A Nation-Wide Planning Framework for Large-Scale Collaboration on Legacy Print Monograph Collections

Abstract

Libraries are working toward collaborative management and preservation of print journals, newspapers, legal materials, and government documents; they must also establish a similar concerted effort focused on print monographs. Monographs present complex challenges at a time when libraries want to ensure the preservation of the print record but have increasing incentives to divest of older, less used print materials and take advantage of the affordances of electronic text. With LYRASIS as lead organization, planning partners California Digital Library (CDL), Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), and Center for Research Libraries (CRL)were awarded a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to conduct a workshop titled “Developing a North-American Strategy to Preserve & Manage Print Collections of Monographs.” Workshop participants discussed the challenges and issues involved in collaborative monograph preservation and formulated an agenda of research and demonstration projects to test elements of a strategy.