CYCLOPS: Collaborative Collections Platform

Make the invisible visible.

CYCLOPS is a community-led, vendor-neutral, open source platform intended to help libraries make informed and coordinated collection-lifecycle decisions across institutions — before materials are bought, licensed, preserved, or deaccessioned.

Built under the guidance of the IMLS funded, Collaborative Collections Lifecycle Project (CCLP), it turns siloed collection data points into shared, interoperable, and standard-based signals.

CYCLOPS is under active development by Index Data with support and contributions from community partners. Please if you would like to support or participate in the effort. Reach out for more information!

Why CYCLOPS

Libraries want to collaborate, but most systems keep them working in isolation. Budgets are tight, metadata is fragmented, and intent is hidden until it’s too late to align. CYCLOPS bridges this gap by connecting local systems and policies through a shared layer of visibility and coordination — without forcing anyone into a new monolithic platform. It’s collaboration by design, not by accident.

What does CYCLOPS do for…

Libraries

CYCLOPS enables group-aware collecting and curating by letting institutions:

See the bigger picture. Shared lists reveal duplication, collecting gaps and opportunities across libraries, consortia, and vendors.
Coordinate community and policy-driven efforts. Align acquisitions, licensing, and preservation based on shared goals — not guesswork.
Signal collecting priorities subject strengths, and current inter-library collaborations.
Share and register selection and preservation commitments in structured form.
Integrate, don’t replace. Designed to complement existing systems and relationships with better situational awareness, not replace your library management system or preferred vendors.

Library Organizations

Resource sharing proved that libraries could work together at scale. CYCLOPS takes the next step by giving them the power to shape collections together.

Where resource sharing connects supply and demand, CYCLOPS connects intent and action.

By linking values, acquisition data, policies, and collecting priorities across institutions, CYCLOPS helps consortia and their members:

Plan collaboratively. See what partners plan to acquire or preserve before decisions are finalized.
Act strategically. Coordinate coverage, reduce duplication, and strengthen collective depth in support of the public good.
Leverage shared intelligence. Combine circulation and request data from resource sharing with intent data from CYCLOPS to inform future investments.
Demonstrate value. Show how collaborative collecting and sharing form a continuous cycle of access and stewardship.

Publishers and Providers

Translate organizational vision into added value. Directly interact with library decision makers, connecting collection lifecycle deciders across systems with common purpose.
See the bigger picture. Dashboards reveal gaps and opportunities across customers and stakeholders.
Business continuity and expansion. Allows publishers and providers to keep and amplify current business arrangements and better predict and model return on investment.
Integrate seamlessly. Works alongside existing platforms, taking advantage of open standards and APIs to more effectively and efficiently offer return on investment.

How It Works

Intent Layer: Libraries publish “intent signals” — planned acquisitions, collecting themes, or risk domains.
Visibility Layer: CYCLOPS aggregates and visualizes data from multiple partners.
Coordination Layer: Partners act — dividing responsibility, avoiding duplication, and ensuring coverage.

This model turns passive metadata into an active coordination fabric for libraries at every scale.

Built for Collaboration

CYCLOPS is community-owned infrastructure, developed by and for libraries under the Collaborative Collections Lifecycle Platform (CCLP).

It reflects shared values of openness, interoperability, and practical stewardship — designed to make collaboration scalable and sustainable across regions, systems, and missions.

Example in Action: Rescue Collecting

When war or censorship threatens cultural memory, CYCLOPS can mobilize networks of libraries to respond.

By surfacing what each partner intends to collect or preserve, it helps coordinate rapid, distributed acquisition and preservation of at-risk materials — from Ukrainian serials to banned books.

Rescue Collecting demonstrates the ethical and operational power of network-enabled stewardship.

Collaborative Collections Platform

CYCLOPS