UC Print Futures

Our Opportunity

  • Leveraging our connections through:
    • Seamless discovery and service across the system through UC Library Search
    • Partnerships and shared technology within the broader library community 
  • Working with one another and libraries across the country, we can ensure and expand ongoing access to a vast array of print collections.  

Vision

In support of the UC Libraries’ vision “to be leaders in providing the broadest access to the world’s knowledge” we embrace intentional, collaborative, and responsive approaches to shaping the future(s) of our university’s vast and valuable print books and journals in support of the research and teaching needs of our users and the broader scholarly community.

Mission, Purpose & Goals

To collaboratively and intentionally shape the print collections we preserve for the future to best serve our users and the broader scholarly community.

This effort aims to establish practical guidelines to strategically preserve and expand access to broad, diverse, and distinctive print collections for our user communities by optimizing our collective physical capacity within the context of regional and national shared print initiatives.

We aim to:

  • Clarify the unique roles of campus libraries and RLFs in our collections strategy
  • Adopt practices to codify and expand the purposeful stewardship to the RLF collections
  • Prioritize collaborative print collection development and preservation efforts
  • Fulfill our commitments to regional and national shared print initiatives
  • Leverage shared print partnerships and trusted digital collections to use our finite physical capacity more strategically while expanding access for our user communities
We value…Therefore…
Preservation of the scholarly record.We intentionally retain and preserve print materials in our local campus and regional storage facilities and invest in partnerships where complementary print materials are retained.
User-centered approaches to collections.We work to make the one UC collection equally discoverable and accessible to all our users and respond to library service and collections needs.
Equity, diversity, and inclusion.We collaborate to represent diverse collections in shared print initiatives and secure widely held materials in order to facilitate campus collecting in diverse and unique areas.
Sustainability.We share the responsibility across our system to preserve and provide access to print collections and we work with external partners to broaden our scope.

Reports and Announcements

  • Handout – UC Print Futures
  • The working group charged to evaluate and recommend systemwide, coordinated approaches to RLF deposits and managing the UC Libraries print collective collection produced two reports:
    • Part 1 report (endorsed; recommendations are at various stages of action)
    • Part 2 report (accepted; endorsement is pending outcomes of related UC Library efforts)

Learning more

The working group is discharged while related efforts advance, but may be reinitiated in fall 2023. If you have questions or comments about this work, please reach out to Alison Wohlers (alison.wohlers@ucop.edu).