Collective Collection
A Collective Collection refers to the shared resources of multiple libraries, archives, and museums. Collective Collections can be leveraged to benefit all institutional stakeholders, including researchers, scholars, students, and patrons.
OCLC Research’s Collective Collection work provides evidence and insight to support decision-making into how cultural heritage institutions organize shared collections and services. Through this work, OCLC Research is helping to create a more connected, collaborative landscape for libraries, archives, and museums, with the goal of making collections more accessible, impactful, and cost-efficient.
Publications
Stewarding the Collective Collection: An Analysis of Print Retention Data in the US and Canada
8 November 2024
Ian Bogus, Rachel Frick, Devon Smith, Susan Stearns, and Alison Wohlers
Analyzes shared print retention data from the OCLC Shared Print Registry and OCLC WorldCat to support collective collection stewardship. This report was written in collaboration between OCLC and the Partnership for Shared Book Collections.
Reflections on Collective Collections
16 January 2020
Brian Lavoie, Lorcan Dempsey, Constance Malpas
Collective collections are the combined holdings of a group of libraries, analyzed and possibly managed as a unified resource. Constructing, understanding, and operationalizing collective collections is an increasingly important aspect of collection management for many libraries. This article presents some general insights about collective collections, drawn from a series of studies conducted by OCLC.
The US and Canadian Collective Print Book Collection: A 2019 Snapshot
26 September 2019
Brian Lavoie
In this position paper, Lavoie traces the contours of the US and Canadian collective print book collection—the collective print book holdings of all libraries in the US and Canada whose collections are registered in WorldCat. The paper examines the US/Canadian collective print book collection for insight and trends and includes a new rendering of the mega-regional map of US/Canadian Collective Print Book Collections.
Operationalizing the BIG Collective Collection: A Case Study of Consolidation vs Autonomy
20 August 2019
Lorcan Dempsey, Constance Malpas, Mark Sandler
The proposed framework recommends strategies for advancing the Big Ten Academic Alliance’s (BTAA) collective collections toward a more purposeful coordination of their print collections. It defines four traits of a purposeful collective collection that can also apply broadly to other consortium settings.