Universities Research libraries (Collections)Boundaries

Lorcan DempseyU Washington Libraries19 March 2010With thanks to Brian Lavoie and Constance Malpas

Worldwide demand for cars will never exceed one million,primarily because of a limitation in the number of available chauffeurs.

Daimler

A diversion: UW book

collections

University of Washington in WorldCat

Statistics current as of January 2010

Total number of UW holdingsin WorldCat:4,045,667

Number of UW-contributedrecords in WorldCat:412,197

Number of holdings attachedto UW-contributed records:2,088,555

Number of items held by UW& 4 or fewer other institutions:541,551

Scale

Contribution

Value of Contribution

Rareness

Diversity

378 languages(31% of titles non-English)

236 countries of publication(52% of titles non-US)

HathiTrust: 12 month growth trajectory

Equal in size to median ARL

collection (2008)

Equal in scope to University of

Washington (UW)

Data current as of February 2010

Hathi Trust: Subject Distribution

Data current as of February 2010

N=3.2 million titles ; 5.3 million volumes

Humanities content (literature, history) dominates – presages shift in scholarly practice?

11 miles of recoverable shelf space= 27% of titles held by UW

Data current as of February 2010

University of Washington ‘mirrored’ in Hathi

UW: Potential Redistribution of Print Resource

Choices?

Overview

Education & research

Collections

Research libraries

Crude

Reductive

Simplistic

The business of education

Research and learning workflows

Information products and services

Library technology

The business of education

Research and learning workflows

Information products and services

Library technology

Overview

a quick look at education

71

270

Colleges have three basic business models for attracting and keeping students. Two will continue to work in the next decade, and one almost certainly will not. Chronicle of Higher Education

1. Research/elite (Strong brand, connected to international network of science and scholarship; educate many of the political and business elite; flagship),

2. Convenience (community colleges and for-profit providers, focused on preparation for further education or for a career) Education as a service.

3. The mixed middle (broad education. Not kept up with distance and convenience agendas, high overhead, limited research funding, value of 4 year immersive experience, …).

(vocabulary adapted - LD)

Alignment with mission of parent institution … … in a network environment …… and focus on costs …… will continue to redraw the boundaries of the academic library… and force choices.

Obvious?

Libs in ‘convenience’ sector

• An infrastructure cost• ROI• Make learning more effective• Focus on ‘packaged digital’ and

integration with learning process• Organizational integration with learning

and student support• Focused on institutional goals not on

‘community of libraries’.

‘Middle’ academic• Make research and learning more productive• Selective local engagement around creation and

curation of scholarly and learning materials • with the exception of a small number of large

research libraries, retrospective print collections will be managed as a pooled resource and physically consolidated in large regional stores

• 80+% of library materials spending in the academic sector will be directed toward licensed electronic content distributed by a small number of large aggregators

• Strong downward pressure on costs will push towards library consolidation, more ‘instrumental’ resource sharing, and a move to outsourced services.

Research libs

• Resources. Libraries that support doctoral education – <20% US academic libraries but account

for .. – >50% library spending and … – >75% of expenditures on information

resources. • Digital infrastructure. • Preservation mandate: the scholarly

record. Comprehensive collections. • Support for scholarly resources. • Support for digital scholarship

research

“Emerging global model”

Many countries have initiatives which try to concentrate resources on research excellence, aiming to maintain or establish their presence in the Research/elite group. These include China, Germany, S Korea, Japan, Canada, Taiwan, France.

Some countries/regions more consciously support ‘directed diversity’, looking at the balance between research excellence, broad-based education and vocational/convenience approaches: these include Australia, Norway, and Catalonia.

(Several sources – LD)

US Academic Expenditures on Research & Development

FY2008

$0$10,000$20,000$30,000$40,000$50,000$60,000

Science & EngineeringDisciplines

Non Science &Engineering Disciplines

Mill

ions

of D

olla

rs

Predictably, institutional attention and resources are directed at activities and local infrastructure that supports high-profile research activities, especially in the natural and social sciences, where federal funding can account for up to 70% of the institutional research portfolio.

Scholarship in the humanities, by contrast, is much more dependent on institutional budget allocations and private grant funding. As a result, support for library-based research in the humanities is especially vulnerable to changes in academic priorities and the availability of endowment funds.

The importance of STM

Scholarly work that used to depend on local research collections and infrastructure is increasingly reliant on content and services that are created and managed outside of individual academic institutions.

Disciplinary resource (Arxiv, Repec, SSRN, ..)Community, tools, …

Tony Hey, Microsoft Eigenfactor project

Around and above the institution …

collection trends

Volume of publications will continue to grow. Format will become less important than channel: Education (text books, learning materials), Consumer (Amazon/Google/Apple), professional publishing (Pearson, Reed-Elsevier, Thomson Reuters), … Growth in public and research materials but concerns about how to sustain in longer term.

Research and learning materials as social objects. Social will become a major element of all publishing – content will be the basis for learning and social experiences.

Move to digital raises major issues around ‘knowledge enclosure’ through licensing which create interesting service issues for (public) libraries.

Academic Library Expenditures on Purchased and Licensed Content

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

Print books and journalsE-journals and e-books

Projected change

Data from NCES. Analysis by Constance Malpas.

Forecasts – Digital Availability ofbooks

Current*

Trade:

Acad/Prof:

Text books:

H/S:

Ten Years#Five Years*Front Back

Segment

25%

10%

20% 1%

85%

75%

90%20%

100%

100%

100% 50%

50%

30%

10%5%

Memo:*Assumes top tier publishers – 1,000 active publishers# Assumes any active publisher selling on Amazon.com

Impact of Google Book Search and GoogleEditions?

OCLC work commissioned from Michael Cairns. Based on interviews with selection of industry experts.

College:

Forecasts – Digital Revenues(books)

Current*

Trade:

Acad/Prof:

H/S:

Ten Years#Five Years*Front Back

Segment

3%

1%

5%0%

25%

10%

50%5%

60%

80%

90%30%

5%

5%

10%5%

Memo:*Assumes top tier publishers – 1,000 active publishers# Assumes any active publisher selling on Amazon.com

Text books:College:

OCLC work commissioned from Michael Cairns. Based on interviews with selection of industry experts.

For-ProfitNon-Profit

Paid Access

Free Access

Models of Provision for Scholarly Communication/Journals

Author PagesSocial Networks (e.g., Nature Network)Open Access (e.g., BioMed Central)

“trad” Publishing

Open Access (e.g., PLoS)ArXiv.orgRePEc.orgPubMed CentralNARCIS

ICPSRAmerican Economic ReviewJSTOR

Often enhanced with new forms of value

added:e.g., bundling articles with data; semantic

enrichment

Mostly experimental at this point

Small but growing segment, aided by

public policy support

Long tradition of coexistence with

commercial publishing

For-ProfitNon-Profit

Paid Access

Free Access

Models of Provision for Scholarly Communication/Journals

Author PagesSocial Networks (e.g., Nature Network)Open Access (e.g., BioMed Central)

“trad” Publishing

Open Access (e.g., PLoS)ArXiv.orgRePEc.orgPubMed CentralNARCIS

ICPSRAmerican Economic ReviewJSTOR

Often enhanced with new forms of value

added:e.g., bundling articles with data; semantic

enrichment

Mostly experimental at this point

Small but growing segment, aided by

public policy support

Long tradition of coexistence with

commercial publishing

Research institutions: significant funder?

Research institutions: major constituency?

Research institutions: 75% of academic revenue?

For-ProfitNon-Profit

Paid Access

Free Access5 years?

“In other words, throughout history, libraries have depended on destruction. And today, in an era of electronic abundance they still operate within an increasingly imaginary economy of scarcity – fragments, incunabula, manuscripts, rare books.

….Once, books were chained to the wall. Today, print is an afterthought: “Do you want a receipt with that?” Lisbet Rausing

COLLECTIONS GRID

high low

low

high

Stewardship/scarcity

Uni

quen

ess

Low-LowFreely-accessible web resourcesOpen source softwareNewsgroup archives

Low-HighBooks & JournalsNewspapersGov DocumentsCD & DVDMapsScores

High-LowResearch & Learning Materials Institutional recordsePrints/tech reportsLearning objectsCoursewareE-portfoliosResearch dataProspectusInsitutional website

High-HighSpecial CollectionsRare booksLocal/Historical NewspapersLocal History MaterialsArchives & ManuscriptsTheses & dissertations

You see the problem. What is the library, when the totality of experience approaches that which can be remembered? What is it when we no longer preserve only those fragments that time, fire, and barbarians have left us? When we are no longer able to safeguard only remnants of our discourses on thought, memory, and images, but the thoughts, memories, and images themselves – complete? What do we do when we have not only the Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, but also Vasari’s blog, wiki, twitter, texts, emails, chatroom, Facebook, radio interviews, TV appearances, and electronic notebooks? Lisbet Rausing

COLLECTIONS GRID

high low

low

high

Stewardship

Uni

quen

ess

All institutions: shift to licensedAll institutions: manage transition from print?Licensed channel providers: consumer, education, scholarly, ..

All institutions:How much investment?

Research institutions: managing institutional assetsResearch institutions: new scholarly outputsAll institutions: learning materials

library trends:boundaries,focus, scaling and sourcing

If this trend continues library allocations would fall below 0.5% by 2015. Growthin for-profit sector, concerns about infrastructure costs in the ‘middle’ and budgetissues in the research sector all support this trend.

Analysis based on NCES data: Constance Malpas

The scholarly recordLegacy printDigitized printLicenced (books + J)New scholarly outputsPrimary sources

DataArchives/SpecCollCommunications

Research infrastructureOffsite storageRepositoriesFacilitiesServices (Arxiv, …)

Management of institutional assetsRecordsReputationResources – R&L

a Coasian view of the academic library

Universities find it useful andeconomical to internalize a bundle of library-related activities

As the pattern of transaction costs change, so too will the boundaries of the library.

Researchers/learners have more options – network.

Unbundling the corporation

Harvard Business Review (1999)

Core components of a firm

CustomerRelationshipManagement

Product Innovation

Infrastructure

Back office capacities thatsupport day-to-day operations“Routinized” workflowsEconomies of scale important

Develop new products andservices and bring them tomarketSpeed/flexibility important

Attracting and building relationships with customers“Service-oriented”, customizationEconomies of scope important

Customer relationship management• Vital to maintain?• Deeper engagement with the

university mission• Local customization

• Analytics: data driven engagement– Fragmented

Innovation

• Customer relationship management• Shared services

– Organizational?

Infrastructure challenge• Print increasingly collaborative:

– Collaborative arrangements for print– Collaborative arrangements for digital

• Licensed materials:– Reduce cost of management through private providers

• Institutional research and learning materials:– Selective investments; leave to others where

appropriate– Search for collaborative solutions where possible– Relationship management

• Systems infrastructure– Consolidation of traditional management environment– Selective local investment in digital infrastructure– Collaborative and third party cloud offerings

Institution Group WebscalePeer(collaborative)

HathiTrust;DuraSpace

Orbis Cascade Repec.org

Public(state/national)

Jisc; OhioLink

Third party

Locally procured systems and services

Worldcat Cataloging

Flickr Commons, Google Scholar

Scale

Source

Obvious?

No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious.

George Bernard Shaw

Thank youLorcan Dempsey

http://www.twitter.com/LorcanDHttp://www.oclc.org/research