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The purpose of this paper is to discuss the Texas A&M University (TAMU) Libraries’ policies that effectively reduced the size of onsite print collections, with minimal impact on the library user community. The paper also aims to examine some of the challenges encountered during the underlying collection assessment process.

Investment in electronic resources, digital preservation initiatives and local print repositories are reasonable solutions for academic libraries that need to responsibly relocate legacy print collections from their open stacks.

Balancing trust issues with local needs and embracing the opportunities offered by digital archives and local print repositories are key elements for successfully implementing collection management decisions.

This article examines local best practices for downsizing local print collections and recommends strategies applicable to any large academic library for addressing collection assessment challenges.

The history of the Center for Research Libraries (CRL) during the last decade is one of adaptation and innovation, driven by the need to keep pace with a rapidly changing world. CRL is a cooperative collection development enterprise, created in the age of print. Today we are confronting entirely new paradigms of information exchange and access brought about by digital media and the internet. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how the past decade has been a time of re‐engineering CRL services, re‐orienting operations, and forming partnerships to put vital new capabilities at the disposal of academic and independent research libraries in the CRL community. In short, it is a narrative of how one organization recast its role from a centralized repository to a collection development and preservation community.

The paper takes the form of a study of the changing roles of collection‐building consortia based on the ten‐year recent history of CRL.

To ensure the survival of primary source collections, consortia must pursue a strategy that seems counter‐intuitive in today's “just in time” world: a strategy not based solely on current interest and demand. Collection‐building efforts like CRL must act on behalf of future generations of researchers and stakeholders, or abdicate their responsibility as stewards of knowledge.

The paper gives a perspective on the appropriate roles of library consortia and repositories in the current research libraries sector, vis‐à‐vis preservation, collection development.

To highlight the role of print repositories in accessing print materials.

Highlights the repository library in the professional literature. Provides an overview of the National Repository Library (NRL) in Finland and the Kuopio conferences. Offers some calculations on the economics of access to print materials, with particular focus on Finland.

The role of the repository library creates savings in total storage costs on a national level. The NRL is a vital link in the Finland library network and acts as a bright signpost of cooperation on a national level. Libraries continue to function on local level in universities, polytechnics, research institutions and in communities while the NRL creates savings in space costs. By transferring material to the Repository Library libraries can free space for IT‐services, new acquisitions and active collections. As libraries get access to a growing number of de‐duplicated materials each library has a potential to become a zero growth library.

One of the important consequences of the success of the NRL is that the zero growth library has to rely more on resource sharing and must develop its ILL systems for better services for its patrons.

There is an inclination towards openness in research greatly supported by the accessibility of open access theses and dissertations (OATDs) from many universities and research institutions through institutional repositories or collaborative efforts like the OATD.org. This study aims to explore different trends in the availability of theses through OATD.org to assess different dimensions concerning the OATD landscape.

An online survey was conducted to examine the availability of theses from 1994 to June 2023. The indexed theses were analyzed for their incorporation into OATD.org during different time frames. The data were further analyzed to reveal different facts concerning OATDs, with a focus on their growth and evolving trends.

OATDs are fast becoming available globally, with a significant overall growth rate. The data depicts growing trends in almost all the identified time frames, with the highest during 2004–2008. Moreover, there is a significant gap in the availability of OATDs from different geographical domains, with the highest-indexed OATDs from developed countries, indicating that the OATD landscape is still in its infancy in developing nations.

This study is limited to the coverage encompassed by the OATD.org portal, which is the best and most significant resource for finding OATDs published worldwide.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first ordered and thorough attempt to explore the trends in the availability of OATDs through OATD.org.

The purpose of this paper is to offrer a reflective look at PASCAL (Preservation and Access Service Center for Colorado Academic Libraries) in the larger context of off‐site storage facilities and practices

The article includes an analysis based on five key points of cooperative repository projects that were made by Vattulainen. The five points are applied to this case study of PASCAL, a shared collaborative off‐site storage facility.

Concerns are discussed in the five key areas: Concept of ownership, Provision of buildings, Management of repositories, Relegation decisions and User needs,

This article contributes a case study to the discussion of collaborative off‐site storage, with implications for both the immediate region and for larger networked systems that may exist in the future.

To identify the issues faced by shared library storage facilities involving collection ownership, services, and governance.

Literature‐based review describing the operations of shared library storage facilities in the USA.

There are 50 or more library storage facilities in the USA (including separate compact shelving buildings or wings), with others in various stages of planning and construction. Most of the existing facilities are operated by individual academic libraries for their own collections, but increasing numbers of shared facilities are being planned and built. As more and more US academic libraries operate or share storage facilities, they face issues involving collection ownership, services, and governance within their own constituencies. These shared facilities can form the infrastructure for the evolving international network of print repositories.

Provides models for operating shared library storage facilities and outlines next steps to develop an international repository network.

Libraries face a “selling” job on the relationship between print and digital as the mode of delivery for content. Too often it is limply said that “everything is on the web” when we know that it is not or that licensed access to the content is not always available. The Lyon’s Declaration promotes freedom of access to information, yet libraries live and work with this paradox. How will the ambitions of the Lyon Declaration be met? So while it is ironic that everything is said to be on the web while it is not, we have powerful evidence of their dynamic purpose and value. This conference series has dealt with this confronting riddle, evolving and refining, but not quite finding the defining moment. The purpose of this paper is to explore the many interfaces here. By understanding this paradox of print and digital we should see the future of the repositories and libraries more clearly and position them more exactly.

The paper explores the rich divergence of responses to the use and development of repositories and proposes future directions. It is an experiential paper as well as one guided by future planning perspectives.

There is a need for a reconceptualisation of the role of print repositories blending in digital solutions together with the more traditional solutions. There is also a strong need for repositories to collaborate internationally in order to be able to render their own work and collections valid and effective in a much wider context.

This paper is a series of observations and lessons. It is an extension of practical and managerial work in developing and managing repositories and their collections both in Australia and in Hong Kong. It is a collection views designed to stimulate and potentially guide library practitioners who are thinking and working in this area.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the file formats of the digital objects stored in two of the largest open-access repositories in Spain, DDUB and TDX, and determines the implications of these formats for long-term preservation, focussing in particular on the different versions of PDF.

To be able to study the two repositories, the authors harvested all the files corresponding to every digital object and some of their associated metadata using the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) and Open Archives Initiative Object Reuse and Exchange (OAI-ORE) protocols. The file formats were analyzed with DROID software and some additional tools.

The results show that there is no alignment between the preservation policies declared by institutions, the technical tools available, and the actual stored files.

The results show that file controls currently applied to institutional repositories do not suffice to grant their stated mission of long-term preservation of scientific literature.

Library storage is traditionally viewed as a space management strategy, a way of dealing with overcrowded buildings and growing collections. Storage also is implicitly a preservation strategy: an alternative to weeding, cramming books tightly on shelves, stacking them on the floor, or not purchasing them in the first place. Among its obvious preservation benefits, storage provides security from theft and vandalism, and protection from spills and pests caused by increasingly prevalent food and drink in library buildings. Although transfer to storage may be risky for fragile materials, leaving them in stacks that are constantly being shifted is likely to be more damaging. Many storage facilities provide better environmental conditions for collections than old or poorly maintained modern library buildings.