The River, the Pond, and the Future of the Research Collection Rick Anderson Acting Dean.

The River, the Pond, and the Future of the Research Collection

Rick Anderson

Acting Dean

J. Willard Marriott Library

The Recent Past: a Quick Review

1990s: The Gutenberg Terror comes to an end Stage 1: Journals Stage 2: Books – piecemeal (NetLibrary, etc.) Stage 3: Books – wholesale (Google, Hathi Trust)

2000s: Gutenberg is tamed and domesticated Print on demand


The Recent Past: a Quick Review

Library hegemony comes to an end Massive drop in unit price of information Radical increase in ease of finding Ready reference becomes a social exercise Full-text searching obviates the proxy record Access (for many) becomes virtually ubiquitous Meanwhile, librarians working busily to undermine

their own role as brokers (OA)


The Current Reality

The collection is a bad guess at patron needs Massive budget cuts make collecting hard to defend

Reference service is bypassed and unscalable

The OPAC is completely eclipsed as a discovery tool (even with WorldCat)


The Current Reality

The collection is a bad guess at patron needs Massive budget cuts make collecting hard to defend

Reference service is bypassed and unscalable

The OPAC is completely eclipsed as a discovery tool (even with WorldCat)

Circulation is down dramatically Gate counts are up, but the stacks are deserted


Circ Trends at the University of Utah


New Models

Online just-in-time (both e and p) Online breakdown of collection walls Higher prices/less budget less speculation Higher prices/less budget less archival purchasing Less circulation strong e-only momentum Online + better data + higher prices + less budget the end

of the Big Deal and of the Medium Deal (title-level journal subscriptions) in favor of the Tiny Deal

Bottom line: Less collecting (ponds), more real-time brokerage (access to the river)


What We Are Doing at UU

Formalised stance: e-first/patron-first PDA pilot programs: MyiLibrary, ebrary, NetLibrary, EBL Espresso Book Machine No more bibliographers/subject specialists Instead, College & Interdisciplinary Teams

SHEM (Science, Health, Engineering, Mines) SEBS (Social Sciences, Education, Business, Social Work) FAAPH (Fine Arts, Architecture/Planning, Humanities) DOCMAPS (Documents, Maps) MEDIA (Multimedia) INTERINTER (International/Interdisciplinary)


Predictions

The future of the library will not look much like a library Small, focused local collections of books Access to enormous public collections (Hathi, Google) Few subscriptions, if any No packages A need for consolidated brokerage service at article level, not

title level

Journals are going the way of the record album We’re headed back to a “song” economy

Journal publishers are going the way of the record label You can’t make as much on a 99-cent song as you can on a $15

album


Stumbling Blocks


Discuss!

Contact:

Rick Anderson

[email protected]

The River, the Pond, and the Future of the Research Collection Rick Anderson Acting Dean.

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Transcript of The River, the Pond, and the Future of the Research Collection Rick Anderson Acting Dean.