Collections Mobility Task Force

Contact

Background and Charge:

At the CCL retreat, a librarian posed the question, "If the University Libraries collection is one collection geographically dispersed, why do we have to ship our books back to the library of origin after they have been borrowed by a patron?"

The charge of the Collections Mobility Task Force is to determine the feasibility of having a mobile collection in which a book that is borrowed by a patron at one location would remain at that location until requested by a patron at another location.

Possible considerations:

What types of materials are being borrowed?
Who is doing the borrowing?
What are the shopping costs (both direct and indirect) for shipping materials back and forth from the campuses?
What is the available shelf space in each library?
Can SIRSI support this model?
Could this work for some libraries and not others? Would it make sense to run a pilot? If so, which libraries?

Sponsors: Jack Sulzer and Lisa German

Timeline: Recommendation due by October 1, 2010, with monthly reports sent to the sponsors.

Committee members:
Barbara Coopey, chair (Access Services)
Valerie Allen (Cataloging and Metadata Services)
Wertney Cox (Access Services)
Barbara Esbach (York)
Carrie Girton (Fayette)
Trish Notartomas (Access Services)
Nonny Schlotzhauer (Collection Development)
Fay Youngmark (Harrisburg)
Dace Freivalds has volunteered to serve as a resource to the committee if needed.

Collections Mobility Task Force Pilot Project Report June, 2012 (staff only) [PDF]