Choosing your Center of Excellence Collection: Tips from a

Selective DepositoryDavid Durant

Joyner Library, East Carolina University

February 26, 2014

What We’ll Cover•ASERL CFDP Overview

•COE Responsibilities

•Tips for Choosing a COE Subject

•Implementation Steps

•Promoting and Marketing your COE Collection

ASERL Collaborative Federal Documents Program (CFDP)

• Initiated in 2007

• Cooperative preservation of print FDLP publications

• Individual depositories serve as Center of Excellence

• Two complete, distributed collections in ASERL of everything published via the FDLP

Center of Excellence (COE) Responsibilities

• Build a comprehensive collection for a particular agency or on a particular subject

• Fill any gaps in COE collection

• Collection must be fully cataloged

• Public service and ILL responsibilities

• Resource for the entire region

Joyner Library as a COE• Committed to serve as a COE in January

2011

• Cold War & Internal Security (CWIS) Collection

Tips for Choosing a COE Topic• Relates to research and curricular needs of

your users

• Ties in to other collections in your library

• Something you already have substantial holdings in

• Anticipated size/growth of COE Collection

Tips for Choosing a COE Topic (2)

• Available resources (staff, time, money, etc.)

• Subject expertise on staff

• Connects to your broader region/community

Tips for Choosing a COE Topic (3)

• Choose within your means: an agency/subject that is manageable in scope and scale for your institution

Why CWIS?• Great historic importance

• Tied to other library collections

• Relatively small collection

• Already had sizable holdings/cataloged

• Retrospective (no new growth/item selection)

Implementation Steps• Create title lists of in-scope publications

Monthly Catalog of US Government Publications (1895-1976)

GPO Catalog (1976-present) Guide to U.S. Government Publications Beware of agency name changes/SuDoc

changes

• Inventory current COE Holdings

• Perform collection gap analysis

Implementation Steps (2)• Check Item Lister/Adjust selection profile

• Register for ASERL Disposition Database

• Monitor other N&O resources

• Arrange cataloging and preservation

• Arrange shelf space

Implementation Steps (3)• Determine circulation/access policies

• Familiarize yourself with agency/subject history

• Educate your colleagues about the collection

• Promotion/rollout

Promoting and Marketing your COE Collection

• Posters, fliers, bookmarks

• Press releases/newsletter articles

• Web resources (blogs, LibGuides, etc.)/social media

• Limited digitization

Promoting and Marketing your COE Collection (2)

• Outreach to agencies

• Speakers/workshops

• Official rollout event

Promoting and Marketing your COE Collection (3)

• Work with your PR/Development personnel as closely as possible

• Use as an opportunity to show the history inside the covers

Promoting and Marketing your COE Collection: Ex.

• CWIS LibGuide: http://libguides.ecu.edu/cwis

• CWIS Blog: http://blog.ecu.edu/sites/cwis/

• Outreach to agencies

• Speakers/workshops

• Official rollout event

Final Thoughts

• Think of a COE collection as an opportunity, not a burden

• Show the relevance and value of legacy document collections

Additional Information

• Additional resources can be found on the ASERL CFDP website: http://www.aserl.org/programs/gov-doc/

Contact info:

David DurantJoyner LibraryEast Carolina UniversityGreenville, NC 27858Ph. (252) 328-2258E-mail: durantd@ecu.edu