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Art research collections continue to be impacted by the lingering effects of economic uncertainty and the global COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in reduced or stagnant budgets and staffing cuts. These impacts have coincided with a period of institutional reflection and examination of the fundamental role of cultural heritage institutions in society. This report is the second of two documenting the findings from the Operationalizing the Art Research Collective Collection project, which explored collaborative opportunities and models for art research libraries. This report offers qualitative findings from case study research of existing collaborations involving art libraries, while the first report examined how quantitative analysis of library collection and resource sharing data can help identify and inform decisions about collaboration opportunities. Since prospective partnerships can only become reality through the hard work of building and maintaining relationships, it is important to document the practical experiences and lessons learned from real-world collaborations. The selected case studies offer rich perspectives on how art libraries have built and maintained partnerships in a variety of settings to illustrate different partnership models that art libraries could adapt for use in other contexts. [Foreword written by Amelia Nelson. For the first report, "Sustaining Art Research Collections: Using Data to Explore Collaboration. OCLC Research Report," see ED627074. This project was supported through a grant by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.]

As art libraries face challenges from an evolving environment, repercussions from the COVID-19 pandemic, and static or diminishing resources, finding sustainable pathways forward becomes an increasing priority. An important option for art research collections in achieving long-term sustainability is collaboration. This report explores opportunities for collaboration between art, academic, and independent research libraries and models how quantitative analysis of library collection and activity data could be used as evidence to support decision-making about collaborative opportunities. It is intended to help support art libraries and their leaders in the ongoing stewardship and availability of art research resources. The report uses two approaches: (1) Collective collection analysis and (2) Resource sharing activity analysis. These analyses provide insight into the current state of the network of libraries supporting art research in the US and Canada, highlight the unique value art libraries can bring to partnerships, and point to possible future collaborative efforts around building, stewarding, and sharing art research collections. [Foreword by Jon Evans. This project was supported through a grant by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.]

To develop robust research support services across the entire research life cycle, individuals and units from across the university, including the library, must collaborate across internal silos. Effective "social interoperability"--the creation and maintenance of working relationships between individuals and organizational units--in higher education requires a thorough knowledge of campus partners. The OCLC Research report "Social Interoperability in Research Support" explores the social and structural norms that shape cross-campus collaboration and offers a conceptual model of key university stakeholders in research support. Information about their goals, interests, expertise, and crucially, the importance of cross-campus relationships in their work was synthesized from interviews conducted with practitioners from a wide range of campus stakeholders in research support. The report describes the network of campus units involved in both the provision and consumption of major categories of research support services, and concludes with recommendations for establishing and maintaining successful cross-campus relationships.

The OCLC Research report "Library Collaboration as a Strategic Choice: Evaluating Options for Acquiring Capacity" explores library collaboration as a key strategy for academic libraries in acquiring needed capacity, but also contextualizes it as one sourcing approach among a range of options available to libraries. The decision for academic libraries to collaborate can yield distinct benefits, but not without an often-significant investment of effort, attention, and resources. Library collaboration needs to be weighed against the pros and cons of alternative ways of acquiring capacity. In short, collaboration is a decision that needs to be approached strategically. This report provides insight and tools to support academic libraries in making intentional decisions about cross-institutional collaboration opportunities to acquire capacity, including: (1) A menu of common sourcing strategies available to libraries; (2) Key considerations and trade-offs associated with these strategies; and (3) A summary of foundational economic concepts that help deepen understanding of the collaboration option. The stakes of choosing library collaboration to acquire capacity--whether to support research data management (RDM), digital curation and preservation, print management, or any other area of library interest--have been heightened by a host of factors, like advances in new technologies, changing user expectations, evolving research practices, economic pressures, and increased prioritization of diversity, equity, and inclusion outcomes have led many institutions to explore collaboration as a means of addressing these environmental shifts. This report offers insights and resources that can help academic libraries in thinking about whether to choose the collaboration option and in selecting the most effective forms of collaboration to meet strategic goals. The frameworks and tools offered in this report also can help with communicating sourcing decisions--especially those involving collaboration--to staff and other stakeholders. This in turn can improve transparency around sourcing decisions and, ultimately, strengthen buy-in from those impacted by the outcomes.

"The Realities of Research Data Management" is a four-part series that explores how research universities are addressing the challenge of managing research data throughout the research lifecycle. The series examines the context, influences, and choices higher education institutions face in building or acquiring research data management (RDM) capacity--in other words, the infrastructure, services, and other resources needed to support emerging data management practices. Findings are based on case studies of four institutions: University of Edinburgh (UK), the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (US), Monash University (Australia), and Wageningen University & Research (the Netherlands). This final report of the series examines the "sourcing and scaling" choices made by the four research universities regarding their acquisition of RDM capacity. The choices that individual institutions make with respect to sourcing and scaling likely depend on a host of factors, including local staffing and infrastructure, availability of cooperatively sourced or nationally provisioned services, and willingness to pay for commercially sourced solutions. The report concludes with some general insights about sourcing and scaling RDM services that emerge from the case studies. While each of the four case studies partners pursued a different strategy, there are trends that span the institutions, including: curation services are the most likely to be externalized education and expertise services are largely local in scale. Sourcing and scaling RDM changes to fit institutional needs. [For Part One, see ED589133. For Part Two, see ED589134. For Part Three, see ED589137. For the Supplemental, see ED589139.]

"The Realities of Research Data Management" is a four-part series that explores how research universities are addressing the challenge of managing research data throughout the research lifecycle. The series examines the context, influences, and choices higher education institutions face in building or acquiring research data management (RDM) capacity--in other words, the infrastructure, services, and other resources needed to support emerging data management practices. Findings are based on case studies of four institutions: University of Edinburgh (UK), the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (US), Monash University (Australia), and Wageningen University & Research (the Netherlands). In this third report in the series, the authors explore the incentives that inspired the acquisition of RDM capacity on the part of the four research universities described in the case studies and describe both the general patterns and context-dependent circumstances that shaped these incentives. Based on the case studies, as well as the broader RDM landscape, the authors organized these incentives into four broad categories: compliance, evolving scholarly norms, institutional strategy, and researcher demand. Key takeaways include: (1) University investment in research data management infrastructure, services, or personnel is motivated by locally relevant incentives; (2) Case study partners acted to establish RDM services in anticipation of, rather than in direct response to, researcher demand and explicit policy mandates; (3) Researcher demand and compliance with policy mandates were important factors in re-shaping and sustaining the RDM service bundle over time, but were not the key drivers for establishing RDM services in the case study institutions; (4) While the constellation of relevant incentives differs from one context to another, the acquisition or development of local RDM capacity is invariably motivated by an interest in protecting or enhancing institutional reputation and success; and (5) Consequently, the long-term sustainability of university RDM services is contingent upon alignment with institutional needs, as much as individual researcher needs. [For Part One, see ED589133. For Part Two, see ED589134. For Part Four, see ED589138. For the Supplemental, see ED589139.]

The service profiles presented here were reviewed and confirmed by staff at Edinburgh University, Monash University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Wageningen University & Research. The profiles are descriptive inventories, with brief observations about the scope, organization and staffing of RDM [research data management] services in these universities, prefaced with some remarks about the national context in which university RDM offer is embedded. The compilation of profiles is published by OCLC Research as supplementary, supporting material for The Realities of Research Data Management report series. [For Part One, see ED589133. For Part Two, see ED589134. For Part Three, see ED589137. For Part Four, see ED589138.]

"The Realities of Research Data Management" is a series of four reports looking at the context, influences and choices research universities face in building or acquiring research data management (RDM) capacity. The findings are derived from detailed case studies of four research universities, hailing from four distinct national contexts: the University of Edinburgh (UK), the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (US), Monash University (Australia), and Wageningen University & Research (the Netherlands). This report looks at the RDM service bundles of the four universities to better understand how the local RDM service bundle is shaped by the complex interplay of internal and external factors, institutional requirements, and local choices. In reviewing the experiences of the four case study institutions, a common theme emerged: RDM is not a monolithic set of services duplicated across universities; it is a customized solution shaped by a range of internal and external factors operating on local decision-making. An important corollary to this finding is that scoping an RDM service bundle sufficient to meet institutional needs does not necessarily mean implementing the full range of services within the RDM service space. This report explores these findings in the context of the case study partners, examining how each university scoped their local RDM service bundle in light of each institution's broader institutional and external environments. In each case, the choices made--and the resulting RDM service bundle--reflect the particular circumstances of the university in question. While each university is unique, other institutions may see something of themselves in one or more of the universities examined, and the case studies may serve as models or patterns to inform local RDM planning in other contexts. [For Part One, see ED589133. For Part Three, see ED589137. For Part Four, see ED589138. For the Supplemental, see ED589139.]

Research data management (RDM) has emerged as an area of keen interest in higher education, leading to considerable investment in services, resources and infrastructure to support researchers' data management needs. This is the first in a series of reports by OCLC Research which examines the context, influences and choices higher education institutions face in building or acquiring RDM capacity--in other words, the infrastructure, services and other resources needed to support emerging data management practices. Our findings are derived from detailed case studies of four research universities, hailing from four distinct national contexts: the University of Edinburgh (UK), the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (US), Monash University (Australia) and Wageningen University & Research (the Netherlands). In this introductory report, we provide some brief background on the emergence of RDM as a focus for research support services within higher education; present a simple framework for navigating the contours of the RDM service space; describe the methodology we employed for assembling our findings and discuss the key elements of RDM capacity acquisition these findings address; and offer a preview of the next report in the series. [For Part Two, see ED589134. For Part Three, see ED589137. For Part Four, see ED589138. For the Supplemental, see ED589139.]

The long-term future of the scholarly record in its fullest expression cannot be effectively secured with stewardship strategies designed for print materials. The features of the evolving scholarly record suggest that traditional stewardship strategies, built on an "invisible hand" approach that relies on the uncoordinated, institution-scale efforts of individual academic libraries acting autonomously to maintain local collections, is no longer suitable for collecting, organizing, making available, and preserving the outputs of scholarly inquiry. As the scholarly record continues to evolve, conscious coordination will become an important organizing principle for stewardship models. Conscious coordination calls for stewardship strategies that incorporate a broader awareness of the system-wide stewardship context; declarations of explicit commitments around portions of the local collection; formal divisions of labor within cooperative arrangements; and robust networks for reciprocal access. Stewardship strategies based on conscious coordination involve an acceleration of an already perceptible transition away from relatively autonomous local collections to ones built on networks of cooperation across many organizations, within and outside the traditional cultural heritage community. Additional context can be found in our earlier report, "The Evolving Scholarly Record" (ED564827). This work is part of our Understanding the System-wide Library theme, in which we explore the characteristics and organization of collections, services, and infrastructure at scale. The goal of this work is to improve our understanding of the factors that guide institutions in their sourcing and scaling choices as they seek maximum impact and efficient provision of library collections and services.

Despite its small size and relatively brief national history, New Zealand boasts a distinguished presence in the published record. Authors such as Margaret Mahy and Katherine Mansfield; the renowned soprano Kiri Te Kanawa; and contemporary film icons such as the actor Russell Crowe and producer Peter Jackson are just a few of the well-known names associated with New Zealand's creative tradition, along with internationally acclaimed works such as the Oscar-nominated film Whale Rider and the Booker Prize-winning novel The Bone People. New Zealand's presence in the published record includes many other individuals and works--some widely known, others less so--adding up to a significant contribution to the global corpus of published materials. Indeed, just as New Zealand's iconic kiwi birds lay the largest egg in proportion to their size of any bird species in the world, the New Zealand contribution to the published record too seems out-sized in comparison to the nation's small geography and population. This report characterizes the size and scope of the New Zealand presence in the published record, highlights some of its salient characteristics, and describes its diffusion around the world.

This article takes a broad view of the evolution of collecting behaviors in a network environment and suggests some future directions based on various simple models. The authors look at the changing dynamics of print collections, at the greater engagement with research and learning behaviors, and at trends in scholarly communication. The goal is to provide some context within which libraries can discuss changing patterns of investment across collection categories. [This report was published in "portal: Libraries and the Academy" v14 n3 p393-423 Jul 2014 (EJ1038113).]

The ways and means of scholarly inquiry are experiencing fundamental change, with consequences for scholarly communication and ultimately, the scholarly record. The boundaries of the scholarly record are both expanding and blurring, driven by changes in research practices, as well as changing perceptions of the long-term value of certain forms of scholarly materials. Understanding the nature, scope, and evolutionary trends of the scholarly record is an important concern in many quarters--for libraries, for publishers, for funders, and of course for scholars themselves. Many issues are intrinsic to the scholarly record, such as preservation, citation, replicability, provenance, and data curation. The conceptualization of the scholarly record and its stakeholder ecosystem provided in the report can serve as a common point of reference in discussions within and across domains, and help cultivate the shared understanding and collaborative relationships needed to identify, collect, and make accessible the wide range of materials the scholarly record is evolving to include. This work is an output of our Changes in Scholarly Communication activity, the goal of which is to help libraries find new ways to support their institutions' research mission, contribute to scholarly communications, and align institutional collecting strategies with changes in the broader scholarly information landscape.

The Preservation Health Check (PHC) project, undertaken as a joint effort by Open Planets Foundation (OPF) and OCLC Research, aims to evaluate the usefulness of the preservation metadata created and maintained by operational repositories for assessing basic preservation properties. The PHC project seeks to develop an implementable logic to support preservation health checks of this kind, and to test this logic against the store of preservation metadata maintained by an operational preservation repository. Preservation metadata is often viewed as "contingency information" that is stored and maintained in the event of future need. The project goal was to explore the opportunities for using preservation metadata to support threat assessment exercises. The scope of the analysis is confined to establishing a general approach for using preservation metadata to support threat assessment, and to evaluating the utility of PREMIS preservation metadata as an evidence base for such assessments. The remainder of this paper provides background on the problem addressed by the PHC project, the approach for operationalizing the concept of a preservation health check, some preliminary findings, and next steps.

The goal of this report is to provide an empirically-based assessment, based on WorldCat bibliographic and holdings data, of the size, scope, and salient features of these collections, with special attention to identifying and characterizing segments consisting of relatively scarce and relatively widely-held materials. The analysis also employs a subject-based approach to identifying distinctive collecting strengths at both the local and consortial level, and examines network demand for the consortial print resource using WorldCat Resource Sharing inter-lending data. Insights and findings drawn from the analysis are discussed, which help map the territory of cooperative print strategies organized as a regionally-scaled collaboration. In particular, the findings highlight how scale shapes the scope and depth of the collective print resource; the degrees of redundancy and distinctiveness attached to that collective resource at both local and consortial level; and the scope of cooperation needed to achieve reasonable thresholds of coverage and access. The report also addresses how "right-scaling" stewardship of the collective print investment lies at the center of any shared print strategy, in the sense of determining which materials are best managed at the local level, which are best moved into some form of shared stewardship infrastructure, and the appropriate scale at which collective management should take place.

Big data sets and powerful computing capacity have transformed scholarly inquiry across many disciplines. While the impact of data-intensive research methodologies is perhaps most distinct in the natural and social sciences, the humanities have also benefited from these new analytical tools. While full-text data is necessary to study topics such as lexicographical patterns or the distinctive features of certain literary genres, other types of analysis can be performed using only bibliographic descriptions of a corpus of works--i.e., metadata that includes the identity of the author, publication information, subject classifications, and so on. This report uses Scotland as a case study to illustrate the concept of a national presence in the published record. The concept of a national presence is defined and operationalized in WorldCat data through a methodology that emphasizes machine processing with minimal manual intervention. The Scottish national presence in the published record is extracted from the global library resource represented in WorldCat, and characterized along a variety of dimensions. In addition, library holdings data is used to track the international diffusion and impact of the Scottish national presence. Analysis of Scotland's impact on the published record illustrates how massive aggregations of bibliographic data can be used to conduct research on cultural patterns and trends. National libraries, as well as other memory institutions, would benefit from a view of national contributions to scholarship and culture reflected in the published record, given their mission to collect, make available, and preserve their country's cultural and intellectual heritage. In addition, scholars may find the corpus of materials comprising a national presence to be a fruitful area for research.