Patrons visiting Mills Memorial Library may notice employees in the stacks sorting books and journals.
The work is part of an initiative called Keep@Downsview. This partnership between McMaster, Ottawa, Western, Toronto, Queen’s and Memorial university libraries preserves and ensures access to low demand print materials.
“Library collections are bigger than the printed materials we have in our buildings; they’re now the resources we can provide in various formats,” said Wade Wyckoff, associate university librarian, Distinctive, Legacy, and Digital Heritage Collections at McMaster University Libraries. “We can provide more depth and breadth—and ensure that more books and journals survive for future generations—by working collaboratively with other libraries.”
Book circulation data at McMaster goes back to 1997, giving local program leads access to a large amount of historical data as one indicator to assess usage. Titles considered have been in the libraries’ collection for several years to be sure there has been sufficient time for them to be discovered and used.
Journals, not having circulation data, require a different approach. Multiple factors, such as the age of the volumes and online availability, are considered.
These less frequently used printed materials from the six partner university libraries are stored at a purpose-built facility that houses millions of volumes in an environment calibrated specifically to long-term preservation of print books and journals. The building is located at the University of Toronto’s Downsview campus.
The Keep@Downsview agreement allows the partners to share ownership of volumes that they hold in common and choose to include in the program.
All titles transferred to the Keep@Downsview collection will continue to appear in McMaster libraries’ catalogue and can be requested in the same way as other library resources. Physical books will be delivered to your selected library for pickup, and individual book chapters or journal articles will be sent to you as a scanned PDF.
“We believe it is important for these low-demand collections to remain available in support of the research and educational activities of McMaster’s academic community,” said Casey Hoeve, associate university librarian, Content, Access, and Open Licensing. “Participating in Keep@Downsview allows us to ensure that this occurs, while creating space within the library to foster new types of scholarship, offer additional library services, and support both collaborative and individual work.”
Keep@Downsview is just one of more than a dozen such programs in North America. Many large research libraries, including those at Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, and the University of California, are members of similar initiatives. In Canada, Keep@Downsview is complemented by the Shared Print Archive Network that includes the university libraries of Alberta, British Columbia, Calgary, and Saskatchewan, among others.
More information about Keep@Downsview
For more information, visit McMaster’s Keep@Downsview webpage.
For additional questions, email Wade Wyckoff or email Casey Hoeve.
