Planning for Open Library Shared Print Retention Data

Nika Worth

Funding Area: Critical shared infrastructure / Infraestructura compartida critica

Problem Statement: Segments of the library community are moving to shared collections through shared print agreements. A good description of this effort is available on the Wikipedia Collective Collections page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_collection. Example programs: https://cdlib.org/services/collections/sharedprint/ https://eastlibraries.org https://northnordsharedprint.ca/ https://www.aserl.org/programs/j-retain/ The success of this work is dependent on accurate and open data of who has agreed to retain what. Currently there are a variety of systems and locations where this data is stored, often siloed at the program level. In the past few years a binational (United States and Canada) program has formed to leverage expertise and investigate what it takes to do this work at scale (see sharedprint.org). The Partnership envisions an open environment for sharing library retention data. While several organizations and vendors are working in this data space, none to date is both used by all programs and makes the data openly accessible. Recently, as part of the PALNI Open Bibliographic Data Management Grant, the Partnership undertook an environmental scan of players in this space. As a next step, the Partnership is attempting to move the work forward by bringing together interested parties within the shared print and vendor/technology community to discuss what a model of open retention data could look like, and what it would take in terms of resources to bring it to fruition.

Proposed Activities: Continue pursuing, with interested technology partners, what a model of open retention data would look like. Proposed activities include: Facilitated virtual meetings among technologists to discuss architectures. The facilitator is expert in this space, and will help keep the conversations on track with concrete outcomes. Facilitated virtual meetings among library deans/directors and shared print programs to envision sustainable business models Current partners we are proposing to engage with include: Index Data - https://www.indexdata.com/ Platform for Open Data - https://pod.stanford.edu/ Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries (Gold Rush) - https://coalliance.org/ ShareVDE - http://www.share-family.org/ HathiTrust - https://www.hathitrust.org/ Center for Research Libraries - https://www.crl.edu/ California Digital Libraries - https://cdlib.org/ We are asking these partners to donate technologist time to attend these meetings. The requested funding would support meeting facilitation of follow-up activities. Because we are asking very busy technical leads from major projects to donate time, we have engaged a facilitator who is an expert in helping Silicon Valley companies quickly move from an idea to a technical roadmap. We have put our own money behind the initial meetings facilitation because without it we won't be able to maximize the very limited time these contributors have to give to our project. We are asking for funds to continue follow up meetings pulling in players who could create a roadmap for a sustainable business model.

Openness: This project is all about open access to the data, and ideally open code, though that is a larger question. If this work is to be successful, there has to be a low barrier to participation, open data available for consumption by any interested party in an open and standardized format, and have a sustainable business model.

Challenges: Technological development is expensive. Coming up with a model and business model that is sustainable could be challenging. The thought process behind bringing existing players into the discussion is that there may be synergies/ideas/road maps that could leverage existing technologies and resources to further this goal of open retention data. Ideally starting small and learning from experiments is a goal.

Neglectedness: The aforementioned PALNI project did provide funding for an environmental scan. There may be funding opportunities in the future for helping create and sustain an open model. What is needed at the moment is the step between the environmental scan and the searching implementation funding. It is imperative to know what is possible, what technical and business models might work, and how and who might be able to implement them at what cost.

Success: Success would be a tangible roadmap, with engaged players, on the creation of an open retentions data model and a sustainable business model. Even just having players engaged in this technology space aware of this need and considering it in their development would be a win. A greater success would be a sketch of a pilot project with tangible and feasible next steps to work toward an implementation.

Total Budget: $10,000

Affiliations: Partnership for Shared Book Collections

LMIE Carveout: While not directly engaged in LMIEs, open data on libraries benefits all.

Team Skills: The current team working on the Open Data goal for the Partnership, is comprised of librarians and technologists deeply engaged in library metadata and systems.

Submission Number: 60