Current and overarching goals

Current and overarching goals

The project was part of a larger effort that is taking place in research libraries to ensure preservation of the printed record and to make research collections more accessible. The terms “shared collections” or “shared print archive” can have a variety of meanings in the context of the many cooperative efforts that take place among libraries. The ReCAP Shared Collections project has several guiding principles:

• Provide readers with expanded access to the materials at the ReCAP facility while removing as many hurdles as possible and delivering materials to the borrowing Partner within two business days
• Ensure that collections with retention commitments are preserved in perpetuity
• Acquire and preserve a greater breadth of content and diversity of resources across the collaboration, thereby enhancing efficiencies in prospective acquisitions and collections management that will more effectively expand access to resources for researchers
• For serials and other compound bibliographic entities, ensure the retention and preservation of the most complete run of the print publication
• Deaccession where possible and warranted, based on specific criteria
• Ensure each Partner can make more efficient decisions at the local level with fuller understanding of what Partners are committing to, including building more explicit criteria and rationales for intentional duplication across collections
• Publicly share information via 583 fields on what has been retained as part of the Shared Collection and/or as part of a coordinating collecting agreement