March 2021

Total Cost of Stewardship: Responsible Collection Building in Archives and Special Collections

By OCLC Research Library Partnership’s Collection Building and Operational Impacts Working Group

Developed by the OCLC Research Library Partnership’s (RLP) Collection Building and Operational Impacts Working Group, Total Cost of Stewardship is a framework that proposes a holistic approach to understanding the resources needed to responsibly acquire and steward archives and special collections. The Total Cost of Stewardship Framework responds to the ongoing challenge of descriptive backlogs in archives and special collections by connecting collection development decisions with stewardship responsibilities. 

This OCLC Research report is a collection of resources designed to support archives and special collections in making informed, shared collection building decisions; bring together collection management and collection development considerations; and support communication between colleagues in curatorial, administrative, and technical services roles. 

The collection of materials published includes:

  1. An OCLC Research report: Total Cost of Stewardship: Responsible Collection Building in Archives and Special Collections
  2. The Total Cost of Stewardship Tool Suite, comprising of a set of Communication Tools, Cost Estimation Tools, and a Manual to guide end users in implementing the Tool Suite.
  3. An annotated bibliography of related resources

Presentations

Total cost of stewardship – Tools and practices to support resource-sensitive collecting from the OCLC RLP Collection Building & Operational Impacts Working Group

Total cost of stewardship – Tools and practices to support resource-sensitive collecting from the OCLC RLP Collection Building & Operational Impacts Working Group

By Chela Scott Weber, Carrie Hintz

This webinar will introduce OCLC’s new publication Total Cost of Stewardship: Responsible Collection Building in Archives and Special Collections and offer insights on building a resource-sensitive collecting program from Emory’s Rose Library.

Topics: Works in Progress, Archives and Special Collections

Video Tutorials

Cost Estimator Tools:
Operational Impact Estimator
Quick Cost Estimator

Communication Tools:
Communication Tools


Image Gallery

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