Collective collection

[1] Similar efforts have addressed acquisition and/or retention of microform,[2] federal government documents,[3] and digital collections.

[5] Discussions surrounding shared print programs in their current form have come to the forefront as a popular solution to shrinking collection budgets, rising costs of resources, and competing space needs.

[7] Each library participating in a shared print program agrees to retain certain titles for a stated period of time, usually at least ten years.

[1] This practice enables libraries to create cost savings and to repurpose shelf space, whether to accommodate other print materials or to create a greater number and variety of spaces for users, especially students, to study, collaborate, teach, consult, and pursue other research and learning activities.

The consortium can also establish criteria for shelving environments (to ensure long-term preservation), as well as outline the methods for providing access to titles to other participating libraries.

While there is no equivalent tool for monographs, other tools serve the shared print monograph community, such as Gold Rush Library Content Comparison System[14] from the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries, OCLC's GreenGlass, and HathiTrust Shared Print Registry.

[19] Efforts focus more on consortia building than on shared print, and are mostly centered in southern Africa[20][21] Libraries' efforts to collectively manage and provide access to their holdings date back to antiquity[22] and, in the United States, extend through twentieth-century projects such as the Midwest Inter-Library Corporation (now CRL)[23] and the Farmington Plan.

[25] In 2004 Bernard F. Reilly (former president of the Center for Research Libraries) envisioned "drawing together the major independent regional and national repository initiatives into a coordinated, community-wide print preservation effort.