Total Cost of Stewardship: Responsible Collection Building in Archives and Special Collections

Developed by the OCLC Research Library Partnership’s (RLP) Collection Building and Operational Impacts Working Group, Total Cost of Stewardship is a framework that proposes a holistic approach to understanding the resources needed to responsibly acquire and steward archives and special collections. The Total Cost of Stewardship Framework responds to the ongoing challenge of descriptive backlogs in archives and special collections by connecting collection development decisions with stewardship responsibilities. 

This OCLC Research report is a collection of resources designed to support archives and special collections in making informed, shared collection building decisions; bring together collection management and collection development considerations; and support communication between colleagues in curatorial, administrative, and technical services roles. 

The collection of materials published includes:

1. An OCLC Research report: Total Cost of Stewardship: Responsible Collection Building in Archives and Special Collections
2. The Total Cost of Stewardship Tool Suite, comprising of a set of Communication Tools, Cost Estimation Tools, and a Manual to guide end users in implementing the Tool Suite.
3. An annotated bibliography of related resources