2019 Charleston Library Conference

As academic libraries invest time and resources in coordinating the management of local collections, it is crucial that we develop tools to effectively and efficiently compare those collections and communicate about retention decisions. Gold Rush is one example of a tool that can help libraries think strategically about their local collections in the context of a broader regional or national collection. Originally developed by the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries to help members of the Alliance Shared Print Trust compare monograph holdings, Gold Rush is now being used by multiple consortia for a range of projects. In this presentation, we will share examples of the creative ways that Gold Rush is being used to help libraries manage their collections in a networked setting. Librarians from the Colorado Alliance will describe the development of the tool and describe how it is being used there. Ivy Plus will discuss a dataset feasibility study in which libraries analyzed unique and overlapping holdings between collections for a five-year data sample.