As mass digitization efforts advance, questions about the role of print in this new environment are becoming more urgent. We are working on two related projects in this area to study the history and lessons learned from signal print repository efforts.

One study will document the partnership between JSTOR and the University of California system to create a print collection of the journals that have been digitized by JSTOR. Because of the cooperation across the campuses of the UC system and the relationship built with an external resource provider (JSTOR), this study is expected to generate lessons that may be of interest to others considering the role of print in an increasingly electronic environment.

A second study will take a more historic perspective, examining several cooperative print repositories that were developed in the 1940s and 1950s. Ambitious initiatives to collaborate across institutions were developed during this period, but they are poorly remembered today. There are many valuable lessons that can be learned from these repository efforts that have significant resonance with community repository efforts today.

We hope to publish each of these two studies during the course of 2007.