1. Gwen Bird
Executive Director, COPPUL Leonora Crema
AUL Client Services & Programs, UBC and Chair, SPAN Management Committee
Council of Prairie and Pacific University Libraries Shared Print Archive Network (COPPUL SPAN)

2. About COPPUL
23 university libraries in Canada’s four western provinces
range in size from <8k-10M vols
covering land mass of 1,122,320 sq miles
Long tradition of resource sharing:
ILL, discovery systems, e-licensing, digital archiving
One of several Canadian consortia involved in shared print
also national ‘last copy’ discussion in Library & Archives Canada

3. Hi. We’re up here.
Canada’s geography is a driver for:
regional systems spanning vast distances and jurisdictions
pooling assets and technologies to solve problems
but outside urban areas a ‘relatively attenuated infrastructure to support flow-based model’

4. What precipitated action?
Several factors:
changing use
shared print had reached scale
on Canadian campuses, space pressures with funds for public infrastructure renewal
Within COPPUL:
history of trusted relationships
continue building on what we have
invested in learning events and consultancy
kept it simple, practical, low-risk
driving goal was space repurposing rather than collection management protocols
Emily Stambaugh of WEST

5. Governance Where many efforts bog down…
COPPUL went for governance ‘lite’
sought commitment, not consensus
5-person management team composed by role rather than region or institution
modest fees paid to COPPUL to host
no permanent agreement: 5-year renewable
Agreement available at:

6. The result? After our first 6 months:
19 libraries signed membership and paid fees
1,700+ journal titles (60,000 vols) designated for retention by 10 libraries
working to expose in WorldCat and PAPR
attributes of distributed and repository model
FAQs and learning events for staff, users planned
….for about $27,000, ‘all in’

7. Collection analysis phase
commissioned custom report from OCLC >19M vols; % unique & % overlap; list of serials held at 10+ sites; but some flaws
collected serials holdings lists from largest members
developed tool to scrape serial holdings from catalogues of other members
grant-funded summer student provided analysis brainpower
No shared ILS—we have all major ILSs in our group; only previous history of collaborative coll development was selection of e-resources to license
Baseline data; still working out kinks with OCLC; still many hours poring over large spreadsheets

8. Nominated archive holder for 1700 titles in all; distributed lists in August 2012 with instructions for marking them up and creating 583 fields in MARC records
Virtual meetings; Over 90% accepted; remainder re-assigned and sent out to next library; surfaced some issues
Posted and distributed list more than 1500 titles in November 2012
Includes: retrospective journals most widely held in print and also in stable e-versions. Many licensed via CRKN and COPPUL, with PCA
Eliminated Canadian titles, newspapers, gov docs,

10. Built for co-operation
years of study & investigation…but at implementation, not an early starter
designed for co-operation beyond own borders from outset
risk analysis framework
Phase 1 = all low risk (build trust!)
node in an optimal copies network
Optimal copies network vs. Last Copy framework – follows from risk analysis paradigm

11. Local development of tools
registry to expose retention commitments; currently suspended
collection analysis tool; weighed against PAPR’s collection analysis module – will be re-evaluated for subsequent phases

12. “Thin consortial layer”
“Analog preservation needs to be in the background, something that happens but not something we fuss about.  Simplicity and ‘no noise’ are important features.”
-COPPUL Board member
Title of slide is from Mona Couts (TRLN)
Proactive approach; managed from centre – not up to participating libraries to nominate titles, or to volunteer to archive
ICOLC meeting in Denver 2011: discussion of more labour intensive and expensive efforts whereby great efforts were being put into materials that had effectively come to the end of their useful lifespan; these were characterized by the group as “grooming the corpse”

13. Canadian context
4 regional university library consortia (COPPUL, OCUL, CREPUQ, CAUL) and one national consortium (CRKN)
Library and Archives Canada, Pan-Canadian Documentary Heritage Network
global view of collaboration across jurisdictions

14. What next?
template to report weeding has been distributed; awaiting responses
assessment of Phase 1
establish priorities for Phase 2
policy & procedures for higher risk items
20th member poised to join
records in PAPR, WorldCat
links with other groups
We know phase 2 will include more unique, high risk items

15. leonora.crema@ubc.ca execdir@coppul.ca