Slides from Matthew Revitt's (Maine Shared Collection Librarian) presentation at the Maine Library Association Conference held in Bangor, Maine on Monday November 16th.

1. Matthew Revitt,
Special Collections and
Maine Shared Collection Librarian,
University of Maine
Strategies for Preserving Maine’s
Collection in Print
www.maineinfonet.org/mscs/

2. Drivers for Collection Analysis
www.maineinfonet.org/mscs

3. Barriers to In-house Collection Analysis
www.maineinfonet.org/mscs
 Weeding
 Holding comparisons
 Analyzing usage
 Presenting data
 Preservation
 Identifying rarity and uniqueness
 Identifying retention commitments
 Presenting data

4. Maine Shared Collections is Here to
Help!
www.maineinfonet.org/mscs
 Ground work for collection analysis service:
 Analyzed 3 million items in collections of eight of the largest
libraries in Maine
 Committed to retain 1.4 million titles for 15 years
 Displayed commitments in local and shared catalogs
 Titles are still available via existing lending rules, so other
libraries can consider weeding their copies

5. Collection Analysis Service: Weeding
www.maineinfonet.org/mscs
 Compare your holdings against our retention commitments
 Combine with your local circulation and usage data

6. Collection Analysis Service:
Preservation
www.maineinfonet.org/mscs
 Provide lists of your rare titles (according to OCLC) and holding
levels in MaineCat
 Recommendation for retention commitment candidates
 Record retention commitment statements in your catalog

7. Collection Analysis Service:
Preservation
www.maineinfonet.org/mscs

8. Collection Analysis Service: Advice &
Support
www.maineinfonet.org/mscs

9. Collection Analysis Service: Data
www.maineinfonet.org/mscs
Local
Holdings
Local
Holdings
OCLC
WorldCat
OCLC
WorldCat
MSCC
Commitments
MSCC
Commitments
MaineCatMaineCat

10. Collection Analysis Service:
Spreadsheets
www.maineinfonet.org/mscs
 Weeding
 Overlap with Maine Shared Collections
 Sub-set of overlap with titles that have fewer than two circs
 Preservation
 Titles with zero Maine holdings in OCLCWorldCat and fewer
than 75 holdings worldwide
 Less than 10 holdings in OCLCWorldCat
 Overlap with MaineCat
 Summary “all data” spreadsheet
 Identified metadata errors
 Consulting support to interpret data

11. Collection Analysis Service: Cost
www.maineinfonet.org/mscs
 One off cost:
 $350 for under 50,000 print monograph volumes
 $420 for 50,000 -100,000 print monograph volumes
 Self-nominating option

12. Results So Far: Growing Number of
Participants
www.maineinfonet.org/mscs
 30 libraries are at various stages of the
collection analysis process:
 Belfast Free Library
 Central Maine Community College
 DorothyW. Quimby Library
 Eastern Maine Community College
 Edythe L. Dyer Community Library
 Freeport Community Library
 Jesup Memorial Library
 KennebecValley Community College
 Merrill Memorial Library
 McArthur Public Library
 Northeast Harbor Library
 Northern Maine Community College
 OldTown Public Library
 Patten Free Library
 Rice Public Library
 Rockland Public Library
 Scarborough Public Library
 Southern Maine Community College
 Southwest Harbor Public Library
 Thomas College
 Topsham Public Library
 UMaineAugusta
 UMaineAugusta Bangor
 UMaine Farmington
 UMaine Fort Kent
 UMaine Presque Isle
 Washington County Community College
 Wells Public Library
 Witherle Memorial Library
 York County Community College

13. Results So Far: Weeding
www.maineinfonet.org/mscs
 Lots of weeding candidates:
 37% of monograph collection have a retention commitment at
another library
 Combined with circ stats, on average 6,000 of those items also
have fewer than two local circulations
 Is there a good reason for a title being rare?
 Guilt free weeding, for example, 442 items at Edythe L.
Dyer.
 Free up valuable storage space

14. Results So Far: Preservation
www.maineinfonet.org/mscs
 Commitments not too onerous:
 On average less than 1% of collection are retention candidates
 Average retention commitments amongst public libraries is 47
titles, mostly local interest titles
 Contributing towards the common good

15. Results So Far: Cleaner Data
www.maineinfonet.org/mscs
 Correcting metadata errors which benefits other libraries
 Still work in progress!

16. Process for Participating
www.maineinfonet.org/mscs
1. Pull data from your local catalog
2. Run data comparisons in OCLC and MaineCat
3. Compile results
4. Provide results
5. Meet library staff to review results
6. Local review of spreadsheets
7. Check shelves and sign off on retention commitments
8. Sign Maine Shared Collections Cooperative’s Memorandum of
Understanding & join Cooperative
9. Record retention commitments in catalog
10. Label retained items

17. Future Work
www.maineinfonet.org/mscs
 Two committees to represent members and plan
for future work
 Group analysis
 15-years in the future

18. Thank you!
www.maineinfonet.org/mscs
matthew.revitt@maine.edu
www.maineinfonet.org/mscs/
@MESharedColls