The State of Preservation Programs in American College and Research Libraries: Building a Common Understanding and Action Agenda. Optimizing Collections and Services for Scholarly Use.

With funding from the Institute for Museum and Library Services, the Council on Library and Information Resources, ARL (Association of Research Libraries), the University Libraries Group, and the Regional Alliance for Preservation conducted a joint study in 2001 to examine the state of preservation programs in American academic libraries. The study was conducted in two phases and relied on qualitative as well as quantitative data gathering. In Phase I, statistical information and other quantitative data relevant to preservation activity were collected in a survey of 116 libraries from the University Libraries Group, major non-ARL land grant institutions, and leading liberal arts colleges in what is informally known as the Oberlin Group. These data were compared with information that had been published in ARL Preservation Statistics for 2000-2001. Phase II focused on obtaining qualitative data to complement the statistical data. Qualitative data were gathered by means of 20 site visits to institutions that represented the three surveyed groups plus the ARL. Appendixes include the survey form with data and instructions, site visit interview questions and a list of institutions responding to statistical survey, Phase I. (Author)