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
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
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
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
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 …
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?
“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
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.
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
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
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