1. Reducing Unintentional Duplication:
Adventures & Opportunities in
Cooperative Collection Development
Charleston Conference: Issues in Book and Serial Acquisition
November 4, 2011
Leslie Button, UMass Amherst
Rachel Lewellen, UMass Amherst
Kathleen Norton, Mount Holyoke College
Pam Skinner, Smith College

2. Five Colleges Consortium
• Amherst
• Hampshire
• Mount Holyoke
• Smith
• University of Massachusetts Amherst

3. 5C Libraries Cooperation
• Long history dating back to 1950s
• Strong resource sharing philosophy
• Geographic proximity – 15 mile radius
• 5C committees
• Single shared ILS
• Shared print repository
• Delivery system that gets materials to users
within 24 hours (M-F)

4. Project Impetus
• Five Colleges Presidents and Chancellor sought
increased cooperation between institutions
• Five Colleges Library Directors defined
cooperative collection development as a strategic
priority in 2008.
• Five Colleges Collection Management Committee
assigned the implementation
• Interest in maintaining overlap where appropriate
and retain flexibility to expand base of resources
available to library users

5. Defining Policy and Project Goals
• Increase number of unique titles purchased
• Utilize YBP as common supplier
• Implement by July 1, 2009
• Needed data to inform subject areas
• High duplication with low circulation
• Shift from 10 subject areas to all books
purchased

6. Implementation
• Required cooperation of selectors at all five
campuses as well as engagement of the
faculty
• Widely divergent campus sizes, acquisitions
budgets, and collection development practices

7. Hampshire College
• Smallest (FTE = 1,450) and newest of the Five
College campuses
• Purchases mainly support 100- and 200-level
classes, duplicating local holdings as necessary
• For upper level courses, HC relies heavily on
the other FC collections
• Views the FC Library collections holistically
• No faculty selectors; no question of “buy in”
• Moved to YBP; GobiTween facilitates selection

8. Amherst College
• Student FTE = 1,800
• Librarians & faculty members place premium
on “browsability”
• Very generously funded; often duplicates
purchases made by other Five College libraries
• Amherst faculty & librarians pushed back re:
initial “one copy” proposal
• Like Hampshire, moved to YBP

9. Mount Holyoke College
• Student FTE = 2,100
• Librarians & instructional technologists main selectors
(merged organization)
• Orders flagged “DN” (designated need) if the book
needs to be at Mount Holyoke, regardless of other Five
College locations
• Level of faculty purchasing is low (< 15%); faculty
requests are always considered “designated need”
• Faculty members voluntarily add notes to
orders, stating either that another copy in Five Colleges
will suffice—or that there is a local need

10. Smith College
• Student FTE = 2,600
• Academic depts. receive annual book allocation
(approx. 55% of total monographs budget)
• Policy change required endorsement of the
Faculty Committee on the Library
• Orders flagged “SC copy essential” when title is
needed regardless of other FC holdings
• Shelf-ready approval books for some subjects
(15% of all YBP orders/year)
• 75% of monographic titles come from YBP

11. Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst
• Student FTE = roughly 26,000
• Erratic funding from state played major role in policy shift
• Acquisitions staff relies heavily on selectors to check
GobiTween for other FC orders
• Limited exceptions to the policy:
– Automatic orders for books receiving major reviews in
the NYT
– Two small art & music approval plans
• New policy shared with campus community via Faculty
Senate Research Library Council; liaisons; Dean’s Council
• Most faculty members very supportive of this new policy

12. The Data
• Duplication, circulation, and cost
• Shared Oracle database
• OCLC number basis for determining
duplication

13. Duplicated Titles – FY08 and FY11
% of Duplicated titles Purchased
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
FY08
40% FY11
30%
20%
10%
0%
Amherst Hampshire Mount Holyoke Smith UMass Total

14. Unique Titles – FY08 and FY11
% of Unique Titles Purchased
60%
50%
40%
30% FY08
FY11
20%
10%
0%
Amherst Hampshire Mount Holyoke Smith UMass Total

15. Titles Owned by 3-5 Libraries
Monograph Duplication within the
Five Colleges Consortium
FY08 FY09 FY10 FY11
Owned by 2 Libraries 24% 26% 29% 29%
Owned by 3-5 Libraries 38% 35% 26% 21%
Total Duplication 61% 61% 56% 51%

16. Overlap – Titles Purchased
% of Titles Purchased by 3-5 Libraries
70%
60%
50%
40%
FY08
30%
FY11
20%
10%
0%
Amherst Hampshire Mount Holyoke Smith UMass Total

17. Five College Circulation Analysis as of August 26, 2011*
FY2007 FY2008 FY2009 FY2010 FY2011
Amherst
uni que ti tl es 58% 55% 49% 46% 29%
dupl i ca ted ti tl es 69% 65% 61% 55% 33%
a l l ti tl es 66% 62% 56% 51% 31%
Hampshire
uni que ti tl es 72% 69% 77% 62% 45%
dupl i ca ted ti tl es 83% 74% 73% 61% 44%
a l l ti tl es 80% 73% 73% 62% 44%
Mount Holyoke
uni que ti tl es 56% 56% 58% 50% 34%
dupl i ca ted ti tl es 67% 66% 62% 55% 37%
a l l ti tl es 64% 64% 61% 53% 36%
Smith
uni que ti tl es 55% 52% 49% 41% 23%
dupl i ca ted ti tl es 68% 62% 59% 50% 30%
a l l ti tl es 63% 58% 55% 45% 26%
UMass
uni que ti tl es 63% 64% 62% 55% 31%
dupl i ca ted ti tl es 77% 74% 70% 72% 44%
a l l ti tl es 70% 69% 67% 64% 44%
Five Colleges Total
uni que ti tl es 59% 58% 54% 46% 28%
dupl i ca ted ti tl es 71% 67% 63% 55% 36%
all titles 67% 63% 60% 51% 32%
* Includes circulation of unique items, duplicated items and overall circulation from
the time of purchase through August 2011.

18. Five College Borrowing
as a % of Total Borrowing
Mount
Amherst Hampshire Holyoke Smith UMass
FY08 11% 44% 14% 18% 16%
FY09 11% 46% 15% 17% 18%
FY10 10% 49% 17% 18% 19%
FY11 11% 49% 20% 19% 20%

19. Five College Collection Analysis - Monograph Purchasing for Unique and Duplicated Items - FY08 - FY11
FY2008 FY2009 FY2010* FY2011
Amherst Items % $ Items % $ Items % $ Items % $
unique 4,824 34% $241,026 5,608 41% $294,076 6,462 44% $296,767 6,314 49% $317,656
duplicated 9,335 66% $393,383 8,095 59% $313,247 8,122 56% $416,081 6,589 51% $318,039
Total 14,159 100% $634,409 13,703 100% $607,323 14,584 100% $712,848 12,903 100% $635,695
Hampshire
unique 456 21% $12,602 223 16% $7,735 437 22% $16,444 451 26% $21,301
duplicated 1,767 79% $50,644 1,215 84% $48,692 1,594 78% $60,752 1,254 74% $42,644
Total 2,223 100% $63,246 1,438 100% 56,428 2,031 100% 77,196 1,705 100% $63,946
Mount Holyoke
unique 1,551 23% $65,735 1,638 24% $75,085 2,472 36% $125,996 2,027 35% $107,827
duplicated 5,181 77% $221,876 5,093 76% $231,359 4,449 64% $182,568 3,786 65% $159,621
Total 6,732 100% $287,611 6,731 100% 306,444 6,921 100% 308,563 5,813 100% $267,448
Smith
unique 6,685 41% $495,232 5,634 44% $455,779 6,276 52% $491,028 6,852 54% $549,321
duplicated 9,714 59% $475,546 7,315 56% $324,446 5,821 48% $282,633 5,837 46% $276,696
Total 16,399 100% $970,778 12,949 100% 780,225 12,097 100% 773,661 12,689 100% $826,017
UMass
unique 8,294 50% $464,695 5,265 45% $389,824 1,594 47% $95,377 5,420 55% $335,900
duplicated 8,167 50% $338,794 6,522 55% $261,108 1,821 53% $73,282 4,431 45% $208,756
Total 16,461 100% $803,489 11,787 100% 650,931 3,415 100% 168,660 9,851 100% $544,656
Five College Total
unique 21,810 39% $1,279,290 18,368 39% $1,222,500 17,241 44% $1,025,612 21,064 49% $1,332,006
duplicated 34,164 61% $1,480,242 28,240 61% $1,178,852 21,807 56% $1,015,316 21,897 51% $1,005,756
Total 55,974 100% $2,759,532 46,608 100% 2,401,352 39,048 100% 2,040,927 42,961 100% $2,337,762
* Intentional reduction of duplication began FY10

20. Future Areas for Cooperation
Print resources
• Print standing orders
• Art approval plans
• Foreign language books
What is the “right” balance of duplication?

21. Future Areas for Cooperation
Electronic resources
• Intentional, coordinated
• Reduce barriers to access
– Purchase eBooks for heavily requested print
monographs
– R2 recommendation to jointly license electronic
resources
– Patron-driven acquisitions

22. Applying Lessons Learned
• Allowed for institutional philosophies and
priorities
• Worked within existing committee structures
– no additional overhead
• Details of implementation were local -
parameters were not prescriptive
• Importance of ongoing analysis

23. Questions?
Leslie Button, Associate Director for Library Services, button@library.umass.edu
Rachel Lewellen, Assessment Librarian, rlewellen@library.umass.edu
Kathleen Norton, Head of Collections , knorton@mtholyoke.edu
Pam Skinner, Reference and Electronic Resources Librarian, pskinner@smith.edu