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)