2017 Presentations (Communicative Events)

Collaborative Collection Development in a Digital Age

Carroll, Jeffrey D.

Columbia University Libraries have been involved in collaborative collection development since at least the late Ninetheenth Century. This presentation reflects on that early collaboration and the factors that made it necessary, and then brings us forward across parts of three centuries to the present day where many of the same factors are still at play. What began as a simple concept, born out of concerns over cost and space, has now grown into a complex organism—an ecosystem really—of overlapping objectives and responsibilities. And while cost and space continue to be the primary limiting factors of our efforts (too much of one, not enough of the other), preservation has become the third leg of the stool on which the future rests. What are the strategies then for addressing these three factors of cost, space, and preservation? What interactive relationships have we built to ensure broad access to knowledge through the course of time? We’ll talk about Columbia’s participation in four specific partnerships (2CUL, MaRLI, Ivy Plus/Borrow Direct, and ReCAP), and how these efforts have enabled us to expand our researchers’ access to the outputs of scholarly activity.