Retention Models

The Cohort 1 EAST retention model had three primary components:

• Retention of ALL existing holdings for titles that are scarcely held in the US, in EAST, and in the region.
• Retention of up to five holdings for all titles that have had significant use within EAST.
• Retention of one holding for all other titles that are not scarcely held or heavily used.

Two categories of material were excluded from the model, including recently published and “ephemeral” (non-scholarly) content.

Here is a more detailed description of the model.

• Retain ALL scarcely held titles:  Scarcely held defined as fewer than 5 EAST holdings and fewer than 40 U.S. WorldCat holdings (any edition), fewer than 5 regional large academic library holdings (any edition), not held in ConnectNY (any edition), publication year before 2011 and not published by a publisher on the ‘ephemera’ list.
• Retain sufficient copies of widely held titles: Retain UP TO 5 copies of works that had more than 30 aggregate uses across the Cohort 1 libraries, publication year before 2011 and not published by a publisher on the ‘ephemera’ list.
• Retain ONE copy of all other monographs, publication year before 2011 and not published by a publisher on the ‘ephemera’ list.

Cohort 2 Model:

The various EAST committees working on the Cohort 2 collection analysis felt it was important to be as consistent as possible with the Cohort 1 Retention Model above. However, based on the results of both cohort’s validation studies, the Cohort 2 working group felt there needed to be an additional rule for retaining extra copies of material likely to be in poor condition.

• Retain ALL scarcely held titles: Scarcely defined as fewer than 40 U.S. holdings (any edition), publication year before 2011 and not published by a publisher on the ‘ephemera’ list.
• Retain sufficient copies of widely held titles: Retain UP TO 4 copies of works that had more than 20 aggregate uses across the Cohort 2 libraries and fewer than 5 copies retained in Cohort One (same edition), publication year before 2011 and not published by a publisher on the ‘ephemera’ list.
• Retain extra copies of materials likely to be in poor condition: Retain UP TO 3 copies of monographs published before 1900, and not published by a publisher on the ‘ephemera’ list.  This retention rule was a direct result of the validation study showing that older materials are much more likely to be in poor condition.
• Retain ONE copy of all other monographs not retained by Cohort One, publication year before 2011 and not published by a publisher on the ‘ephemera’ list.

These models combined resulted in approximately nine million title-holdings being allocated to EAST Retention Partners for the minimum 15 year retention period.  Quite an accomplishment!

Seven state of Florida universities (plus their regional repository), joined EAST in 2019 (please read our press release). Below is the final retention model agreed upon by the participating libraries:

• Retain ALL copies of titles with US WorldCat holdings of less than 40
• Retain up to 5 copies of titles with aggregate uses of more than 50, unless at least 5 copies are already being retained by EAST
• Retain 3 copies of titles published before 1900, unless at least 3 copies are already being retained by EAST
• Retain 1 copy of everything else, unless already being retained by EAST.
• Exclude Out of Scope materials.

Note: The ‘ephemera’ list contained title keywords and publishers that were deemed to be either of short lived value or pose difficulties in determining long term retention merit, such as travel guides and computer manuals.  While these were not on retention lists, weeding of these materials is left entirely up to the local libraries. As additional cohorts and institutions join EAST, the list of publishers falling under the ephemera flag has grown.

41 VIVA (Virginia’s Academic Library Consortium) member libraries joined EAST in 2023, with 11 signing on as retention partners (please read our press release). Below is the final retention model agreed upon by the participating retention libraries:

• Exclude Out of Scope materials.
• Retain ALL Materials that are in scope and Unique to EAST
• Retain up to 5 copies of materials previously identified by EAST as having high use, but currently retained by fewer than 5 EAST libraries
• Retain up to 5 copies of pre-1901 materials
• Retain an additional copy if identified as high circ in VIVA and only 1 EAST copy is currently retained.

1. All libraries were asked to retain materials that are unique to their collection i.e. they were the only holder of the title across the 67 participating libraries and no copies of the title were already retained by EAST as a result of previous collection analysis work.
2. Materials in the EAST ephemera category list were excluded from the retention model.
3. Material that met the retention criteria, but based on previous collection analysis were material likely to be out of scope for retention were flagged for a separate review.
4. Based on a review of the Partnership for Shared Book Collections Risk Model Tool and consistent with EAST’s previous policy of retaining up to 5 copies when possible, up to 5 copies were retained across the group.
5. When 2-5 copies are held, all 5 were allocated for retention.
6. When more than 5 copies are held across the 67 libraries, EAST allocated the 5 to be retained based on two criteria:
   • In an attempt to best ensure titles are distributed geographically across the broad EAST membership, the U.S. census map (divided into two EAST regions, Northeast and South), at least one copy will be allocated per region when possible.
   • As libraries that participated as part of EAST’s Cohorts 1 and 2 as well as the Florida Cohort typically have higher rates of existing retention commitments (as a percentage of their total circulating print collection), EAST allocated retentions to those with a lower percentage of their pre-2011 collection already retained.

While participating libraries were strongly encouraged to consider retaining titles on behalf of EAST it was clear that this was not always feasible. Therefore libraries were asked to consider other local priorities when deciding which titles to retain. To facilitate this process included in the lists of allocated titles were data that libraries might useful in evaluating their title lists:

• LC Class
• Language
• EAST Counts
• WorldCat Holdings
• Circ Count
• Juvenile Lit
• HathiTrust