Universities to share national journals storage

A collaborative initiative by New Zealand’s eight university libraries is set to free up space and save money by jointly storing a single copy of low-use print journals, while ensuring the preservation of, and access to, these important resources.

The journals will be stored with Crown Records Management.

One copy of each journal will be preserved, shared by the university libraries and be readily available. Students and staff will be able to access the stored collection through the libraries.

Transfer of the journals from the libraries will begin in mid-2012. With premises in each university city, Crown will be storing more than 250,000 journal volumes nationwide.

The shared storage project is an initiative of the Council of New Zealand University Librarians (CONZUL) and received initial funding from the Tertiary Education Commission. The concept has been under consideration for several years and using a commercial storage provider was found to be the most efficient and cost-effective solution.

 “We are delighted to have reached this point,” says Ross Hallett, Chair of CONZUL and University Librarian at The University of Waikato. “Shared storage will enable the libraries to continue to grow their collections while making best use of their space.”

“The journals are largely available in electronic format as well, but this solution will preserve a shared print collection and follows the lead taken by other international research library groups.”