A Distributed National Stored Collection: Testing the Possibilities

Abstract

This paper reports on a study of the holdings of a single discipline (Design) by a single institution (RMIT University Library) in order to test for the possibility of a form of distributed national storage in Australia. The study was undertaken using OCLC Collection Analysis software and the WorldCat database. The collection of RMIT University Library is compared with two "groups" of libraries, the first consisting of seven Victorian academic library collections, and the second of three Melbourne-based non-academic libraries considered to have strong Design collections. Conclusions indicate that for this discipline a form of distributed storage is already in place, with the RMIT University Library collection making a considerable and complementary contribution to the state-wide holdings.

The Promise of the Future: A Review of the Serials Literature, 2012–13

“…78 Genoni lists the advantages of a distributed arrangement as lower start-up costs and library autonomy in de-duping decisions, while the disadvantages are that member libraries are less likely to actually de-dupe and have less collection management oversight, thereby creating higher costs on a system-wide level. 79 Alternatively, the Committee on Institutional Cooperation's (CIC) analysis of the pros and cons of distributed and centralized shared storage led to a decision to invest in a centralized facility. The costs involved in building a facility and maintaining it seemed acceptable given that the CIC would retain control of the volumes, be assured of the physical conditions in which they were stored, and assure their perpetual retention, rather than rely on member libraries to adhere to all promises they made.…”