Planning assumptions and implementing strategies for co-operative print storage initiatives

Abstract

This article recounts some of the major decision points addressed by the library directors on the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) in their efforts to establish a shared print repository for journal back-files widely held across CIC libraries. In 2011, the directors committed to co-invest in a centralized strategy to aggregate 250,000 volumes at Indiana University (IU), with potential for the project to expand over time to address other library formats (i.e. monographs) and encompass other storage host-sites. A focus of the article is an assessment of the costs of such projects, and the potential return on the investments being made by the CIC libraries.