Collection Management Services – Oak Street Library (CMS-OSL) is responsible for a variety of services within the University Library, including the Gift program; the Last Copy program; departmental transfers to the Oak Street Library; the ingest, retrieval, and management of materials at the Oak Street Library; ILL Scanning at Oak Street; and the management of the Oak Street Library circulation desk.

In addition, a growing part of the unit responsibilities is to provide services relating to large-scale collection management, whether they be transfers, retrospective cataloging projects, physical shifts of collections, or some combination of all three. Almost all such projects have multiple benefits in terms of access for patrons and inventory control, and in some instances quite unique hidden collections have been discovered and made available.

Our staff are also central to the Library’s participation in two major endeavors with the Big Ten Academic Alliance:

  • The Google Book Search Project is a partnership between the BTAA and Google to digitize as many as 10 million volumes across all Big Ten Academic Alliance library systems.
  • The Shared Print Repository is a shared collection of print journal backfile volumes for journals that are now available electronically. This allows member institutions to withdraw duplicates of these materials to create space for new collections.

High Density Storage

High Density Storage at the Oak Street Library provides remote storage for less-used Library materials, as well as materials that require ideal preservation conditions. More than four million volumes are held at Oak Street High Density Storage.

Patrons can place requests for items located in Oak Street High Density Storage via the Library’s online catalog, and designate either a specific pick-up location (including Oak Street Library) or ask to have the material delivered through campus mail. Turnaround time for receiving material from Oak Street High Density Storage is comparable to other on-campus libraries.

There are a few special collections at Oak Street that can only be used at the appropriate departmental library. Depending on how your special location is set up in Alma, items may not route to Oak Street when patrons return them. If that happens, please insert one of our Oak Street Returns Streamers linked below and put it in shipping as usual.

Collection Management Projects

Collection Management Services (CMS) supports large-scale collection management through a range of project work related to New Service Model (NSM) initiatives and other Library priorities, including transfers, withdrawing, retrospective cataloging, physical shifts of collections, or some combination.

Gifts to the Library

The University of Illinois Library accepts gifts-in-kind to help provide additional materials that might not otherwise be available to users. Gifts to the Library benefit students and researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and thousands of researchers and citizens throughout Illinois, the nation and the world. Responsible stewardship of gifts of material to the Library collection is as important to the general vitality of our Library as are the purchases we make.

Collection Management Services – Oak Street Library receives and processes most gifts of materials to the Library.