, to capitalize on the synergy of collaboration by learning from one another. Second, I relish the challenges that resource sharing presents. I am often told by friends and colleagues how difficult resource sharing is, and yet that is exactly what makes it interesting to me. It is not simply a technical problem, or a policy problem, or a management problem, or a people problem. It is all of those rolled into one. It is, in my view, especially a people problem; and because I enjoy the people side of enterprise, I especially enjoy resource sharing. I enjoy it when people are skeptical, then begin to see the possibilities, then see a successful project come to fruition. I am gratified when they are enthusiastic, then see the real problems to be overcome, and then overcome them.

In an article soon to be published in the Journal of Academic Librarianship, I ask if a library consortium can behave like a learning organization. Can a consortium, in the words of David Gavin, become “skilled at creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge, and at modifying its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights?” I think the answer is yes. But just as it is difficult for a single organization to become a learning organization, so is it a constellation of organizations that trying to develop resource sharing programs. To learn from both out successes and mistakes is especially challenging.

One of the key lessons I have learned in planning resource sharing programs and in helping others plan them is that there is no single best way to do resource sharing. There is only what works. At the same time, there are, in my experience, some factors that will enhance the potential for success. In general, the discovery of what works is a combination of careful planning and trial and error.

As I present the following models, I'll refer to a planning process that I'll recapitulate later. It is the general process that I use in working with clients, and though there are endless possible variations on it, I find that the basic process usually works as a starting point.

The planning process begins with an analysis of the environments and climate in which resource sharing will take place. I believe it is important that planners understand the environment, especially such forces as deciding institutional budgets that might be working for and against them. The climate is more difficult to describe: here the focus is on how open potential partners are to the risks of collaboration--in essence, how ready they are for resource sharing. Effective program planning rests on such thorough preliminary analyses n my view.

I like to begin program development, then, with a mutual exploration of needs. Though it is nice to view it as worthy goal in itself, resource sharing in itself is not the goal; we must keep in mind that truly effective resource sharing must meet the needs of participants and their customers. Conversely, I believe it is futile, even counterproductive, to spend a great deal of time and energy on largely cosmetic projects--that is, projects that look good but do not translate into benefits for our customers.

Once participants have shared needs, I encourage them to brainstorm pilot projects. Here my concern is that they focus first on the products and services, and not yet on what I consider the instrumental issues--for example, governance. After several potential projects have been identified, I like to engage clients in an analytical process, using a tool such as the EASE/IMPACT model, to choose those projects that will most likely succeed.

I also like for clients to do GAIN/LOSS analyses--to explore candidly how their institutions and customers will gain from projects and what they might stand to lose. Ultimately, success for individual institutions will occur when the gains for them and their customers significantly outweigh the losses.

There is more to the planning process than this, of course, but this will serve, I hope, to suggest coherence among the models that will be presenting.

The first model I want to present is an analysis of the environmental forces working for and against resource sharing; since, as l have suggested, identification of key environmental factors is an important part of the planning process. And though in working with clients I would invite them to fill in the content of the model, here I’ll present some of my own content. The model that I like to use here is Force Field Analysis, developed by Kurt Lewin at Harvard. The model suggests that organizations (or consortia) remain in stasis--or move slowly toward their desired future--because forces are working to keep them where they are.

Lewin's planning approach begins with a concept of a desired state or vision, and I'll stipulate that vision for the moment. The vision for me is that libraries will be engaged in a great deal more resource sharing than hey are currently engaged in. They will be actively working to develop resource sharing agreements. Within their organizations, they will organize to be effective resource sharers, just as they are now organized to provide effective independently managed services. They will make collections management decisions, for example, on the basis of their consortial arrangements. Within a consortium, the members will have a working concept of a single resource--one collection, one staff, one service program, one technical infrastructure. That vision may be too far out for you or not far enough, I’ll invite you for the moment simply to accept it as my desired state so that I can move on to the forces at work on us.

Here s what I think are working for us, moving toward the desired state:

1. strongly shared values around the importance of information and learning, values that are beginning to be shared as well by the world around us

2. some record of interdependence, for example through professional associations and events such as this

3. the information explosion: our ability to meet our customers' information needs declines daily and we are forced to explore strategies such as resource sharing with greater intensity in order to provide “more of the more”

4. the aggressive growth in technology that enables us to construct a powerful infrastructure for sharing

5. demands for greater accountability from our parent institutions: resource sharing is one method for demonstrating wise management of resources

6. economic uncertainty and/or downward-spiraling budgets: this is certainly true of most U.S. libraries, and I invite your thoughts about what is happening in libraries outside the U.S.

7. diversity of ideas and methods: we have a great deal to learn from one another

Here are the forces believe are working against us:

1. the largely independent mode in which most libraries still operate

2. our problems have been slow to develop: though we often talk about the rapidity of change, it has not really been so fast--or so cataclysmic--as to force us into radical new behaviors here the parable of the "boiled frog” is quite applicable, I think

3. infatuation with/or over-reliance on the new technology: we can tend to believe that technology alone will solve all our problems

4. the persistence of multiple technologies: in other words, we still have to provide books, journals, and

other more traditional formats, a situation which has

serious economic implications for most of us

5. the physical distances among our institutions: this is a special issue, I would expect, for the libraries represented at this conference

6. the multiple missions of consortial partners: sometimes there just isn't comparability where we need it

7. multiple languages and cultures

In classic force field analysis, the next steps would be to develop strategies for strengthening the so-called "helping forces" and weakening or eliminating the "hindering forces." For example, you might strengthen the helping force of shared values by having key consortial leaders spend some time doing a values audit, a very enjoyable process that I have facilitated often. And you might identify as a strategy for weakening the “boiled frog” problem the development of a long-range straight-line economic forecast for the libraries in the consortium. Though I have many other ideas in this area, I would prefer to move on to another model, perhaps leaving identification of strategies for later in the day.

Earlier I alluded to the challenging complexity of resource sharing. Now I want to present a model that suggests that complexity by incorporating what I think are the essential elements for success. Once again I’ll refer to the planning process: it is critical that those planning for resource sharing have a realistic sense of the “territory” they need to cover, the problems they face. I use this model to focus clients on the tasks that lie ahead of them in making resource sharing successful.

In any resource sharing endeavor, there is a need to develop both human and technical systems that will lead to success. Technical systems might involve hardware, library materials, funding and accounting programs, connectivity, shared electronic catalogs, document delivery programs. In a real sense, however, it is the human systems that are the most critical and might be least attended to by those who design resource sharing programs. My experience is that failure to attend to the human systems (sometimes accompanied by the assumption that technology will solve everything) can cause, as they say in the management literature, serious "downline" problems. The following model suggests that there are four major domains to be concerned about in the human systems area as they relate to resource sharing. I have already mentioned two of them, climate and environment.

[see model next page]

STRATEGIES

realistic objectives

clear groundrules

reward systems

written agreements

assigned responsibilities

pilot projects

CLIMATE SKILLS

fear of loss, failure negotiation

fear of broken promises communication, both

trust written and oral

equity issues meeting management

accountability creative problem

win-win attitude solving

risk-taking project planning

ENVIRONMENT

politics

perceptions of customers

perceptions of administrators

governance

degree of participation. commitment

In the climate domain, it is important that consortial partners acknowledge the very basic human dimensions of the contracts that are made in support of resource sharing. Such contracts are especially fragile when made across organizational boundaries. If resource sharing participants understand from the beginning the importance of trust, risk-taking, and a win-win attitude, they are more likely to be relaxed and successful during the project. Trusting others to collect in an area when you have had it under your control, for example, can be an enormous leap. Thus participants need to expect and deal with fear of loss of control, fear of failure, fear that others in the consortium might break their promises. It is also important that all participants be assured that commitments have been assigned with a reasonable amount of equity--that no single organization is shouldering an extraordinarily large portion of the burden.

Though little can be done directly about climate factors (very difficult to order one person to trust another), key skills can be reinforced and practiced. Among the skills that promote positive changes in the climate domain, therefore, negotiating skills are critically important, as are the interpersonal communications skills such as writing and meeting management--especially when participants have to communicate without meeting physically in the same room. Creative problem solving would appear to be another essential skill: for most people collaborative collection development, for example, represent a significant change of mode and culture. It calls for innovative approaches and the ability, on occasion, toe spontaneous and flexible.

In the environmental domain, the politics of interinstitutional relationships form an important background. Though it is possible to design successful working agreements among libraries in poor political environments (competitive, distrustful), it is obviously much easier when a favorable environment is already in place. The perceptions of key players, such as collections officers, library directors, library staff and faculty are, of course, crucially important. Will these major stakeholders view collaboration as a sign of weakness or capitulation? Will they agree with the practical implications of dependence on consortial access rather than acquisition? How will the consortium govern itself? What will be the consequences of the failure to live up to agreements?

Finally, in the systems and strategies domain are those specific actions that can be taken to promote success. These include setting realistic objectives, establishing reward systems, making sure that responsibilities are early assigned in written agreements, carrying out pilots and model projects to test methodologies, and making sure that agreements are maintained.

The next step in the planning process would be to develop pilot projects. I have, as I suggested, some model projects to present later, but for now I want to offer a model of types of projects--a taxonomy, if you will--arrayed on two dimensions: activity level and area of focus. Virtually every library is engaged at some level in resource sharing, even if they do not have a formal program. Some, however, have moved much more decisively and actively than others into resource sharing, and they have broadened their repertoire.

I have identified four main areas of focus: 1) structure or governance, 2) technology, 3) content (collections, services), 4) customers. I have also identified four levels of activity: 1) awareness of others, 2) active information sharing, 3) reciprocity, and 4) complementarity. Though I have never used this entire model with a client, I have used tools like it to suggest the many forms that resource sharing can take--in order to prime the creative problem-solving process.

Before launching into a presentation of some model projects, I want to spend a bit of time on the dynamics of the matrix model itself. It is my view that most library resource sharing activities cluster in the low activity and structure and technology areas (the upper left-hand quadrant). There has been less activity, in my experience, in the highly active, content- and customer-focused areas. Often, in my initial conversations with clients, they will assure me that they have been active in resource sharing, but when they describe their programs, they are often in the low-activity, governance- or technology-focused areas. And often, technological development among consortia members has been semi-imposed, as when a state government mandates that all libraries will share the same electronic catalog.

Put simply, the upper left-hand quadrant is less risky. Now I want to hasten to say that this is not a bad thing: structural and technological developments are important, and I do believe that some resource sharing is better than none. However, my view is that libraries have not exploited resource sharing to its fullest extent. Once again, if there is method in my consultation madness, it is to invite libraries to take some risks, particularly in the area of active engagement in reciprocal and complementary programs.

Now I’ll move to the next phase of planning--identification of pilot projects. I’ll focus on projects that have actually been developed among libraries in the University of California-Stanford Consortium, the Boston Library Consortium, and a consortium of academic libraries just forming in the state of Illinois. The projects are varied, but each one, I believe, represents a real departure for the libraries involved.

The first project is the subject of the article that I alluded to earlier. The article was co-authored by Christy Hightower and myself, and the premise of the article is that the project was not entirely successful. In the article, we try to analyze and learn from the reasons for the “failed” project.

The project focuses on science translation journals, specifically translations from Russian and Chinese. The participating libraries were all nine UC campuses and Stanford. (I have placed a copy of the agreement related to this project in an appendix along with other related documents). The project was chosen as a means of reducing consortial expenditures for these very expensive and often low-use research materials. The goal was to have all the translation journals needed by California researchers held within the state somewhere. This project is an example of what I call “static complementarity," that is, the participating libraries rationalized and recognized what they were already doing. The libraries reviewed all of the translation journals that they held and, working collaboratively, placed each title in one of the following categories:

Category 1: very important to the individual institution holding the item--had to be held there

Category 2: should be easily accessible somewhere within the consortium

Category 3: need not be held within the consortium, could be accessed from, for example, the Center for Research Libraries

All Category 1 titles were left where they were and remained the fiscal responsibility of the holding libraries. All Category 2 titles were funded--one copy per title--from Shared Funds, leaving libraries that held duplicates free to cancel them. ALL Category 3 titles were canceled and referred as purchase proposals to the Center for Research Libraries. In the first year alone, one library saved $12,000.00 in subscription costs through cancellation of titles in Categories 2 and 3.

If you wish, I can share with you later why the project was not a complete success, but to do that now would be to stray somewhat from the subject at hand. Suffice it to say that we had what I still think was a brilliant project at the conceptual and technical levels but we had not attended sufficiently to the human systems.

I’ll mention two other projects here briefly because they are also science projects. The first was recently implemented by the Boston Library Consortium--a dozen or so academic research libraries in the Boston area They developed a project similar to the translation journals project, but the focus was all of neurosciences--specifically journals in this rather broad subject area. A key challenge facing the group that designed this project was defining the scope of the subject. Again, this was a project to rationalize the distribution of responsibility for high cost materials. As in the translation journals project, no library was forced to cancel any titles. Both projects sought, however, to establish "safety nets"--mechanisms for assuring acceptable coverage of customer needs and for supporting such collection management decisions, such as cancellation, as might make sense within the safety net.

The other related project was first developed among three science libraries in the U.C. system. It is an example of a reciprocal, technology-focused project. The three libraries simply agreed to fax copies of articles from their collections quickly and freely among themselves, bypassing regular--and slower--interlibrary loan systems. Once again, there was a safety net, but the focus was on the technology of interlibrary delivery, and the existence of the safety net led to further rationalization of collections. The initial proposal for this project so impressed university administrators that they funded three top-of-the-line fax machines at a cost of something like $30,000.

The next project is one that I am especially proud of, as I was the administrator who assisted in its design and implementation. This project focused on journals again, but it was a prospective project. The journals in question were Pacific Trade Journals. Here the problem was somewhat different: it was not a project to save money but to spend new money as wisely as possible. Though virtually every campus in the University of California had developed programs in Pacific Studies, almost no trade journals focused on the Pacific--an important current awareness and research resource--were available in the campus libraries. The project distributed subscription responsibilities among the three libraries with the strongest Pacific Studies programs: Berkeley, UCLA, And San Diego.

Two more projects focus on East Asian Libraries. In one, the East Asian Librarians of the University of California and Stanford reviewed the entire scope of their collections, and individual libraries accepted responsibility for maintaining specific collections areas at appropriate NCIP levels. This is the primary collections responsibility (PCR) concept that was embedded in the original Conspectus Project. As a corollary to this project, the East Asian libraries also agreed to expedite interlibrary loan and document delivery among them.

One last project I'll note because of its innovative aspect. In Illinois, the twenty-seven libraries of the consortium I mentioned earlier have developed a model discipline project. The discipline is education, and they have already proceeded to distribute responsibilities within this field among themselves. Again, the notion of a safety net is present in this project.

In many of these projects, I'll now admit, there was a strong motivator: money. The Science Translation Journals, Pacific Rim Trade Journals, and Model Disciplines Projects probably would not have moved so smoothly--might not have worked at all, in fact--without the prospect of centralized funding. Rather than seeing this as a deterrent, however, I now suggest that clients assume that incentive funding will be provided to get projects off the ground. It’s part of the new way of doing things in a resource sharing environment.

Finally, I want to describe a project that never did get off the ground but which I still deem a brilliant idea. The aim of this project was to rationalize the collecting of English language belles-lettres produced outside the U. S. and England-- in other words, the literatures of Canada, New Zealand, Africa, etc. Again, the participants would have been the U.C. and Stanford libraries. The problem that the libraries were trying to solve was to collect in a systematic and sufficient, but not necessarily comprehensive way, the significant literature in English produced outside the U.S. and England. There were several meetings of front-line selectors, but, so far as I know, nothing has materialized. If I had to speculate on a reason, it would be that readiness and motivation were simply not there in sufficient quantity. I suspect that, when the project was being discussed, selectors had not yet felt the pinch of budget declines sufficiently, nor did they appear to be ready to “surrender control” over areas within their responsibility, even though such surrender was not being asked of them.

The next model I want to present is that EASE/IMPACT model that I find useful in evaluating and selecting project ideas, In itself it is not a resource sharing model, but I want to illustrate how it can be used in selecting projects. It is a very simple matrix model:

The model invites one to assess how easy or difficult a project might be and how strong a desirable impact it is likely to have. Projects that are both easy to do and will have strong potential impact get a rating of “4.” High-impact, difficult projects rate a “3.” Low-impact, easy projects rate a “2.” And difficult projects that will have little or no impact rate a “1.” Though the numbers are useful in sorting through potential projects, the most important part of the exercise, in my view, occurs during the definition of ease and impact: that is, in establishing criteria for judgment.

Ease, for example, can mean many things: low labor intensity, low or no cost, little or no training required, as examples. And impact can mean enhanced service for customers, money saved. workload lessened. It is a critically important part of the process, therefore, to define the terms before beginning the evaluation and sorting process.

Now I want to outline more fully the planning model that I use in assisting organizations with resource sharing:

1. explore general needs, readiness of participants

2. share information on specific needs

3. share information on strengths and resources--what the individual libraries might be able to contribute

4. develop lists of potential pilot projects

5. select projects based on the ease/impact model (or a more detailed decision matrix)

6. further refine, amplify pilot ideas

7. provide appropriate orientation and training for key players at the project level

8. run pilot and evaluate them

9. expand pilots, develop new pilots

10. systematize, organize

You may notice that I have focused very little on governance and a great deal on pilot projects. That is because I believe that resources sharing succeeds in the visible results, not in its governance structures. I believe in the importance of written agreements, but I also believe that they can be developed on a selector-to-selector basis in advance of heavier institution-to-institution governance structures. What I advocate is that the leaders of organizations empower their staffs, within certain guidelines, to experiment.

As a parenthesis, I want to list some principles that have come to govern my work in resource sharing. This is in part a miscellany, in part a summary:

1. Resource sharing is not the only strategy for dealing with the current problems facing libraries, but it is a strategy that holds promise for most if not all libraries. It is, in my view, under-utilized.

2. The technical infrastructure for resources sharing is ahead of the human systems in most situations. That is, the enabling technology is often there: we have to decide to use it to share resources.

3. The next frontier for most libraries is the development of collaborative collections agreements and systems to measure their effectiveness.

4. Print collections will be around for while: there is still benefit in developing collaborative approaches to collecting print materials.

5. Newer formats also offer opportunities for sharing.

6. Collections support (money) will continue to decline for most libraries, if not in actual dollars at least buying power.

7. It’s OK to save money. (I include this one because I am sometimes enjoined to stay exclusively on the lofty heights of enhancing services and not to the lowlands of practical budgetary concerns).

Finally, I’ll share with you some thoughts about possible modes for the PNC libraries:

1. Information sharing Models: meet, encourage sharing of information at all levels among the organizations in the consortium, be available to one another, emphasis on the importance of consortial sharing by organizational leaders within their organizations, periodic meetings of key people and units, for example, East Asian collections, government affairs. libraries.

2. Reciprocity: reciprocal privileges, especially for researchers; lists of key library persons for researchers to contact. Red carpet treatment for visiting scholars. Expedited interlibrary loan, document delivery among the libraries.

3. Complementarity: identification of critical collection strengths, collections of paramount importance to consortial members; commitment to collection responsibilities by individual members; development of electronic products of use to broader consortium.

BRIEF GUIDELINES FOR COLLABORATIVE COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT AND MANAGEMENT AMONG THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARIES

The UC Libraries’ are committed to coordinating development and management of their collections--including acquisition, cataloging, access, storage, and preservation--wherever feasible. Collaborative collection development and management are essential means for coping with shrinking acquisitions budgets and enhancing the library resources available to all UC scholars. They are consistent with the “one library” concept articulated in the University of California Libraries: a Plan for Development of 1976.

While no comprehensive program for coordinating collections has been developed, we have found it fruitful instead to develop discrete programs, such as the Shared Acquisitions program and the pilot projects which resulted in programs for the sharing of science translation journals, Pacific Rim Trade Journals, and East Asian newspaper backfiles.

These guidelines are meant both to stimulate and to guide further development of such collaborative programs among the campuses so that formal resource-sharing arrangements within the UC system--and between UC libraries and other appropriate libraries--will become routine.

1. An important key to collaborative collection development is the formal commitment to responsibilities by individual libraries within the system. Formal commitments might include any of the following, or any combination of two or more:

a. to maintain subscriptions to specific serial titles (e.g., science translation journals);

b. to acquire current library materials in specific subjects and areas (e.g., Melanesian art) at specific collecting 'levels (e.g., NCIP level four);

c. to maintain retrospective collections in particular subject areas at specific collection levels;

d. to build and/or maintain specific format collections (e.g., newspaper backfiles);

e. to assure that specific collections are preserved;

f. to share responsibilities for storing materials in specific subjects or formats;

g. to enhance access to online resources (e.g., Wilson indexes);

h. to coordinate dependence on the Center for Research Libraries for certain kinds of materials.

The foregoing is meant to be suggestive, not exhaustive.

2. Not all library collections are suitable for collaborative projects. Core collections needed to support campus instructional and research programs are suitable for formal collaborative programs.

3. Formal agreements may be developed among any UC libraries for whom they are feasible and useful. Agreements do not have to involve all UC libraries--or even all the libraries in a region. Some of the most effective programs will involve only two or three libraries.

4. Agreements should be positive, not negative. Libraries that commit, e.g., to a certain level of collecting are not forbidden to develop collections beyond commitment levels; nor are other participating libraries forbidden to develop collections at any level they deem appropriate.

5. The UC Libraries should provide appropriate incentives to encourage collaborative collections programs. These may include funding from the Shared Acquisitions Program, but may take other forms as well. In some cases, the incentive will be resultant improvement in services and better management of resources. Recognizing the importance of collaboration, as well as the accomplishments of selectors, should become a key part of each Library's collections program.

6. Those responsible for selection of materials at the campus libraries are the persons best able to plan and implement collaborative projects and activities. Groups planning such projects, however, should involve the fewest number of persons needed to get the job done (usually one person from each participating campus), and they should focus clearly on the task of developing formal written agreements. As noted below, each planning group will include a number of the Collection Development Committee.

7. Administrative expenses (e.g., travel) should be kept to a workable minimum in the development of collaborative agreements. Electronic mail, conference calls, etc., have proven effective in past endeavors.

8. In drafting written agreements, the following will generally need to be considered:

a. a clear statement of what the participating libraries are committing to: levels of collecting responsibilities, language coverage, etc., expressed as much as possible in the language and concepts of the North American Collections Inventory (NCIP).

b. a minimum commitment (e.g., five years ) should be established for agreements.

c. a commitment to notify all participants in the agreement if a library is unable to sustain its commitments along with a specific time between notification and implementation (e.g., one year).

d. clear statements of commitments to responsibilities such as:

* processing in a timely fashion, including expected standard and level of cataloging appropriate for the materials,

* listing all acquired materials on Melvyl,

* providing expedited interlibrary lending, including expected standards for turnaround time,

* coordinating submissions to the regional library facilities,

* determining formats most suitable for lending (e.g., microfilm in the case of newspapers).

e. any other stipulations that will serve to insure the success of the agreement.

f. a brief plan for monitoring the agreement.

g. the endorsement and signature of authorized administrators of the participating libraries.

9. The Collection Development Committee (CDC) of Library Council should be responsible, as needed, for the systemwide administration of the Collaborative Collection Development and Management Program. While the program is still in a pilot stage, teams developing collaborative agreements should include at least one member of the CDC.

Copies of existing agreements that can be used as examples should be requested from the collection development officers in the campus libraries,

Approved by the UC Collection Development Committee, June 12, 1990.

Memorandum of Agreement: Pacific Rim Trade Journals

This memorandum serves as the official agreement among the three University of California campus libraries collaborating on acquisition and retention of Pacific Rim Trade Journals.

PARTICIPANTS

Active participants in this agreement are the UC-Berkeley, UC-Los Angeles, and UC-San Diego Libraries. The other UC campuses have full access to these journals through interlibrary loan of photocopies or, when circumstances warrant, complete issues or bound volumes. In 1989, the trade journals that are the subject of this agreement were funded by Shared Acquisitions as continuations.

DEFINITIONS AND SCOPE

The Pacific Rim is defined as those regions bordering the Pacific Ocean in the following countries: Australia, Brunei, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and the United States. Excluded from this agreement are regions bordering the Pacific Ocean in Latin America, the Pacific Islands, and the USSR; excluded areas can be added at a later date. Trade journals are defined as industry serial publications; for this project, journals related to industries vital to the countries listed above are the focus; the emphasis is also on publications of quality. Trade directories and company house organs are excluded from this project. The University Libraries seek to maintain a representative collection that can meet instructional and beginning research needs.

COLLECTION RESPONSIBILITIES

Collection responsibilities are assigned by geographical area:

UC-Berkeley: China, Japan*, Korea, Taiwan

UC-Los Angeles: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United States

UC-San Diego: Brunei, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan*, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand.

* Berkeley and San Diego will share responsibility for Japan, but there will be no duplicate subscriptions within the framework of this agreement.

COLLECTION PARAMETERS

Only English language and English/bilingual titles will be collected within this agreement. Indexed titles are preferred, though non-indexed titles are acceptable when there is no other satisfactory coverage or a significant industry.

RESOURCE SHARING

SELECTED READINGS

Bril, Patricia L. “Cooperative Collection Development: Progress from Apotheosis to Reality.” in Collection Management in Academic Libraries, ed. Clare Jenkins and Mary Moriey. Brookfield, VT: Gower, 1991.

Cooperative Collection Development: Proceedings of the June 1991 ASCLA Multi-LINCS Preconference, comp. Diane Macht Solomon.

Association of Specialized and Cooperative Library Agencies, 1992.

Hewitt, Joe A. and John S. Shipman. “Cooperative Collection Development among Research Libraries in the Age of Networking: Report of a Survey of ARL Libraries," Advances in Library Automation and Networking, ed. Joe A. Hewitt, vol. 1 (1987), pp. 187-232.

Johnson, Peggy. “When Pigs Fly, or When Access Equals Ownership,” Technicalities, vol. 12, no. 2 (February, 1992), 4-8.

Sartori, Eva Martin. "Regional Collection Development of Serials,” Collection Management, vol. 11, no. 1/2 (1989), 69-76.

Soete, George J. and Karin Wittenborg. "Applying a Strategic Planning Process to Resource Sharing: the Changing Face of Collaborative Collection Development among the University of California Libraries,” Advances in Library Resource Sharing, ed. Jennider Cargill and Diane J,. Graves, vol. 2 (1991), pp. 51-59.

Note: Three volumes of Advances in Library Resource Sharing have appeared: this is an excellent source of articles that describe resource sharing projects.

gjs/1994

MEASURING SUCCESS

It might be argued that the only truly valid measurement of the success of a resource sharing program is whether it results in better service for most library customers. There are other measurements, of course, that might have a relation to improved service. Some examples are:

1. reduced cost

2. reallocation of funds to enhance other collections, services

3. Reduced duplication

For one or two projects that you have developed, brainstorm measures of success:

PROJECT IDEAS: A BRAINWRITING EXERCISE

ON THIS SIDE OF THE WORKSHEET, DESCRIBE BRIEFLY A PROJECT IDEA THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO EXPLORE. PASS THIS SHEET TO THE PERSON TO YOUR RIGHT. WHEN YOU RECEIVE A SHEET FROM THE PERSON ON YOUR LEFT, BUILD ON THE IDEA THAT YOU RECEIVE; THEN PASS THE SHEET ON TO YOUR RIGHT. IF YOU HAVE NOTHING TO ADD TO THE IDEA YOU RECEIVE, PUT A NEW IDEA DOWN UNDER #2 ON THE VERSO; THEN PASS THE SHEET ALONG FOR ELABORATION OF THAT IDEA. AND SO FORTH.

IDEA #1

COLLABORATIVE IDEAS WORKSHEET

Effective resource sharing is, in part, a process of discovering and exploiting complementary strengths among partner libraries. As a first step toward developing projects, indicate areas that you library needs help in and areas that you can help in: List up to five areas where your library could make a consortial contribution. If the area is in collections, indicate the level of collections (see below)

Subject, format, services, etc., Level

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List up to five areas that you would like a partner library to take responsibility for:

Subject, format, services, etc., Level

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0 No collection

1. Minimal: typically a few reference sources

2. Basic: enough to introduce undergraduates to a subject

3. Instructional: sufficient to support undergraduate and beginning graduate study

4. Research: sufficient to support graduate and most faculty research

5. Comprehensive: nothing knowingly excluded; such collections are usually regarded as national or international scholarly resources.

PROBLEM ASSESSMENT WORKSHEET

what problems are you trying to solve in your library?

How might resource sharing help?

What other strategies have you tried?

What risks are associated with using resource sharing to solve this problem?

EASE/IMPACT ANALYSIS

Analyze collaborative project ideas using the EASE/IMPACT Model:

Some key questions:

IMPACT: * Are there any big winners, losers?

* What are the benefits for customers? Who are they? How many? How will they benefit?

* Will the project save money, effort?

* How will you measure success?

EASE: * At first glance. how easy/difficult will maintenance and administration be?

* Is the necessary infrastructure in place?

* Is there a favorable climate for implementation?

* Impact on other areas? ILL, etc.?

COLLABORATIVE COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENT

FOR SCIENCE TRANSLATION JOURNALS

This official agreement takes a coordinated approach to the acquisition and preservation of science translation journals, in order to assure effective access to the most important titles.

PARTICIPANTS

Active participants in this agreement are UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Irvine, UC Los Angeles, UC Riverside, UC San Diego, UC San Francisco, UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz, and Stanford University

DEFINITIONS AND SCOPE

Science translation journals are defined as journals in science, medicine, mathematics, and engineering that have been translated from Russian or Chinese. These journals are expensive and, for the most part, are not heavily used. Nevertheless, they represent a significant avenue for literature that would otherwise be linguistically inaccessible to most researchers in this country and should not be allowed to disappear from the University of California or Stanford libraries.

Retention responsibility is defined as follows: a campus assuming responsibility for a given title agrees to continue its subscription for a period of at least five years; the campus also agrees that it will not cancel the title after five years without notifying other UC campuses and Stanford of its intention at least six months in advance. Retention responsibility has been assigned to and accepted by the UC campuses and Stanford, as indicated in the attached lists.

COLLECTION RESPONSIBILITY AND PARAMETERS

All titles assigned a rating of 1 (very high importance) on the individual campus lists will be funded out of campus library materials budgets; all titles assigned a rating of 2 (medium importance) will be funded through Shared Collections and ACCESS Program (SCAP) funds. Titles assigned a rating of 3 (least importance) have been forwarded to the Center for Research Libraries, with a request that they subscribe to those meeting their criteria.

OTHER COMMITMENTS (See guidelines for Collaborative Collections Projects)

1. For titles funded with SCAP funds, all SCAP requirements must be met (see SCAP guidelines for details).

2. Processing and retention are the responsibilities of the holding campuses.

3. Holding campuses commit to cataloging all titles promptly and fully, as well as to sharing bibliographic information through rapid input of the titles into MELVYL. The in-house serial record for each title assigned to the campus will be tagged and a note included that indicates the special nature of the subscription, the funding (if paid for by SCAP), and the specific retention period after which the title may be canceled upon notification of the other campuses.

4. All journals funded with SCAP funds are to be permanently retained in the UC library system. Costs associated with retention are borne by the holding campuses.

5. Holding campuses will assure that missing issues or volumes from the years covered by the retention agreement are replaced to the extent possible. They have the option of retaining issues unbound, binding them, converting to microfilm, and/or transferring older volumes/issues to the regional library facilities. In the latter case,, campuses with retention responsibility will have first priority in storing specific titles, provided another copy is not already in the facility.

6. Holding libraries must provide expedited intercampus loan of these materials within the UC system. The expected turnaround time is 48 hours .

7. Though a major rationale for collaborative collection development agreements is to eliminate or reduce unnecessary duplication, this agreement does not forbid any UC library from using its own funds to acquire material that is judged to be needed on site for its primary users.

8. The holding libraries may, through a process of consulting with one another, make changes in the subscription lists by mutual agreement, including adding new titles. Any new journals to be paid for with SCAP funds will require that a request for funding be made on accordance with SCAP guidelines.

9. The agreement will be monitored by the science librarians of the participating campuses, following procedures set up by them. At the end of the five-year retention period, the Collection Development Committee will review the agreement and recommend whether it should be continued as is, revised, or canceled.

SIGNATURES OF UNIVERSITY LIBRARIANS OF THE PARTICIPATING CAMPUSES

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UC Berkeley Date

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UC Davis Date

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UC Irvine Date

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UC Los Angeles Date

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UC Riverside Date

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UC San Diego Date

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UC San Francisco Date

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UC Santa Barbara Date

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UC Santa Cruz Date

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Stanford University Date