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Legend: NOT STARTED IN PROGRESS STALLED DECIDED

Status

IN PROGRESS

Description

In seeking to standardize how we report common statistics (to the extent possible); and build centralized statistics reports, generated at the Network Zone

How should the UC Libraries handle counts for items

  1. previously represented by “Manuscript Units” in UCOP statistics, and

  2. with "Physical Items"."Bibliographic Details"."Resource Type" value “Manuscript

in submissions for UCL/UCOP annuals stats (also used for risk management) as well as other, third-party reporting bodies like ARL, ACRL, etc.?

Decision summary

Exclude Special Collections materials from Alma Analytics based annual statistic reports. Instead, Special Collections on each campus will report their own counts of materials for risk-management and other purposes.

Owning group

AASAP Team sils-aasa-l@listserv.ucop.edu

Approver

Consulted

AASAP Team members consulted locally, including their local special collections colleagues

Heads of Special Collections (HOSC)

Informed

Leadership Group

Decision-making process

Team members gathered information from campus experts individually and as a group via HOSC.

Some campuses reviewed data from Alma, e.g., list of titles by location with Resource Type = Manuscript.

Priority

Target decision date

Date decided

[type // to add Date]

Recommendation

Exclude Special Collections materials from Analytics-based annual statistic reports. Instead, Special Collections on each campus will report their own counts of materials for risk-management and other purposes.

<provide high-level summary that addresses needs and interests of Special Collections colleagues>

Impact

Stakeholder group

Impact

UC Libraries

Determinations around what and how we report are for the most part managed/owned by the UC Libraries (i.e., shared ownership).

CDL

CDL analysts, who are responsible for building report queries at the Network Zone according to templates agreed upon by the UC Libraries, must exclude items based a variety of parameters – likely resource type and location (specific to campus special collections), and any another group of query parameters identified by campus partners.

Special Collections on every campus

SC on every campus will have to keep and report their own statistics to third parties.

UCOP

Likely, this specifically pertains to our Risk Management Office, who reports holdings information to our insurer, for compliance purposes.

Reasoning

At this time, archival or manuscript collections are not effectively represented by counts of Alma item records with bibliographic resource type “Manuscript.” Therefore, Special Collections and Archives materials should continue to be submitted based on data that is stored outside of Alma, such as spreadsheets or other local data repositories.

Background

In comparing data from previous submissions to the proposed method of counting, there are two concerns that arise for “manuscript” type items:

  1. “Manuscript” as value for Resource Type means something different from “Manuscript” in the Special Collections context. The “Manuscript” value is derived from values in the MARC Leader and 008. (See Alma User Interface - General Information > Searching in Alma). Correctly catalogued items with this Resource Type include unpublished dissertations and other materials that do not correspond to the kinds of materials that are counted as “Manuscript Units” by Special Collections and Archives experts.

  2. “Manuscript Unit” subcategories from previous UCOP submissions, like “Personal manuscript units”, generally do not have item-level records in Alma that can be neatly counted by filtering by location, MARC field, or other values in existing physical item records.

As the examples below demonstrate, Irvine reported approximately 4,000 Manuscript Units in 2021-2022. But the item count for the Resource Type “Manuscript” is over 12,500. And the count for “Manuscript” items in Irvine’s Special Collections and Archives locations is only about 1,300.

2021-2022 UCOP Table 3 Other Library Materials Example: Irvine

UCOP Category

Subcategory

Irvine Counts (all Locations)

Manuscript Units

Personal manuscript units

2,193

Manuscript Units

UC archival manuscripts

1,599

Manuscript Units

Other archival materials

268

Total

4,060

UCOP statistic table showing Manuscript Unit counts.

Proposed 2022-2023 Resource Type = “Manuscript” Example: Irvine

Alma Resource Type

Location

Total Active Items

Manuscript

Special Collections (e.g., Langson Library Special Collections and Archives)

1,285

Manuscript

Other locations (e.g., Science Library)

11,472

There are two additional ways that a count of items based on bibliographic resource type with current Alma data fail to provide useful information about Special Collections materials.

  1. Overall measurement issues. Counts of item records in Special Collections are wholly inadequate.

    • Item records do not exist at all for some materials This is true at Bancroft Library and other Special Collections units in the UC Libraries.

    • Online Archive of California records are not accurately represented in Alma. At UC Irvine, for example, Alma does not have item records that correspond to representations there.

    • Item records do not correspond to meaningful, standard archival measurements that are in use nationally and internationally. ARL, for example, asks for Manuscript Units.

    • Item records for containers are flawed measurements, because they can represent vastly different quantities and types of materials - from a single piece of paper to a large container with thousands of documents.

    • Inaccurately coded records are an issue. For example, Berkeley Bancroft Technical Services notes that many Alma items for Special Collection manuscripts are currently miscoded as type “book.”

    • Resource type at the bibliographic level does not provide meaningful information. Manuscripts and archival materials are sometimes coded as “collections,” and sometimes as “manuscripts.” Still images can be both “pictures” and “other,” due to coding as projected vs. non-projected graphics. On many campuses, counts of items with resource type “Manuscript” mostly show individually-catalogued theses and dissertations.

  2. Risk management issues. Counts of items cannot provide an accurate or useful picture of the value of materials for insurance purposes.

    • For UCOP stats, HOSC has provided MU measurements because the insurance unit values table describes manuscripts as "Personal Manuscripts," "UC Archival Manuscripts," and "Other Manuscripts" -- all this translates, to HOSC since at least the last decade+, as archival/manuscript collections, not individual manuscripts. https://libraries.universityofcalifornia.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Unit_value_2021.pdf.

    • For some materials, there is an existing distinction between UC archival collections and personal papers or other collected manuscripts that is recorded at the item level—not at the bibliographic level. Valuations have in the past been tied to this information, so any changes to tracking it should be in coordination with UCOP Risk Management.

Options Considered [remove if not needed]

Option 1

Option 2

Description

Pros

Cons

Dependencies

Questions to consider

Action Log

Action/Point Person

Expected Completion Date

Notes

Status

Gather feedback from local campus Special Collections colleagues

Later March

Gather feedback from Heads of Special Collections as a group

April

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