California Library Consortium Evaluates Usage of Millions of Monographs to Create Collaborative Library Collections

SEATTLE, Oct. 9, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Libraries worldwide are transforming their spaces to better align with the changing needs of their communities. The Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium (SCELC) has initiated a collection analysis project to gain insight on collection overlap and usage as a basis for establishing a sustainable shared collections program among its members. SCELC chose ProQuest Intota™ Assessment (http://bit.ly/1vyKkUx) for comprehensive analysis of more than 4.5 million monographs across nine member libraries participating in the pilot project.

Outcomes from this multi-phase effort will shape the development of a formal program that will allow libraries to plan for responsible reduction in the number of print monographs in their collections, which ultimately will create space in libraries for collaborative learning and other purposes. The analysis will identify unique and prevalent copies so that libraries may determine which resources will be preserved and shared among libraries.

"From our competitive evaluation we determined that Intota Assessment was the best fit for our requirements. This program will maximize shelf space and the collections budget for member libraries, while maintaining student access to materials," said Rick Burke, Executive Director, SCELC. "Intota Assessment enables us to consolidate and share our collections based on real evidence to inform our decisions. The analytics and reporting capabilities give us a much broader, deeper view of usage and enable us to be more efficient in the process."

Overlap analysis and circulation velocity are examples of the metrics the libraries are using to evaluate their print collections within the peer group and to external points such as OCLC WorldCat and Resources for College Libraries™. Intota Assessment reports provide views into the library's data which previously was very difficult if not impossible to achieve.

At the Charleston Conference this November, Rick Burke will moderate a panel featuring Lizanne Payne (Shared Print Consultant), Jane Burke (ProQuest), and Mike Garabedian (Whittier College, a SCELC member), who will present insights and best practices from this project.

Established in 1986 to develop resource-sharing relationships among private academic institutions across California, SCELC membership has grown to more than 110 libraries. Member libraries in the pilot are Claremont University Consortium, Holy Names University, Loyola Marymount University, Mount St. Mary's College, Pepperdine University, St. Mary's College of California, University of Redlands, University of San Diego and the University of San Francisco.

About ProQuest (http://www.proquest.com)
ProQuest connects people with vetted, reliable information. Key to serious research, the company's products are a gateway to the world's knowledge including dissertations, governmental and cultural archives, news, historical collections and ebooks. ProQuest technologies serve users across the critical points in research, helping them discover, access, share, create and manage information.

The company's cloud-based technologies offer flexible solutions for librarians, students and researchers through the ProQuest^®, Bowker^®, Dialog^®, ebrary^® and EBL^® businesses – and notable research tools such as the Summon^® discovery service, the ProQuest Flow™ collaboration platform, the Pivot™ research development tool and the Intota™ library services platform. The company is headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with offices around the world.

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SOURCE ProQuest