bwLastCopies – identifying the last copy: activities in the German state of Baden-Württemberg

PurposeCooperative preservation has been an international topic for a long time. Germany’s neighbouring countries such as Austria and Switzerland have already taken measures for the cooperative preservation of printed resources. The main objective of the project bwLastCopies – which was funded by the Ministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst Baden-Württemberg in the context of the BigDIWA program – was to support cooperative preservation in Baden-Württemberg.Design/methodology/approachThe goal was realized by the automated documentation of archiving commitments and the implementation of an inventory management system for the libraries in Baden-Württemberg to help examining the potential rareness of collections.FindingsThe project showed that many titles in libraries in Baden-Württemberg are, at least in the context of Baden-Württemberg, rare. Cooperative holdings management between libraries is only possible with a clear communication on what actions should be taken when sorting something out.Originality/valueThe marking of potentially rare titles in a database as large as K10plus is valuable to the participating libraries. Because of the amount of libraries working with the union catalogue, the markings are largely reliable and give an overview on how many and which titles are potentially rare.