Collaborative Collecting Pilots for Print Books from Mexico and Brazil

In spring 2017 five research libraries planned out two pilot initiatives to test the feasibility of vendor-supported cooperative collection development for print publications supplied on approval plans from Mexico and Brazil. Approval title duplication was reduced by 10–27% for Mexico and for Brazil from the overall 21.5% to less than 1% with no titles sent to all three libraries. The results illuminated several issues to be considered: the size and intensity of collecting by partner libraries, the size of publishing markets, the methods used to analyze data, their scalability for larger consortial groups, and their applicability to other international collections.