1. Regional Print Management Symposium
Collaborative De-Duping of the OhioLINK Depository System: A Five-Year Perspective
Regional Print Management Symposium
OCLC
March 27, 2014
Scott Seaman
Dean of Libraries
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio USA
Hello, my name is Scott Seaman. I’m dean of Libraries at Ohio University and it’s a pleasure to be here. I appreciate the chance to bring everyone up to date on OhioLINK’s efforts in regional print management
For those of you not familiar with OhioLINK, it’s an 91-member consortium of academic libraries of diverse sizes for shared electronic licensing and a shared electronic journal center; a shared print catalog with a state-wide courier system, and an electronic theses and dissertation center.

2. Central Ohio Regional Depository
Northwest Ohio Regional Depository
Holdings of Bowling Green S U; U of Toledo
Northeast Ohio Regional Depository
Holdings of U of Akron;
Cleveland S U; Kent S U; NEOUCOM;
Youngstown S U
Central Ohio Regional Depository
Holdings of Ohio State University
Southwest Ohio Regional Depository
Holdings of
Central S U, U Cincinnati, Miami U, Wright S U
Southeast Ohio Regional Depository
Holdings of Ohio University
What you might not know, though, is that there are five high-density storage facilities coordinated through OhioLINK. Each opened in the mid-1990s and are Harvard-style facilities. Construction was funded through the Ohio Board of Regents and some operating funds continue to come from them.
Together they hold a little more than 7.5-million volumes with 112,000 items circulating from them in The contents are discoverable through the OhioLINK shared catalog and may be requested by any of OhioLINK’s 600,000 users.
Now, there’s a couple of pertinent characteristics that I’d like to point out. First, notice how most of the depositories serve more than one university. The Northwest depository, for example, holds print from Bowling Green State University and the University of Toledo. The Northeast stores holdings from Cleveland State, University of Akron, Kent State, NEOUCOM, and Youngstown State. So the 5 depositories serve 13 universities. Second, there are governing bodies for each depository coordinating their activities. Each depository has a host institution, a full-time manager, and policies and procedures formulated its contributing libraries with each evolving to have many unique characteristics over the past 20-years. It was very de-centralized management with each facility having created unique policies and procedures throughout the years.
And by 2007 or 2008 it was clear that the storage capacity of the depositories was running out and it was unlikely additional modules could be added. And that’s when the initial discussions began around de-duping and they led to the first big learning experience--Collaborative de-duping requires very different governance than collaborative circulation.
The very de-centralized management system that served just fine for years just wasn’t up to the task of creating the policies and bring the resources together necessary for this to work. So we had to form a new governance model that brought all the depositories to the table and begin to step through simultaneously creating a more centralized governance model while defining and testing a de-duplication process.

3. Serial Sets
Time in searching across multiple catalogs
Variety cataloging traditions
Inconsistent enumeration
Workload limitations and location
Coordinator Appointed
-Articulate Scope of Project
-Determine Opportunities
-Identify Challenges
-Make Recommendations
Create Governance Structure
Common OPAC for depositories
Pilot of 27 reference serial titles
OK, so in, about, the next five minutes I’m going to summarize the past five years of work on the part of dozens of people with the intention being to give some sense of the complexity and the timeframes required for collaborative de-duping.
In 2009 a coordinator was appointed by OhioLINK to study the problem, identify the known obstacles, and make recommendations.
That report concluded that serials represented the most opportunity to create storage space. Some of the obstacles identified were: time-consuming nature of searching across all local catalogs; the variety of cataloging traditions make identifying holdings difficult; Inconsistent enumeration makes comparison of holdings difficult; and workload issues for the depositories. Recommendations were to create a governance structure; purchase a separate III OPAC system just for depository content; and begin a pilot of 27 reference serial titles.
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013

4. Regional Depository Administrative Council Formed
In 2010 we formed the Regional Depository Administrative Council. So we had a mechanism through which to negotiate and create new policies.
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013

5. 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 De-duplication Pilot Completed
-27 Reference Serial Titles
-Superseded Electronically
-Detailed Process Articulated
-Recommendations
Additional Temporary Staffing
Standardizing Circulation
Ongoing Archiving
Purchased Dedicated III OPAC
By the end of 2010, the pilot list was de-duped creating a few thousand linear feet of storage. That initial pilot was a critical learning experience for us. It was where we worked through the details of de-duping among the 13 participants. It took even longer than we anticipated to coordinate all the spreadsheet wrangling needed. There were recommendations for additional temporary staffing for future projects; a standard circulation policy for all depository contents (including allowing serials volumes to circulate); and a recommendation that the retained run of any serial can be held among several depositories.
Finally, OhioLINK purchased and installed a III system dedicated for use by the depositories. This was intended to simplify and speed up the process of identifying duplicates and simplifying the workflow. Keep in mind that with 13 institutions, there are 13 catalogs, and this was intended to bring all the depository content into a single database for much easier comparison.
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013

6. Serials Preservation Policy Approved
-Last Copy Defined as One Copy of Each
Title be Maintained
-Last Copy Volumes Must Circulate
Second Pilot De-Duping JSTOR A&S IV Initiated
Policy Limiting Duplicate Submission Approved
Record Migration to Depository OPAC
Depository OPAC Circulation & ILLOAN
“Maintain one copy of the longest run of each serial title across all five depositories. The most complete run may be stored in one or more depositories.”
Preservation Policy for Serials Contained in the Ohio Regional Library Depositories, 2011
Early in 2011 the Regional Depository Administrative Council negotiated that “last copy” does mean only one full run of a title. Also, the retained volumes must be allowed to circulate both within OhioLINK and through interlibrary loan. So this is not a dark archive.
And this was difficult to come to final agreement upon. But not so much because there was controversy among the library directors but because each of the 13 participants had it’s own administration, faculty oversight group, and staff which needed to be brought along. Depending upon the institution, the difficulty ranged from pretty easy to nearly impossible.
Couple of other things happened that year. We began a second pilot de-duping JSTOR content. We implemented a policy mandating that new submissions to the depositories had to be unique. That is, we weren’t de-duping in order to fill newly vacated space with more duplicates. Going forward, only unique titles could be added to the depositories.
Set up began on the shared III system with the rather arduous tasks of configuring, migrating data, and to enhancing records with holdings statements. Task forces were set up to bring up the III circulation and ILL modules for the depository system.
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013

7. 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 OhioLINK OCLC Depository Duplication Study
2012 saw the release of an OCLC Research study that analyzed the OhioLINK depository holdings against WorldCat. It demonstrated how very few unique titles are stored among the five depositories. Sixty-nine percent of titles are represented in more than 99 WorldCat libraries. Ninety percent are represented in 10 or more libraries. So, just in case you’re wondering, we’re not de-duping rare books. And, just to reiterate, OhioLINK doesn’t need to create a dark archive with our depository content.
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013

8. 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Print Serials De-Duplication Guidelines
Finalized at the end of 2012, after one pilot was completed and another well underway, we published guidelines for collaborative de-duping. This document re-iterates last copy, circulation, item-record coding to identify them as last copy, and holding statistics. If you read only one OhioLINK document this year, this should be the one. And it’s only six sentences.
Also, by the end of 2012 seven depositories in northern Ohio were de-duping using the shared III system.
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013

9. 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Second Pilot Underway -67 Titles De-duped
-3,500 Linear Feet
-84,000 Volumes in 2013
Routine Emerging
-2 Titles Weekly
Five-Year Total: 280,000 *
*also includes any local de-duping
So this bring us to 2013—that’s 5 years of concerted effort on the part of dozens of people across Ohio. There is now a highly-functioning governance system, major policies in place, a shared depository OPAC running (with most depositories participating), procedures that are integrated into existing workflows, and a policy that prevents backfilling with more duplicates. A routine has emerged and the system is de-duping 2 serial titles weekly. And while the five-year total of volumes isn’t huge, you have to realize that it’s taken five-years do start-up on this project.
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013

10. 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Challenges Because of … -Number of Volumes
-Cataloging Traditions
-Coding Practices
-Shared OPAC
-Labor
-Number of Partners
-Centralized Governance
-Policies on Retention (Last Copy)
-Policies to Standardize Services
-Practices to Standardize Processes
-Loss of Autonomy
Not Doing Monographs, Yet
Final slide, here, with just a couple of summarizing remarks. Broadly there’s been a couple of challenges to this project.
First are those brought on by the sheer number of volumes. Interpreting thirteen different cataloging and coding practices is a real challenge. The shared OPAC mitigates that to some degree. But you do have to weigh that against the purchase of another new system, the annual maintenance fees, and the labor to implement and manage it.
Second there’s challenges due to the number of partners. This has to do with bringing together 13 de-centralized institutions into a centralized system with shared policies and processes. But that process generates a lot of anxiety over the loss of autonomy. And with so many library administrations, faculty committees, Provosts, and user groups involved, it simply takes a lot longer to answer all those questions and to bring comfort to the anxious.
Oh, and did I mention OhioLINK isn’t yet doing monographs?
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013

11. Regional Print Management Symposium
Collaborative De-Duping of the OhioLINK Depository System: A Five-Year Perspective
Regional Print Management Symposium
OCLC
March 27, 2014
Scott Seaman
Dean of Libraries
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio USA
© 2014 Scott Seaman. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Suggested attribution: “This work uses content from “Collaborative De-Duping of the OhioLINK Depository System: A Five-Year Perspective” © Scott Seaman, used under a Creative Commons Attribution license: