UKRR University of St Andrews

St Andrews Library
The University of St Andrews has been fortunate to be a member of UKRR since its inception and has found the process to be a fantastic collaborative initiative, vital in the rationalisation of the Library’s print journal holdings.
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Being a member of UKRR has allowed us to free up physical space across the Library estate

Over the last 10 years, the UK Research Reserve (UKRR) has enabled The University of St Andrews Library to rationalise its collections at critical stages of planning and helped to deliver on key Estate projects. Fundamentally, through UKRR the Library has been able to reduce the need for temporary storage measures.

Key Estate projects have included the closure of the Central Academic Store in Edinburgh. Helen Faulds from the University of St Andrews library stated – 'We only needed to return a small number of UKRR retained titles, and were fortunately able to dispose of the rest, as we no longer had space to accommodate these collections'.

More recently, UKRR has helped with ongoing activities in the Main Library, for example, the creation of an additional 70 study seats in summer 2018.

Other key benefits from being a UKRR member have been a greater awareness of collections, including material subsequently identified for Special Collections and improved bibliographic data of print journal holdings. There is also an increased opportunity to network with other research libraries on collection management activities. As St Andrews University Library still has journal collections and other low use materials to assess, the partnership with UKRR and the British Library will continue.

Key points

  • St Andrews University has been a member of UKRR since its inception
  • UKRR has improved awareness of collections, including Special Collections
  • Increased networking opportunities and collaborative working with other research libraries