Library of Record Proposal
for the University Library Council
December 12, 2003
In May 2002 the Digital Acquisitions and Collections Committee (DACC) submitted a report to the ULC on journal duplication in the Harvard University Library. That report, prepared by the DACC Task Group on Journal Duplication, set forth the issues surrounding the duplication of both print and electronic journal subscriptions at Harvard. It recommended principles and procedures for reducing this duplication in the Harvard Depository and/or Harvard libraries through a cooperative process of decision-making among the libraries involved in canceling subscriptions.
The purpose of this proposal is to further enhance and formalize the principles stated in the 2002 report by introducing the concept of a holding Library of Record. The establishment of the library of record is meant to ensure that reducing duplicate subscriptions does not diminish the strength and availability of Harvard’s resources for the entire Harvard community.
The focus of this proposal is on current subscriptions of primarily scholarly journals. The concept of library of record can be applied to other serials as the need arises.
The Library of Record Role
All Faculty and Departmental libraries should be considered potential Libraries of Record when undertaking various serial cancellation projects. A faculty or department library may accept, offer, or reject the library of record role as titles are reviewed.
The Library of Record will commit to keeping the title in a physical format, preferably paper, and making it available to members of the Harvard community. It will be left to the library of record to make the appropriate preservation decisions regarding the copy of record format.
If the library of record determines at a later date that it wishes to cancel the title due to a change of programs and collection interests, it will give notice to library collection managers and DACC to that effect, so that other libraries have the opportunity to add a subscription.
The location of a complete set or sets of the duplicate title are determined by the owning libraries, with the library of record presumably being the prime location. Joint libraries of record are recommended for libraries that will share the responsibility for either the current subscription and more recent holdings or the backfile.
Once the cancellation projects have abated, the library of record role will be useful for titles that have ceased or for non-active unique titles deemed appropriate by the owning libraries for retention at Harvard.
Decision-making and Communication Among Harvard Libraries
Communication among Harvard libraries is essential to the success of the cancellation projects and for long-term ongoing efforts that various libraries undertake to review serial titles.
Decisions regarding the cancellation and retention of duplicate titles will be made cooperatively with the participation of the libraries that subscribe to or hold a journal under consideration. The communication should occur prior to cancellation. The decision as to the library of record will be part of this participatory process. A library may offer to be the library of record, request this role of another library, or reject this request.
Decisions regarding the backfiles are made by the holding libraries. Joint libraries of record are an option for participating libraries.
Libraries will confer with the library of record and make their issues available before canceling or withdrawing.
In cases where two or more libraries hold a journal, at least one print run will be retained either in a Harvard library or at the Depository. The retention of additional runs will be determined on a title-by-title basis.
Libraries that plan to end a subscription to a unique journal title or to reject a ceased title should inform other Harvard libraries for possible interest in subscribing to the title and/or receiving the backfile, through mechanisms on the DACC website, yet to be developed, and through individual library contacts, when appropriate.
For the cancellation of titles contained in ejournal packages, libraries must notify Ivy Anderson, Coordinator of Digital Acquisitions, using the designated Excel spreadsheet on the DACC web site. Libraries will initiate the library of record decision-making with the other holding libraries during this process of proposing cancellations for licensed titles.
DACC and Harvard Library Community Awareness
The Digital Acquisitions and Collections Committee oversees the process of the cancellation of duplicate journals and coordinates communication among participating libraries.
For the cancellation of titles licensed through ejournal packages, the Coordinator of Digital Acquisitions, Ivy Anderson, consolidates the information she receives from each library and maintains a master list of titles, prices, vendors, names of subscribing libraries, and library of record information.
During periods of significant updates to the cancellation list, DACC will communicate with a defined group of library collection managers, urging them to review the Excel lists on the DACC web site, as the cancellations may affect their libraries.
Recording of Library of Record Information
DACC recommends that a local field be established in the HOLLIS record for recording the library of record information. Based on a meeting at OIS in June 2003 regarding the library of record concept and the potential need to record this information in Aleph, Helen Schmierer prepared for DACC an outline for a copy of record field for the holdings record, a local H field. This field will be heavily used to record the library of record information in the staff mode and for the maintenance of the holdings locations in the OPAC.
The H field is scheduled for implementation with Aleph 16and libraries are now prepared to have their cataloging staff assume the responsibility for recording the library of record information for current and future decision-making.
The Digital Acquisitions and Collections Committee seeks ULC approval of the Library of Record concept and the principles stated in this paper.
The Harvard Depository and the Library of Record Concept
Related to the effort to reduce the duplication of scholarly journals at Harvard, the procedures discussed, and the library of record concept, are the issues pertaining to the Harvard Depository. The following was included in the Report of the Task Force on Journal Duplication concerning the HD as presented to the ULC in May 2002. It is repeated here with the request that the ULC consider the policies and operations of the HD and their impact on the effort to reduce duplicate holdings at the Depository:
Current Harvard policies and operations should be examined in order to facilitate the Harvard-wide sharing of resources in a more equitable manner. Charging retrieval costs to the owning library rather than the requesting library seems particularly unfair and acts as a disincentive to reduce inefficient duplication of holdings. A related issue is the practice of charging libraries in perpetuity for space that is no longer needed. There is also the question of whether it would be advisable to share the costs of storage, especially for the last remaining runs of journals that were originally stored in duplicate. Finally, the possibility of giving users the option of having material they request from HD sent to their home library rather than the library that owns it should be explored.
Digital Acquisitions and Collections Committee
December 2003
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