Call for Cycle 8 Archive Disclosures – Due May 31, 2019
The WEST project team recently sent out a call for WEST Archive Holders and Builders to submit metadata records describing the journal backfiles archived during WEST Cycle 8.
Back in September, WEST members committed to titles for archiving during Cycles 8/9 (through spring 2020). Many Archive Holders (Bronze, no physical validation required) may choose to disclose all their committed titles during Cycle 8 disclosure. Archive Builders (Silver and Gold, physical validation required) are expected to disclose a little under half of their commitments depending on how each Builder has chosen to divide archive creation work between Cycles 8 and 9.
The WEST Disclosure Policy, which is available for download from the WEST website, includes a commitment for Archive Holders and Builders to provide metadata records to the California Digital Library (CDL) for ingest into the AGUA analysis tool and propagation to the CRL Print Archive Preservation Registry (PAPR). The PAPR system is a public registry of the titles archived by major print archiving and shared print programs. Archive Holders and Builders also provide disclosure records directly to OCLC to disclose WEST holdings in WorldCat.
WEST members may be aware that OCLC is currently engaged in development work to improve shared print registration functionality. This development may affect how WEST discloses its commitments in OCLC WorldCat in the future. However, for the foreseeable future, disclosures in OCLC WorldCat will continue to follow the processes and standards as described in WEST’s disclosure policy.
Disclosure of WEST archived materials is intended to support three primary goals:
- Discovery and display of WEST materials for use by library staff and by library users as appropriate
- Resource-sharing among WEST members as defined in the Access Guidelines for WEST Archives
- Collection analysis to support local and system-level collection management decisions and development of additional WEST print archives
WEST asks that Archive Holders and Builders provide these records to CDL by May 31, 2019. (Please provide records to OCLC separately on a schedule convenient for your library; it is strongly recommended that this is done around the same time.)
Please note an important change for Cycles 8 and 9 commitments:
- In 2016, the WEST Executive Committee approved a recommendation from the Operations and Collections Council to modify the definition of backfile from v.1-2005 to v. 1-2015 (for all future proposals, all archive types); additionally, for Bronze, archiving up to the current year is preferred. Through this shift, WEST’s governance groups responded to the fact that as we move forward in years, WEST’s backfile definition is increasingly outdated. More titles are identified in the automated analytics that began publication after 2005, for which WEST members have substantial print holdings. Shifting the backfile definition is meant to increase the pool of available titles and simplify decision-making and cataloging for Archivers. This does not place any obligation on Archivers to maintain current print subscriptions. Additionally, Builders are not being asked to retrospectively build journal families already committed under the v.1-2005 model.
Don’t forget to keep an eye out for Calls for Holdings from WEST’s Archive Builders! If you would like to learn more about Calls for Holdings and the role they play in WEST’s archive creation work, please see this blog post or WEST’s FAQs.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact WEST’s program manager, Alison Wohlers, at alison.wohlers@ucop.edu.