EAST Gold Rush Collection Analysis Guidance

The EAST Program Team have created a guidance document for libraries undertaking an individual library collection analysis project using Gold Rush.

For general questions about EAST, please contact EAST at info@eastlibraires.org. For information about Gold Rush please visit: https://coalliance.org/faq-library-content-comparison-system.

Libraries participating in an individual collection analysis using the Gold Rush Library Content Comparison System deposit their in scope records to Gold Rush to compare against EAST retentions.

Viewing preliminary list of items that meet the EAST Retention Model

While libraries are welcome to do modeling of their data in Gold Rush, the EAST Program Team will create spreadsheets for review.

EAST creates retention proposal spreadsheets by limiting comparison results to

  • Not currently EAST retention titles;
  • Book format only;
  • Published before 2011 (for collection analysis prior to 2024. Beginning in 2024 EAST extended this date to 2021.)

This list of unique to EAST materials are exported from Gold Rush. EAST runs two filters on the spreadsheet, first to eliminate titles that are considered “ephemera” by EAST and therefore out of scope and second, compares the OCLC number against the EAST retained titles in OCLC. This improves the matching against the current EAST retention commitments and eliminates those duplicates that were not caught initially by the Gold Rush match key.

EAST also prepares two additional spreadsheets aimed at ‘topping up’ existing EAST retention commitments. The first is pre 1900 titles with fewer than 5 EAST retentions, and the second is any additional copies of titles under retention that can meet our “up to five copies” of widely circulated materials rule.

The next step is for the library to review these lists.

Reviewing your allocation proposal

Libraries are given an opportunity to more closely review their retention allocation lists and identify titles that aren’t appropriate for long-term retention such as:

  • non-circulating materials;
  • out of scope material like serials and journals and government documents;
  • materials in a specific location that should not have been included in the original data set;
  • non-scholarly materials that do not merit retention by academic libraries (for example, outdated textbooks and guides).
  • Depending on how much time has passed since the data was extracted from the local ILS/LSP, libraries may also wish to double check that no material has been marked as lost or missing in the interim.

Lists are returned to EAST noting any materials that are not acceptable for retention and the reason for rejecting the commitment using this template. This process allows libraries to refine the details of their retentions and also allows EAST to refine its collection analysis process and ephemera lists.

Final retention allocations

Once the retention list has been finalized, libraries record their retentions in their local ILS (guidelines). Retentions are also registered in OCLC, either by the library or by asking EAST to serve as an agent. See: https://eastlibraries.org/oclc-registration.

Libraries also export their marc records of RETAINED TITLES ONLY and replace their data set in Gold Rush with the retention set, thus rounding out the full set of EAST Retentions that is available for searching and comparison in Gold Rush.

As a final step, EAST holds an onboarding webinar with the library for staff in Access, Tech Services and Collection Management. The webinar covers discovery, lending and maintenance of retention commitments.