The WRLC has made significant progress in our ongoing initiative to strengthen our security posture to protect WRLC services and business operations. In the last 12 months we have implemented the following key cybersecurity measures.

• We have completed implementation of multi-factor authentication (MFA), requiring two or more means of identification and access control for all remote network access, internal and remote administrative access to network devices, directory services and servers/endpoints, and all access to our cloud based email service.
• We have signed up for vulnerability and web application scanning by the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). We receive weekly reports from CISA and have remediated all Critical and High vulnerabilities. We continue to work through the Medium vulnerabilities and monitor the effectiveness of our mitigations.
• We are now copying server backups for all production services to cloud storage, implementing the 3-2-1 backup rule (three copies, two different media types, at least one off-site). We are now in the process of migrating the cloud backup repositories to "immutable" buckets, making it impossible for those copies to be remotely hacked or corrupted.

- Don Gourley

Director of Information Technology, WRLC

Journals transferred to the WRLC Shared Collections Facility are subject to the shared copy policy adopted by the WRLC Library Directors Council in 2008 to limit duplication of bound journal volumes housed in the SCF. The WRLC Shared Copy Policy triggers a retention commitment when a duplicate copy of a journal volume is sent to the SCF. This policy has resulted in a collection of nearly 10,000 journal titles that are retained on behalf of the WRLC libraries and for our shared print partners in Scholars Trust and the Rosemont Shared Print Alliance. 



In addition to the 10,000 titles we have retained to date, there is a similar number of journal titles for which we have never received a second copy at the SCF. Using a shared print overlap tool recently developed by the California Digital Library, Center for Research Libraries, and HathiTrust (CCH), we are now able to tell which of these journal titles have retention commitments by shared print programs in the United States and Canada. The results show that nearly 4,500 journal titles with 60,000 volumes shelved in the SCF are retained by three or fewer shared print programs. 



The WRLC Coordinated Collections Committee (CCC) decided that those journal titles owned by the WRLC partners with fewer than three retention commitments in the CCH tool will be retained and added to our shared print commitments. This adds 700 new titles that are not currently retained by any other library in the Rosemont Alliance and 4,500 additional titles over all. The WRLC has now marked those items in Alma.



- Aaron Krebeck

Director of Library and User Services, WRLC

The WRLC task force conducting an analysis of our combined collections has identified 570,000 monographic titles published after 2004. Of these titles, nearly 360,000 are owned by only a single WRLC library. Lists of these 360,000 monographs have been shared with the owning library to allow them to identify any books that they do not believe have long-term research value (e.g., computer instruction manuals, travel books). The WRLC is currently adding retention commitments in the bibliographic records for these titles. The next step will be to assign retention commitments equitably for the 210,000 remaining titles held by multiple institutions. This project will ensure that the WRLC libraries have access to these materials over the long term while eliminating unnecessary duplication and reducing the need for shelf space. 



- Aaron Krebeck

Director of Library and User Services, WRLC

Systematic deaccessioning of materials from a Harvard model high-density facility like the WRLC Shared Collections Facility is an often-discussed, but rarely attempted process. The commonly held assumption has long been that removing material and then filling the created gaps would be too labor intensive to be of cost-effective. Aaron Krebeck began a discussion with the Research Collections and Preservation Consortium (ReCAP) two years ago to brainstorm some potential workflows. Aaron, Tammy Hennig, and Joel Shields then applied some of these ideas to the WRLC’s SCF and were able to implement them for a project with George Mason University. As of today, 5,403 items have been deaccessioned and will be sent back to Mason’s Arlington Campus Library in May. This project demonstrated that we are able to cost-effectively remove materials from the SCF and refill the empty space with new items. This exciting project with a potentially transformative outcome will be presented at the WRLC Annual Meeting.



- Aaron Krebeck

Director of Library and User Services, WRLC

On April 4, 2022, the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL) sponsored “Toward a More Perfect Union”, a conversation with:

• Dr. Carla Hayden, Librarian of Congress
• David Ferriero, Archivist Of The United States, National Archives and Records Administration 
• Tom Medema, Associate Director for Interpretation, Education, & Volunteers, National Park Service

These leaders from three of our nation’s cultural heritage organizations discuss activities their organizations are undertaking and planning that reflect a more inclusive view of our nation's heritage. This is an exceptional opportunity to hear about great work being done by these agencies.

• The Annual Meeting will kick off on Wednesday, May 18th with a virtual lunch from 12:00 Noon to 12:45 PM.
• Join us for a 90 minute “Renewal Colloquium" that will explore morale and ambiguity in libraries during COVID-19, led by Kaetrena Davis Kendrick beginning at 1:00 PM on Wednesday, May 18th.
• Breakout sessions, highlighting over a dozen presentations by your colleagues from throughout the Consortium, will take place Tuesday – Thursday, May 24-26th, 2022

Check out the full agenda, learn about the Renewal Colloquium that will be presented by Kaetrena Davis Kendrick and pick your preferred Breakout/Concurrent Sessions.