ARL Research Collections Committee

The Changing Nature of Collection Management in Resea= rch Libraries

A Discussion Paper

By

Note: Authors Joseph Branin, Frances Groen, and Suzanne Thorin would like= to receive feedback on this current draft, which address the role of col= lection management during a period of transition to a digital environment= =2E Please share your comments.

Introduction

Significant issues during the formative period of collection manage= ment, 1950-1985:

• Rapid growth of higher education, scholarship, and libraries
• Codification of collection management as a profession
• Attempts at cooperative collection development

The contemporary history of collection management in research librarie= s in North America began in the middle of the 20^th century as = the United States and Canada emerged from World War II. Over a period of= about 35 years, from roughly 1950 through the mid-1980s, collection mana= gement in research libraries in America was codified and professionalized= =2E Three significant issues — the rapid expansion of higher educat= ion, scholarship, and library collections; the shift from collection deve= lopment to collection management; and attempts at cooperative collection = development as duplicate collections grew — greatly influenced the = evolution of collection management during this formative period.

Emergence of new forces shaping collection management, 1985-200= 0

• Economic constraints
• Digital information system

After this period of rapid growth, universities, for the most part, ha= ve found themselves in a period of fiscal constraint. These economic con= strictions, which have affected collection management since 1985, have fo= rced most libraries to reduce the number of their acquisitions, especiall= y for retrospective and international publications. In addition, librari= es have undertaken regular cancellation of serials, targeting high cost, = low use journals. While university programs continued to grow, library b= udgets did not. In fact, the number of collection development staff in r= esearch libraries has been reduced with the result being fewer subject an= d area specialists and fewer full-time bibliographers.

Within this framework of reduced resources, more information began to = emerge in digital format. Librarians began to balance the demands of pri= nt and digital materials, even as they sought to understand the nature an= d consequences of digital, networked information and the impact it would = have on library operations, including the budget. As the boundaries of i= nformation services changed, the scholarly publishing industry, once prim= arily non-profit and now highly commercialized, began to consolidate. Es= pecially in the sciences, ownership and control of much information was r= educed to few larger publishers.

Because of these conditions, the new theories of collection manage= ment, begun exuberantly in the 1950’s, have had little opportunity t= o mature and form a solid base of practice or tradition. Current budget = conditions in research libraries and developments in information technolo= gy and in publishing have quickly led to modifications or even reversals = of recently established ideas about how best to operate collection manage= ment programs. A constricted library economy, the emergence of informati= on in digital format, and the consolidation of the publishing industry ha= ve combined to produce profound and surprising changes in collection mana= gement in research libraries at the beginning of the 21^st cent= ury.

• Expectations and needs of different users
• Differing communication traditions in scholarly disciplines
• Limitations in library staff and budget adaptability

Collection management librarians are faced with a new and uncharted envir= onment. They have much less buying power than they had a decade ago. Wit= h fewer staff in collection management full time, many selectors and bibl= iographers work at collection management part-time and handle a much broa= der range of disciplines and formats. The technical advances in digitiza= tion are truly revolutionizing the way scholarly information is published= , organized, and maintained, and both the scope and extent of this change= are difficult to comprehend and manage. Just how radically will collect= ion management change in the next five or ten years? How is it changing = on a day-to-day basis right now?

As difficult as it was to manage a print collection, librarians now ha= ve two equally formidable formats to consider: print and digital. When d= igital resources were first introduced in research libraries, there was a= good deal of conflict between the old and new format. What might be call= ed the cultural wars between print and electronic proponents began with t= he demise of the card catalog and moved to the fear of digital content ta= king over from print. For a taste of these print versus digital skirmish= es in libraries, one can read Nicholson Baker’s pieces in The New= Yorker.¹ on the demise of the card catalog and recall the controversy over the ne= w San Francisco Public Library building. ² These overt battles may now have eased o= r even ceased in most libraries as the digital information system has mat= ured, but serious tensions still exist over priorities, allocations, and = the desires of different constituencies of library users.

In fact, current practices and traditions in scholarly communication a= re at the base of the conflicts within collection management. The diverg= ence among disciplines (and even within the sciences³⁼ ) is noteworthy. Scholars in the sciences publish their resear= ch results in journals, rather than in monographs, in part to be able to = report as rapidly as possible. They are, for the most part, comfortable = with digital access to journal articles and, in many cases, communicate w= idely electronically and share initial results of their research, e.g., e= lectronic preprints. In some disciplines, such as mathematics, scholars = regularly use back issues of journals in their fields; others, such as co= mputer science, do not. In some areas of the humanities, however, such a= s history, monographs, not journal articles, remain critical for tenure a= nd promotion. Although monographs are increasing in price at a slower ra= te than are journals, fewer monographs are purchased by libraries because= of the need to fund expensive journals (both electronic and print) in th= e sciences. Rapid dissemination of results is less important in the huma= nities (and hence different editing practices exist) than in the sciences= , and older publications are consulted more frequently than in many scien= tific disciplines. There are some areas of the humanities, such as philo= sophy, however, where monographs play a much smaller role than do journal= articles.

The field of law is radically different from both the humanities and t= he sciences. Articles are generally not peer-reviewed, but instead stude= nts, who edit the law journals, review the articles most often. The jour= nals are inexpensive and largely subsidized by the universities that publ= ish them; commercial journals are not the most prestigious, but rather th= e prestige of a law journal generally comes from the ranking of the law s= chool that publishes it.

Within this complicated picture of needs and traditions, the rapidly i= ncreasing prices of science journals has literally eaten up limited colle= ction budgets. In fact, despite cancellation of hundreds of thousands of= dollars worth of journals since 1986, the 110 largest research libraries= in the United States and Canada have spent 124% more on serials to purch= ase 7% fewer titles, according to the Association for Research Libraries.= And to complicate this picture further, universities and libraries have= had to scramble to develop and finance the technical infrastructure and = staff expertise necessary to participate fully in the new digital informa= tion system. Some disciplines have fared better than others, creating in= formation poor and information rich departments on campuses and in librar= ies.

The amount of digital information is growing faster than most libraria= ns would have predicted. According to Nicholas Negroponte in Wired Ma= gazine,⁴ the Web is doubling in size ev= ery fifty days, with a homepage added every four seconds. Despite this ph= enomenal growth, research libraries, for reasons in part stated above, ar= e still largely dominated by print resources, both in acquisitions and co= llection management. It is unlikely that more than 10 to 15 percent of a= research library’s collection budget is used today to purchase or p= rovide access to digital information.

Understanding the Nature and Consequences of Digital Information

• Digital formats as access enhancements to collections
• Fundamental changes to the scholarly communications system on the way=

The fundamental structure of how scholarly information is published ha= s yet to be altered in any significant way. Authors still submit their m= anuscripts, now more often than not in electronic form, to publishers. P= ublishers take ownership of the manuscripts, turn them into both print an= d electronic books and articles, and sell them to individuals and librari= es.⁵ Research librarians and faculty are l= oath to give up their print collections and journal subscriptions until d= igital products are more stable and mature and are able to be archived su= ccessfully. Furthermore, libraries tend to use electronic resources as e= nhancements to local print collections, in part because many publishers p= rice their products in a way that encourages the purchase of both print a= nd digital versions. Digital formats still serve primarily as versions = of or enhancements to print formats.

But, more fundamental changes are certainly in store. The traditional= book and journal as organizing frames for scholarship will likely change= as will basic production, distribution, and archiving. Paul Ginsparg, a= physicist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Andrew Odlysko, a mathe= matician at AT&T Bell Laboratories, and Ross Atkinson, a research lib= rarian at Cornell University, have all written provocatively about the de= mise of the traditional scholarly communication system and what its repla= cement might be. Taking full advantage of desktop publishing capabilitie= s, networking, and powerful computer servers, Ginsparg envisions the deve= lopment of an electronic "global raw research archive," managed= by a consortium of professional societies and research libraries.⁶ Odlysko believes the new digital information system will allow scholars t= o become their own publishers and archivists. According to Odlysko, &quo= t;Publishers and librarians have been the middlemen between the scholars = as producers of information and the scholars as consumers, and are likely= to be largely squeezed out of this business."^{7<= /a>} Atkinson predicts the design of new, networked-based, hypertext, docume= nt structures that may "represent fundamental revisions in the every= modality of communications" and that "may affect and alter som= e of our basic assumptions about the nature of information itself." 8

• Collection boundaries are changing: what is a local collection in = a networked environment?
• Aggregation and integration of information resources and services and= their affect on selection activities
• Virtual library communities and new opportunities for cooperative col= lection development

The nature and structure of scholarly archives need to be chang= ed to manage better the growing quantity, specialization, and cost of sch= olarship. Rather than a highly decentralized system as exists today, wit= h duplicative print collections spread across the country, digital techno= logy can be used to provide more coordinated distributed information stor= age and highly distributed, quick, and cost effective access. Digital te= chnology can also foster the integration of the various components and so= urces of scholarly publication. In the future researchers will no doubt = use hyperlinks to move quickly online from index or bibliographic citatio= ns to abstracts to full multimedia documents with the click of a mouse. = Such integration is already happening on the Web platform through the eff= orts of library and scientific information services. The ability to use = hyperlinks to integrate scholarship online is an extraordinary feature, o= ne with which the print format cannot compete.

Research librarians are just at beginning to make broad, organizationa= l changes in their management of the products of scholarship. Librarians= are starting to provide more access to digital information, not from fil= es stored in their own libraries or on their own campuses, but from serve= rs that are networked to publishers, government agencies, universities, a= nd scholarly societies that can be located anywhere around the world. Ra= ther than selecting scholarly resources on an item by item basis, librari= ans are turning into "aggregators," for developing their collec= tions at a macro and integrated level.⁹

Reference tools, electronic journals, and digital archives of historic= al materials now come in a variety of bundled packages. Johns Hopkins Un= iversity Press, Elsevier, Academic Press, and the American Chemical Socie= ty all market their entire line of electronic journals as a complete pack= age to individual libraries, local library consortia, and even to state-w= ide or regional groups of libraries. And, libraries are beginning to agg= regate themselves by creating "virtual libraries" at the state = or regional level to pool resources and services. The Ohio Library and I= nformation Network (OhioLink at http= ://www.ohiolink.edu), Georgia Library Learning Online (Galileo at http://galileo.galib.uga.edu/Homepage.cgi), and the Midwest’s Co= mmittee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) Virtual Library ( http://www.cic.uiuc.edu/third_level/library_vel.html) are just three = examples of new virtual library consortia that are emerging across the co= untry. A strategy that counters the bundling of publications that most p= ublishers use recently emerged, when California State University’s h= ead librarian and a high level university committee sent out a request fo= r proposal for someone to "build a customized data base for all of i= ts campuses…a data base that would offer full-text access to more th= an 1,250 journals selected by Cal State.¹⁰

The archiving of digital material is still quite problematic. Abby Sm= ith. in a recent report for the Council on Library and Information Resour= ces, states, "What we have found is that digitization often raises e= xpectations of benefits, cost reductions, and efficiencies that can be il= lusory and, if not viewed realistically, have the potential to put at ris= k the collections and services libraries have provided for decades."= 11 The digital information system to date has presented librarians with wo= nderful opportunities to expand access to information, but equal progress= in the long-term archiving and preservation of information has not yet o= ccurred.

• Does the "library model" make sense in the digital age?<= /LI>
• Ownership and control of information in the digital information syste= m
• Consortia economics

Ownership issues and their effect on the control and cost of informati= on in the digital environment are serious concerns for research librarian= s. Libraries are usually thought of as places, collections, and services= that provide needed information. Underlying this construct, however, is= an economic model for funding and sharing information services that is o= ften taken for granted. In the print world, libraries buy books and jour= nals that can be borrowed any number of times or that can be copied withi= n the limits of copyright law and fair use guidelines. This traditional = library model for the central funding and communal sharing of information= probably will not work in the new digital environment.¹²

Both access to and control over information take on powerful new dimen= sions in the digital age. On one hand, the development of firewalls, enc= ryption techniques, authentication devices, and cybercash have made the I= nternet a much more secure environment today for a market place model of = scholarly publishing. In fact, controls on the use of information can be= much more powerful in the digital world than they were in the print worl= d. On the other hand, the commercialization of scientific publishing tha= t has resulted in higher subscription prices has, some believe, disrupted= the free flow of knowledge at the end of this century. This situation m= ay only be exacerbated as publishers exert stronger ownership right over = their digital products in the 21^st century. If, however, auth= ors, publishers, and librarians can help bring the products of scholarshi= p back into the ‘circle of the academy,’ the promise of better = and less expensive access to knowledge in the digital age may be assured.= The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), spon= sored by the Association of Research Libraries, is a promising attempt to= bring about such changes in scholarly publishing.¹³⁼

After decades of discussion, planning, and many false starts, library = consortia for collection building and information services are becoming e= ffective organizations in many parts of America. Because digital informa= tion breaks geographical boundaries, it is now becoming more sensible to = select, fund, and maintain access to certain digital collections in a mor= e coordinated way. Library administrators and collection managers accust= omed to making local acquisition decisions are finding themselves in a mo= re complex situation that requires more coordination, compromise, and a b= roader vision of library constituencies.

• Dramatic changes are coming about in the way information is delivered= in higher education
• Librarians will become specialists in managing print and digital coll= ections in a digital environment
• Archiving and preserving print and digital collections will remain ma= jor challenges in collection management

The new procedures that made sense for managing collections only thirt= y years ago have been turned topsy-turvy by the development of the Intern= et and the resulting changes coming about in higher education. Although = research institutions are slow in making changes, in part because they ar= e large and complex and in part because of faculty governance, it is beco= ming evident that change is taking place. Powerful technology infr= astructures are being built on research campuses, and in many cases they = are fully operational. Some faculty are making dramatic changes in the w= ay they teach both in the classroom and at a distance. And, universities= are developing courses and even degree programs that are competing for s= tudents across the country who are willing to learn in a distributed envi= ronment.¹⁴ The boundaries of time and place that have helped define the nature and= structure of higher education are being radically expanded just as they = are for information services in libraries.

Librarians, long knowledgeable of print collections and for the past d= ecade in the forefront of information technology development, are now req= uired to deliver resources and services online, to synthesize and aggrega= te existing electronic resources, to create new resources, to wed electro= nic resources to print, and to maintain and preserve their collections. = Jose-Marie Griffiths, in discussing the changing role of librarians in a= recent article, states that librarians will continue to need to know the= ir users and their needs, but, in an electronic environment, librarians w= ill increasingly be subject specialists and will evolve from collection b= uilders to knowledge prospectors. "The creation of validated collect= ions of digital materials and their relationship to validated nondigital = materials will offer a significant added value to the serious information= seeker, while allowing other linkages to be developed and used."15 With these dramatic and dynamic changes in librarianship, the issue of = how to manage and preserve both electronic and print collections will rem= ain a major challenge in the near and probably far off future.

March, 1999

References

² Golden, Tim. "A High-Tech Library Ignites Dispute over Computers vs.= Books," in the San Francisco Journal, January 26, 1997.

³ Kling, Rob and Geoffrey McKim. "The Shaping of Electronic Media in = Supporting Scientific Communication: the Contribution of Social Informati= cs," a paper presented at the European Science and Technology Forum:= Electronic Communication and Research in Europe, Darmstadt/Seeheim, 15-1= 7 April 1998. http://academia.darmstadt.gmd.de/seeheim/

⁴ Negroponte, Nicholas. "Message 32: The Future of Books," in = Wired Magazine, February 1, 1996. Also available at http://nicholas.www.media.mit.edu/people/nicholas/Wired/WIRED4-02.html

⁵ "To Publish and Perish," in Policy Perspectives, no. 4, = vol. 7, March 1998. Available on the web: http://www.arl.org/scomm/pew/pewrept.html.

⁶ Ginsparg, Paul. "Winners and Losers in the Global Village." <= a href=3D"http://xxx.lanl.gov/blurb/pg96unesco.html"> http://xxx.lanl.gov/blurb/pg96unesco.html"

⁷ Odlyzko, Andrew M., "Tragic Loss or Good Riddance? The Impending Dem= ise of Traditional Journals," in Notices of the American Mathemat= ical Society 42 (January 1995), 49.

⁸ Atkinson, Ross. "Networks, Hypertext, and Academic Information Serv= ices: Some Longer-Term Implications, " in College and Research Li= braries 54 (May 1993) 211.

⁹ For describing Internet resources, OCLC is attempting through its CORC pr= oject to provide an automated means of cataloging or otherwise describing= Internet resources, including Ejournals, articles, or other resources. = CORC’s underlying software captures the resource description and put= s it into a template where it can be edited and then saved as Dublin Core= or MARC and exported into a local catalog. CORC has the possibility of = suggesting subject headings, Dewey call numbers, and eventually will have= an authority component. With CORC one can assemble ‘portal pages&#= 146; or ‘pathfinders’, which essentially are Web compilations o= f individually described resources and can be incorporated into bibliogra= phies. (Michael Kaplan, Associate Dean of Libraries and Director of Techn= ical Services, Indiana University)

¹⁰ Guernsey, Lisa. "California State U. Tries to Create a New Way to Bu= y On-Line Journals," in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Ja= nuary 22, 1999.

¹¹ Smith, Abby. Why Digitize? Washington, D.C.: Council on Library = and Information Resources, February, 1999, iv.

¹² "It has become clear in the past decade that traditional notions of = libraries and information technology organizations are no longer intellec= tually and economically sustainable. Digitally produced volumes of paper= publications rendered obsolete the concept of self-sufficient site-depen= dent collections. College and university libraries can no longer meet th= e information needs of their faculty and students through the traditional= avenue of simply adding to their collections." Battin, Patricia an= d Brian L. Hawkins. "Setting the Stage: Evolution, Revolution or Co= llapse?," in The Mirage of Continuity: Reconfiguring Academic Inf= ormation Resources for the 21st Century. Washington, DC: Council on L= ibrary and Information Resources and Association of American Universities= , 1998.

¹³ SPARC. http://www.arl.or= g/sparc/

¹⁴ One example is the master’s degree in library and information scienc= e offered at a distance from the University of Illinois. This highly reg= arded accredited program, which has been available since 1996, has been n= icknamed LEEP3. For more information, see the Web site at http://www.lis.uiuc.edu/gslis/leep3.

¹⁵ Griffiths, Jose-Marie. "Why the Web is Not A Library," in T= he Mirage of Continuity: Reconfiguring Academic Information Resources for= the 21st Century. Washington, DC: Council on Library and Informatio= n Resources and Association of American Universities, 1998.

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