LibGuides: Middle East Cooperative Collecting Agreement: Pilot Documentation FY22-23, FY23-24

Statement of Understanding

Middle East Cooperative Collecting Agreement--Pilot

The Middle East Cooperative Collecting Agreement (MECCA) functions to reduce duplication of and to facilitate access to diverse resources on the Middle East across participating institutions. In its pilot stage, MECCA will focus on cooperative serials development. It draws on the inspiring accomplishments of the South Asia Cooperative Collection Development program (SACOOP) to build a collaboration suitable to the demands and conditions of Middle Eastern Studies and Middle East librarianship. Working with data provided by our institutions, each participant will commit to specific collecting areas to the benefit of the entire group. In order to maintain and support this cooperative benefit indefinitely, we uphold certain access and preservation principles, to the extent practicable:

Each library is expected to commit to acquire current library materials in specific subjects and areas or of specific titles, and to maintain the level of purchasing power needed to satisfy the depth and extent of collecting for the areas selected.
Each library is expected to process incoming materials and to make their cataloging available on OCLC in a timely manner.
Each library is expected to make acquisitions available for interlibrary loan.
Each library is expected to retain and preserve materials collected under the auspices of the initiative to the extent practicable.
Each institution will notify the other parties if it wishes any change in their areas of collecting as defined by this agreement.
This agreement will not preclude further purchase or duplication of materials judged to be needed by any of our collections.

We recognize that individual institutional circumstances will change over time and so we are committed to regular review and revision. Annual reviews will occur each summer. The living documentation of the collecting changes made as a result of this agreement will be updated during the annual review and is available for all participating institutions to consult.

2023-2024 PARTICIPATING INSTITUTIONS

The University of Pennsylvania

The University of Texas at Austin

2022-2023 PARTICIPATING INSTITUTIONS

The University of Pennsylvania

The University of Texas at Austin

Pilot Adjustments to our Collections

In the first two years of the pilot, which focused on expanding serials availability between the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Texas at Austin, we dropped titles that were widely held throughout North America and accessible through existing agreements (like InterLibrary Loan). We also added titles in our identified areas of interest, which included: Coptic studies, comics, art, architecture, and music. We agreed to focus on these fields for publications from Egypt.