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WRLC Retention and WRLC Permanent designation in Alma

Overview

Within our consortium's Alma system, items that are designated for WRLC shared retention or permanent retention are identified directly in the Item Record using Alma’s retention commitment fields.

These fields allow participating WRLC institutions to indicate materials that are committed to long-term retention as part of the consortium’s collection management strategy.

 

Designation Criteria

Items are designated as WRLC Retention or WRLC Permanent by WRLC Headquarters (HQ) as part of consortium-level collection analysis and retention initiatives.

Retention designations are applied only to

  1. Items NOT located in the Exclusion List for WRLC Retention Designation, and
  2. Within participating institutions.

WRLC Retention

  • Assigned to one copy of each specific edition of a monographic title.

  • Matching of unique title editions is based on the Network ID number in Alma.

WRLC Permanent

  • Assigned to monographs published prior to 2005.

  • Titles qualified if there were ten or fewer copies in the United States listed in WorldCat at the time of the original collection analysis.

  • This analysis was conducted as part of the WRLC Sustainable Collection Services (SCS) Project in 2014.

For additional background, see the WRLC Sustainable Collection Services Project 2014 Final Report.
Note: Some sections of the report regarding the number of retained copies and item tagging procedures have since been updated and replaced by current practices.

 

Shared Collections Facility Policy for WRLC Retention items

To support long-term preservation while minimizing unnecessary duplication, the WRLC repository maintains one copy of each specific edition of a print monographic title in retention-eligible locations.

  • No print monograph may be added to the repository if the same edition (i.e. if a WRLC Retention or Permanent item) is already stored in a retention-eligible location.

  • These restrictions apply only to locations designated as eligible for WRLC retention participation (see the Exclusion List for WRLC Retention Designation).

Items stored in non-retention locations are not subject to this restriction. For example, an institution may retain multiple copies of a title in a Special Collections or Rare Books location at the Shared Collections Facility (SCF) if that location is not designated as retention-eligible.

For more information, please see the Shared Collections Facilities Policies page of the WRLC Alma Wiki.

 

How Retention Is Indicated in Alma

Items that are part of the WRLC retention program are marked in the Item Record with the following values:

  • Committed to Retain: Yes

  • Retention Reason:

    • WRLC Retention

    • WRLC Permanent

The selected Retention Reason identifies the type of retention commitment for the item.

 

Where to Find This in the Item Editor

Screenshot 2026-03-06 121942.png

In the Alma Item Editor, the retention designation appears in the Retention Information section of the item record.

Staff can view the following fields:

  • Committed to Retain

  • Retention Reason

If an item has been designated as part of the WRLC retention program, Committed to Retain will be set to Yes, and the appropriate Retention Reason will be selected.

 

Retention Reason Configuration

For each participating Institution Zone (IZ), two retention reasons are configured in the Item Retention Reason Code Table, found in Configuration > Resources > Collection Retention > Item Retention Reason

These configuration entries control the retention options available in the item record.

Description Code
WRLC Retention WRLCRetentionDONOTDELETE
WRLC Permanent WRLCPermanentDONOTDELETE

Screenshot 2026-03-06 115511.png

The Description values appear in the Retention Reason dropdown within the Alma item editor.

The Code values are the underlying system identifiers and should not be modified or deleted, as they support the WRLC retention workflow.

 

Participating Institution Zones

The following Institution Zones participate in the WRLC retention project:

  • American University

  • Catholic University of America

  • Gallaudet University

  • George Washington University

  • Georgetown University
  • Howard University
  • Marymount University
  • University of the District of Columbia

Please note that neither George Mason University nor any of the specialty libraries (Law and Health Sciences) participate in the WRLC retention program.

 

Important Notes for Catalogers and Staff

  • Retention designations are assigned by WRLC HQ.
    Local staff should not manually assign or remove the WRLC Retention or WRLC Permanent designations unless directed by WRLC HQ.

  • If an item that is marked WRLC Retention or WRLC Permanent becomes lost, damaged, or missing, please open a WRLC Service Desk ticket so that HQ can review and reassign the retention commitment if necessary.

    Email: servicedesk@wrlc.org

Resources

 

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