To: Faculty
From: John Culshaw and Carmelita Pickett
Date: January 21, 2015
RE: New Offsite Storage Facility Planning and JSTOR Assessment
UI Libraries continues to participate in the CIC Shared Print Repository (SPR) to mitigate our current space crisis. Shared print repository agreements allows UI Libraries and our peer institutions to responsibly withdraw large journal sets and preserve print copies at a regional repository.
The Libraries is currently in the process of planning for a new offsite storage facility. This planning will require the Libraries to consider withdrawing print collections that are replicated in our digital collections. We have determined that withdrawing JSTOR journal publications from our current offsite storage facility as a next step for managing this process. This planning also presents an opportunity to leverage existing relationships with consortium actively engaged in print preservation such as the Center for Research Libraries (CRL).
CRL is an international consortium of university, college, and independent research libraries. CRL has assembled the JSTOR Print Archive which includes over 87,081 volumes. Since UI Libraries is a member of CRL, this archive is accessible to our University community. We will assess our JSTOR holdings at the offsite storage facility against the CRL JSTOR Print Archive. We are now beginning a review of nearly 391 journal titles accessible in JSTOR. Withdrawing these titles now will help us effectively manage our long-term storage needs and mitigate the cost of relocating these titles to the new facility.
Our collection guidelines for withdrawing print journal titles will remain the same. We will withdraw print volumes for which we own content in perpetuity. We will rely on the electronic copies with the security of having the print volumes at CRL. Some journals will be retained, as the print version is still used. We will also use this as an opportunity to explore contributing to the CRL JSTOR Archive. In the future we will withdraw other JSTOR titles held across the Libraries. We will rely on our subject specialist librarians to communicate with you about journals and other collections that are candidates for CRL JSTOR Print Archive.
Additional information, including lists of JSTOR candidate titles, is available here:
List of Print Journal Titles to be Withdrawn
Journal Withdraw Project Timeline
We plan to start withdrawing selected JSTOR titles late February.
Who to contact with questions: Carmelita Pickett, 319-335-5873, carmelita-pickett@uiowa.edu