Matthew Revitt, Maine Shared Collections
Strategy Program Manager
Using data in collaboration: Experiences
from the Maine Shared Collections
Strategy
Matthew Revitt,
MSCS Program Manager www.maineinfonet.net/mscs/

 9 Maine Shared Collections Strategy (MSCS) partners
come together in an effort to create a strategy for the
shared management of print collections in the State.
 Collaborate to make decisions about the storage,
retention, and preservation of print materials (both
books and journals) as well as looking for ways to
integrate digital editions into a state-wide catalog.
 IMLS supported project
MSCS 101
Matthew Revitt,
MSCS Program Manager www.maineinfonet.net/mscs/

Project objectives
 Workable strategy for stewardship of the major print collections in
Maine
 Analyze print monographs for duplication & usage
 Identify digital surrogates and provide access in union catalog
 Identify long-term retention commitments from libraries
 Implementation of on-demand services
 Electronic- and print-on-demand options in catalogs
 Define sustainable business model for beyond grant & partners
 Financial model
 Governance structure
 Memorandum Of Understanding
Matthew Revitt,
MSCS Program Manager www.maineinfonet.net/mscs/

 Top level:
 What monographs should be designated for long-term retention?
 What is an equitable and/or common-sense distribution of
retention responsibilities?
 What monographs are candidates for incorporating into
POD/EOD services (via local or shared catalogs) by virtue of
HathiTrust or InternetArchive public domain material?
 What monograph copies (by library) could optionally be
deselected, once retention decisions have been finalized?
What do we want to learn from the
data?
Matthew Revitt,
MSCS Program Manager www.maineinfonet.net/mscs/

 Specifically:
 How many copies of a particular work are owned by partner
libraries?
 How many of those are circulating copies?
 How often has the title circulated?What was the last circulation
date?
 How many titles/copies are uniquely held in the group? In
Maine? InWorldCat?
 How do subject strengths compare across the group?
 Which titles are represented in HathiTrust, InternetArchive
 Overlap between general collections and special collections
 Others to be determined from the group’s combined data set
What do we want to learn from the
data?
Matthew Revitt,
MSCS Program Manager www.maineinfonet.net/mscs/

 Data elements:
Data required for analysis
Matthew Revitt,
MSCS Program Manager www.maineinfonet.net/mscs/
 Item record number
 Created date
 Barcode
 Itype (value in the item that
defines how it circulates)
 Volume and copy
 Item call number
 Location
 Total checkout and total renewal
 Year to date circulation
 Last year circulation
 Last checkin
 Out date
 Last out date
 Reserve notes
 Internal use count
 Icode2 (Contributed to union
catalog)
 Circulation Status

 Dirty data issue – required OCLC reclamation before can accurately
compare
 Approximately 3.9 million records sent
 More involved process than originally thought, but successfully
cleaned up libraries’ records
 OCLC circulation data report – data inconsistencies
 Constant change – Ongoing library withdrawals & introduction of
ninth library
Issues with the data set
Matthew Revitt,
MSCS Program Manager www.maineinfonet.net/mscs/

 Importance of collections analysis tools for heavy lifting -
Journey from DIY, viaWCA to SCS/DIY
 DIY: Not feasible to develop local collection analysis system
 OCLCWorldCat CollectionsAnalysisTool - unable to meet
MSCS needs & delays in analytics product
 Investigate other products
 Sustainable Collections Services (SCS) only could meet
MSCS requirements -Tailored reports & consulting support
Help, we can’t do this alone!
Matthew Revitt,
MSCS Program Manager www.maineinfonet.net/mscs/

 Using the MSCS record set SCS:
 Filtered out-of scope bibliographic records including: Government Documents, non-monographic
material, Non-language material, non-print resources, records missing OCLC numbers,
Bibliographic/author mismatches with OCLC and multiple OCLC numbers per record
 Eliminated duplicate bibliographic records
 Normalized call numbers
 Eliminated trailing spaces in control numbers
 Validated OCLC numbers
 Matched bibliographic records on OCLC numbers (with title string check)
 LCCN/title-string lookups for records lacking OCLC numbers
 Identified and accommodated unusual implementations of MARC
 Mapped item-level data and interpret codes
 Provided Dewey Decimal numbers for records that lacked them
 SCS matched titles to external data sources - OCLCWorldCat (US and State
Holdings), HathiTrust Public Domain and In-Copyright items and Internet
Archive (a first for SCS)
SCS data
Matthew Revitt,
MSCS Program Manager www.maineinfonet.net/mscs/

M S CS Group Collection Summar y :
Collection usage

M S C S G r o u p C o l l e c t i o n
S u m m a r y : O C L C Wo r l d C a t
c o u n t s

MSCS Group Collection
S u m m a r y : M S C S g ro u p
overlap

M S C S G r o u p C o l l e c t i o n
S u m m a r y : L o c a l
p r o t e c t i o n r u l e s

MSCS Group Collection
S u m m a r y : H at h i Tr us t &
Inter net Archive overlap

M S C S G r o u p C o l l e c t i o n
S u m m a r y : S u b j e c t s

What to do with all this data
 Danger of drowning in data!
 Importance of focusing on a subset of the data

295,425
208,430
393,391
341,231
232,054
403,284
374,062
204,219
267,658
-
200,000
400,000
600,000
800,000
1,000,000
1,200,000
1 2 3+
Number of MSCS Libraries HoldingTitle
Zero
Circulations
1-3 Circulations

 Begin with titles held by only 1-2 partners.The following criteria for
making decisions on these titles were developed:
 Analyze and take action only on pre-2003 copies
 Retain the copies if any circulation or internal use
 Retain material that falls into local protection categories (Specific
Maine items) even if no circulation
 Retain Special Collections/Archives copies even if no circulation
 Retain materials on course reserves even if no circulation
 Retain unique in OCLC (only 0-9 copies in OCLC) even if no
circulation
 Compare remaining 0 circulation copies with both HathiTrust and
Internet Archive
MSCS retention criteria
Matthew Revitt,
MSCS Program Manager www.maineinfonet.net/mscs/

MSCS scenario one

MSCS scenario one

 What to do about the remaining 50% of items - those
held by 3 or more libraries
 Requires more in-depth collections analysis looking at
factors including:
 Circulation rates
 Available storage space
 Subject strengths
 Loan periods
Future scenario development
Matthew Revitt,
MSCS Program Manager www.maineinfonet.net/mscs/

Disclosing retention decisions
in OCLC & locally

DIY to expand to smaller libraries
Matthew Revitt,
MSCS Program Manager www.maineinfonet.net/mscs/

Matthew Revitt
MSCS Program Manger
matthew.revitt@maine.edu
www.maineinfonet.net/mscs/
@MESharedColls
Thank you!
Matthew Revitt,
MSCS Program Manager www.maineinfonet.net/mscs/