Forty Years of Cooperation in the Palouse: From the Washington State University-- University of Idaho List of Serials to the

Cooperative Science Serials Project

Donna M. Hanson and Elizabeth N. Steinhagen

INTRODUCTION

H a n s o n is science librarian at the University of Idaho Library and principal investigator on the University of Idaho campus for the Fred Meyer Charitable Trust Library and Information Resources for the Northwest collection coordinator project grant. Steinhagen is head of the Serials Catalog- ing Section at the University of Idaho Library Catalog Department.

Interlibrary loan of periodical articles and document delivery functions have had to rely on union lists of serials, nationally or regionally com- piled, that list every title available and, in many cases, the holdings information for all participating institutions. Many union serials lists were developed during the 1950s and 1960s. In the 1980s, specialized subject union lists and formal cooperative agreements among participants have become more and more common.

This has been the case for the two universities in the Palouse. Washington State University and the University of Idaho have had an active program of cooperation since 1947. This cooperation has progressed from a union list of serials that was published in book form in 1963 and included most serial titles held by both institutions, to a formal agreement for cooperative selection/deselection of science serials that was implemented in 1986. The agreement is designed to guarantee availability of duplicated titles by coordinating binding schedules and to identify titles that will be held by each institution as a common resource.

Both WSU and UI were founded almost one hundred years ago as the land grant institutions of their respective states. Established respectively in Pullman and Moscow, they are only eight miles apart in the fertile Palouse agricultural region. As of 1986, the combined holdings of the institutions included books and bound periodicals numbering more than two million. There are 1,456,181 volumes at WSU and 652,057 volumes at UI. Although there

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is considerable overlap in the collections due to the fact that the two universities emphasize similar areas in teaching and research, the combined hold- ings of Washington State University and the Uni- versity of Idaho represent a major resource in the Pacific Northwest.

The increase in enrollment experienced by both universities after World War II put a heavy demand on library services and resources. The uni- versities began examining ways of sharing the load, and since 1947 the universities have had an active program of cooperation, in spite of the problems caused by state boundaries, and different boards of regents and legislatures. This cooperation, sum- marized in a 1960 statement signed by both direc- tors, covers the following areas:

* free and reciprocal use of both libraries by their respective clientele, with reciprocal for- malized loan policies agreed upon;

• cooperative acquisitions, with both libraries striving to avoid purchasing the same expen- sive materials;

• an agreement reached in 1950-51 on local newspaper maintenance, under which each library would be responsible for maintaining newspaper files for its state;

• union listing of serial titles and holdings, begun in early 1958, to be used throughout the region; and

• increase of interlibrary loan activities bet- ween the two institutions.

The same statement envisioned activities that would include some of the following:

consolidation and coordination of technical services functions and activities; binding agreement, to coordinate binding of duplicated periodical titles; establishing a direct telephone link and a courier service; and eventually, creating a union list of monographic holdings.

THE UNION LIST OF SERIALS OF THE LIBRARIES OF WASHINGTON STATE

UNIVERSITY AND UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO

The list that was issued as a two-volume set five years later (1963) was produced using an IBM computer and sets of punched cards with the nec- essary information key-punched in alphanumerical sequence. The purpose of this list was threefold:

1. to provide information on serial holdings to personnel at both institutions to facilitate their

research efforts; 2. to serve as the basis for the development of a cooperative serials acquisition program; and 3. to help librarians at both institutions avoid unnecessary duplication of specialized and expensive journals.

By avoiding duplication, the libraries hoped to acquire the combined holdings that would place their collections in the ranks of major research libraries.

Some of the serial holdings of the Idaho National Reactor Testing Station (now the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory--INEL) in Idaho Falls were included. INEL held a collection of more than five hundred periodical titles in the technical and scientific fields, and about half the periodicals were unique to the a rea . The addition of these titles provided researchers, especially those in the field of nuclear energy, with access to resour- ces that had not been available to them.

Although the project was ultimately very suc- cessful, there were some initial problems. For instance, in the late 1950s members of the working committee found that there was a lack of clarity at the top level planning and a lack of commitment on the part of some project personnel. Some mem- bers were unhappy over the delays caused by an unnecessary duplication of tasks and by a lack of organization that caused work slips to be sent back and forth repeatedly between the two institu- tions. In general, the members of the working committee found that a more systematic approach to the whole project was needed.

Preliminary discussions were progressing more smoothly by late 1958. The working committee was clarifying the details of the information that would be included on the work slips that would be used for the IBM punched cards. There was agreement on the need for centralized editing to maintain uniformity and consistency. It took much longer, however, to work out the problems associated with the bibliography and data entry. It had been decided to produce a list in "catalog form" that would be similar to that of the New Serials Titles. This list would have the codes developed by the Library of Congress for subject, country, and language numbers, in a five-digit Dewey scheme.

The main steps in this project were 1) trans- cribing information (titles, holdings, etc.) from the records of the participating libraries onto 4 inch x 6 inch slips; 2) punching this information onto IBM cards; and finally, 3) printing the catalog. The IBM cards contained, in addition to the informa- tion originating from the two libraries, codes that would allow the information to be listed in any manner within their scope (for example, alphabetically by entry, subject, country of origin, language, and

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status). It was agreed that the statement presented in the second edition of the Union List of Serials (Wilson, 1943) would be the foundation for the selection criteria. The publications of universities and agricultural experiment stations were for the most part excluded from the list because of the many problems associated with them. National newspapers and those from Washington and Idaho were not included. General information cards di- rected the users to the respective serials records for holdings of newspapers from those states.

As to data entry, the working committee agreed that all publications with distinctive o r specific titles would be entered by title. Detailed instructions were worked out for the typists, key- punchers, and revisors. The working committee also agreed that UI would initiate all information slips and forward them to WSU, which would then complete the information for like titles and initiate slips for all the titles not shown in the UI original group. Slips would then be returned to UI for further checking.

The preliminary proofs of the union list were ready for final checking in the spring of 1963. The two-volume set published later that year contained 17,275 entries including cross-ref- erences, of these entries 11,248 titles were WSU holdings and about 6,000 titles were IU holdings. Copies were distributed throughout both states and sent to the Pacific Northwest Bibliographic Center, an interlibrary loan referral agency at the University of Washington Library. This agency has used the union list for over twenty years, even though it was out-of-date as soon as it was pub- lished.

IDAHO UNION LISTS

A direct successor to the WSU-U1 union list and closely modelled on its predecessor, the Union List of Serials in Idaho Libraries was begun in 1967. Its purpose was to provide a list of serials held by the major libraries in Idaho. The Union List of Serials was completed by 1969. Printed in catalog form from IBM cards, it was published together with a shorter volume, the Checklist of Idaho Serials, which listed only the serials pub- lished within the state. This list included 18,307 entries, 14,452 main entries, and 3,855 cross-ref- erences.

Supported by the Idaho State Library through a Title III LSCA grant, the work was begun at the University of Idaho so that key staff members would be able to draw on their experience with the WSU-UI union list. The Idaho State Library later expanded the project to include holdings from public libraries throughout the state. Not all the

libraries reported their holdings, and the final list included the holdings of only sixteen libraries, which were mostly the libraries of academic and research institutions. About a third of these libraries held close to ninety percent of the serial titles listed. A supplement issued in 1974 reported the new and changed holdings for twelve of the larger libraries.

Following the criteria that had been set down for its predecessor, this list included generally numbered serials with distinctive titles; yearbooks; conferences; newspapers; city, county, state, and foreign government serials; numbered monographic serials; and all Idaho serials. The list excluded- -except for Idaho imprints--most United Nations and agricultural experiment station publications, publisher series, loose-leaf materials, house organs, and so on. The information was coded on the IBM cards, as it had been in the previous project, and a special code was added to all titles published within the state. Thus, when the Checklist of Idaho Serials was published a little later, it was easy to sort out only the cards that carried the special code.

These lists were the last printed union lists issued in the Palouse region. In 1976, recognizing the growing need for easier updating, distribution, and use, the University of Idaho Library Serials Department, in cooperation with the UI Computer Center, issued its first University of Idaho Library Periodicals Master Index Report on microfiche. Holdings, updates, changes, and new titles are input directly into the mainframe computer, and lists on microfiche intended for wider distribution within the region are issued periodically. The list is ex- changed for the WSU Serials and Journals List, which is also produced on microfiche. Paper printouts can be requested for special projects, but the ease of updating the microfiche format makes this listing more popular. This will probably be the case until the UI library installs an integrated online system.

THE 1980s

In 1982 the science libraries at the two institu- tions entered into an informal agreement to coor- dinate their binding schedules. Under this agreement when a journal is held by both universities, an attempt is made to send the University of Idaho copy for binding first. When the bound copy is returned from the bindery, a copy of the binding slip is sent to the serials record unit at the WSU science library, and their issues are then pulled and sent for binding. This has been a very useful arrangement for both institutions because one copy o f heavily used journals is available at all times.

In June 1986 the two libraries entered a formal agreement that designates one library the "holder

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of record" for specific titles in the sciences. This agreement was a result of a major cancellation project at the WSU libraries, and includes the Veterinary Medicine library at WSU, as well as the two science libraries. The UI library staff, working in consultation with science faculty mem- bers, identified titles on the WSU cancellation list that were considered primary titles on the Idaho campus and should be cancelled therefore only under very extreme circumstances. The decision is recorded on the official serials records and indi- cates that the title will not be cancelled without consultation with the other campus.

During the summer of 1987, the WSU and UI libraries began an evaluation of expensive serials that are held on both campuses. Represen- tatives of the two science libraries have been meeting with representatives of the teaching de- partments to examine expensive duplicate titles. These representatives make recommendations of titles that should be duplicated, those that need be on only one campus, and titles that might be candidates for cancellation on both campuses. The recommendations are made in light of the changing teaching and research needs on the campuses.

FHE COOPERATIVE SCIENCE SERIALS PROJECT

The pattern of cooperation between these two land grant institutions in the Pacific North- west provided the basis, almost thirty years after their initial union list of serials project, for a grant proposal that was submitted to the Library and Information Resources for the Northwest pro- gram of the Fred Meyer Charitable Trust. With WSU as the lead institution and WSU science li- brarian Elizabeth P. Roberts as principal inves- tigator, the five Pacific Northwest land grant in- stitutions (University of Alaska, University of Idaho, Montana State University, Oregon State University, and Washington State University) pro- posed undertaking a coordinated collection man- agement of science serials.

Each of these institutions has the same broad mission to support research and education in the areas of agriculture and engineering, and to re- spond to the program changes within these areas that result from new technologies. Each institution supports other programs as well--veterinary medi- cine for Washington, Oregon, and Idaho at Wash- ington State; snow research at Montana State; for- estry at Alaska, Idaho, and Oregon; glaciology at Alaska and Idaho; and mining engineering at Alaska and Idaho.

Each of these institutions is subject to the financial limitations imposed by the combination of stagnant or decreasing budgets and steadily in-

creasing costs for the materials--this is especially true of serials--that form a large portion of science collections. The five libraries identified areas where shared resources could result in stronger collections and better service for the whole region.

One purpose of the grant proposal is to strengthen research potential in the region by in- creasing the number of scientific journals and other serials available through the five libraries. Another is to improve the delivery time for photocopies of articles and other materials. Purchasing backfiles and the missing issues of titles already in the collec- tion are two of the steps that have been taken to meet these objectives.

Each institution identified its own areas of strength and weakness, using collection development statements, institutional role and mission statements, and the results of collection assessments. Institutions have been assigned responsibility for developing and sustaining collections in subject areas where their collections have been strong. Areas of weakness within the region are being used to select new serial titles for acquistion.

The grant proposal was approved in December 1986. The funding period extends from 1 February 1987 to 31 January 1990. Some activities are well under way and others are developing.

Sharing resources and facilitating delivery of materials requires knowing the location and holdings. Oregon State University is a member of OCLC; the other four institutions are members of WLN and are participants of the Pacific Northwest OCLC Access Group for Interlibrary Loan. As part of the grant, Oregon State has been provided with a subscription to the WLN LaserCat (the WLN re- source directory on CD-ROM) and the equipment necessary to access it. In addition, the institutions have exchanged copies of their serials holdings lists.

The decision was made early in the planning stage that a separate union list of science serials would not have to be compiled. It was agreed that since all participants are members of, or have access to, two of the national utilities, it would be more advisable to direct efforts to adding holdings statements to the appropriate bibliographic utility records. Montana State University, the University of Alaska, and Washington State University have already attached summary holdings to WLN records, and Oregon State University has summary holdings attached to OCLC records. The University of Idaho is including summary statements with the serial titles that are being added to the WLN database and has begun a serials retrospective conversion project that will add summary holdings information to all titles. The periodic lists of "holder of record" constitute the only "union list" planned for this project.

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The institutions have agreed to establish re- ciprocal charges for photocopying and to reconcile these charges once a year. In addition, they have agreed to waive charges for lending monographs. The agreement applies to all transactions between participating institutions and is not restricted to science materials. The interlibrary loan units within each library are urged to obtain materials from participating institutions whenever possible, using the shared lists of serials or the online utilities to verify sources• Since this recommenda- tion imposes extra work loads on the ILL staffs, nominal funds to support this work and alleviate the impact of the project on staff budgets have been included in the grant.

When a participating library considers the acquisition or cancellation of a serial title, this information is communicated to the other institu- tions. Each institution is asked to provide a statement of holdings for the title. Willingness to be designated "holder of record" is also com- municated. Because of the size of the region, it has been agreed that two institutions will have to be assigned responsibility for some titles• In such cases, one institution on the coast (either Oregon State University or the University of Alas- ka) and another in the Inland Empire area (Wash- ington State University, Montana State University, or the University of Idaho) will be designated.

The Owen Science and Engineering Library of Washington State University acts as the clearin- ghouse for this information. Queries may originate with any participating institution, and responses are directed to all participants. The staff of the Owen Library gathers the information and assigns "holder of record" status. The designation of "holder of record" is recorded in the serials record of the appropriate institution, along with the nota- tion "Do not Cancel without consultation with CCLaGSS (Collection Coordination for Land Grant Science Serials)." Periodically the list of serial titles added and "holder of record" designation is circulated to each participating library for veri- fication.

This project has not been in operation long enough to give any realistic evaluation of impact or to assess what the implications for collection development and interlibrary loans may be. What has been seen throughout all of the above agree- ments is a willingness to share responsibility for serials acquisition and management. There is also a growing pattern of sharing resources within the group, which now extends beyond the original "Palouse Partnership" of the University of Idaho and Washington State University to the whole Pacific Northwest region.

R E F E R E N C E S

Conditt, Paul C., comp. and ed. A Union List of Serials in Idaho Libraries, together with A Checklist of Idaho Serials. Moscow, Idaho: University of Idaho Library for the Idaho State Library, 1969.

• A Union List of Serials in Idaho Libraries. Supplement. Moscow, Idaho: University of Idaho Library, 1974.

"Cooperative Selection and Deselection of Science Serials among Five Land Grant Libraries: Preliminary Proposal Submitted to the Fred Meyer Charitable Trust by Washington State University on behalf of Montana State University, Oregon State University, University of Idaho, Washington State University and the University of Alaska, Fairbanks." 19 Decem- ber 1986.

Ferguson, Douglas K. of the Fred Meyer Charitable Trust. Letter to Washington State University Presi- dent Samuel Smith, 30 December 1986.

Hook, Robert D. "University of Idaho Library Cir- culation Annual Statistical Reports." 1 July 1969; 29 July 1971; and July 1987.

Roberts, Elizabeth P. "Cooperation, Collection Management, and Scientific Journals." College and Research Libraries 48, no. 3 (May 1987): 247-251.

Roberts, Elizabeth P. of Washington State University Library. Memorandum to directors of libraries and contact people• 17 September 1986.

Union List of Serials of the Libraries of Washington State University and University of Idaho. Preliminary edition. Pullman, Washington: 1963.

University of Idaho Archives. Manuscript Group 59: Idaho Union List of Serials. Papers, 1959-1973. Correspondence Series.

University of Idaho Library Statistics for the Fiscal year 1985/86.

Washington State University Archives. UA-84-28, Box 1. "Cooperation Between Washington State University and the University of Idaho Library." 29 November 1960.

Washington State University Library. Statistical Report to the Association of Research Libraries, 1985-86. •

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