Conference Reports

University of Oklahoma Libraries 27th Annual Conference, March 4-5, 2010, Part 2

University of Oklahoma Libraries

Oklahoma City Conference

March 4-5, 2010

Summary of Presentations

Tim J. Watts

 

Jay Jordan, President and CEO, Online Computer Library Center, “Climbing Out of the Box and Into the Cloud: Building Web-Scale for Libraries.”

 

Libraries will be able to spend more money and effort on innovation instead of maintenance by moving to the computing cloud, where applications and data are stored on the Internet instead of locally. This “web-scale” will increase the sharing of data and allow more interoperability, giving staff time to be more innovative. WorldCat Local, from OCLC, is an example of moving into the cloud.

 

Dennis Dillon, Associate Director for Research Services, University of Texas, Austin Libraries, “Sacred Longhorns, Ox Carts, Arranged Marriages, the Ego-Centered User & the Information Aristocracy.”

 

Libraries are full of sacred cows – things we have always done – but economic realities will force us to give them up. Librarians must change and concentrate on the users; when people’s expectations, information needs and behaviors change, libraries must change with them. Delivery of information makes up the supply chain, and libraries must concentrate on individuals and be hooked into the supply chain.

Charles Lowry, Executive Director, Association of Research Libraries, “Year Two of the Depression – North American Research Libraries in Fiscal Crisis.”

 

Lowry reported on how the economic crisis has affected research libraries. Revenue consists of varying percentages of public funding, tuition, gifts and endowments, and grants, depending on the type of institution. Last year, most institutions took cuts in staffing and protected acquisitions. This year, cuts have been among staff. Even if no further reductions are made, accelerated changes will result in libraries. These changes include: reduction or elimination of low-impact areas and services; redefined large-scale strategies for delivering information, such as institutional repositories and digitization; and, more multi-institutional collaboration in collection management.

 

Joan Giesecke, Dean of Libraries, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, “Finding the Right Metaphor: Restructuring, Realigning, and Repackaging: Today’s Research Libraries.”

 

“Nimble Dinosaurs” is a metaphor being used for libraries trying to change to meet today’s needs. Other metaphors have been used in the past and today to help people see libraries and librarians differently and understand them better. Some metaphors have been more positive than others. Those used today include the library as ecosystem and the librarian as scholar/practitioner. No perfect metaphor for libraries has been found, since we keep changing.

 

James Neal, Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian, Columbia University Libraries, “Collaboration by Cliché: The Radicalization of the Academic Library Commitment to Cooperation and the ‘Two Cool’ Initiative.”

 

Libraries can become terminally extinct or evolve into something else. Innovative, even radical, strategies for partnership are necessary. Requirements for radical collaboration include only 2-3 institutions, a sustainable business plan, a legal framework, governance, risk capital, and competitiveness. Public-private partnerships, such as Google’s plan to digitize books in public institutions, are potentially good collaborations, and may also include off-site storage, scholarly publishing, and data storage and archiving. The 2CUL (Too Cool) collaboration between Columbia and Cornell has achieved real collaboration. Initial areas include technical services, collection development, technology and digital preservation, grants, resource development, and new services/outsourcing for other libraries.

 

 

University of Oklahoma Libraries 27th Annual Conference, March 4-5

Theme of the conference was "Climbing out of the box: repackaging libraries for survival" and there were nine speakers. 

Dan Hazen, Associate Librarian of Harvard College for Collection Development, Harvard University, “E-Resources and E-Journals: Economics, Emergence, and Adaptation.”

Harvard’s traditional large budgets, collections, and staff are decreasing much the same as other research libraries around the country. E-resources are more prevalent, but we’re stuck with publishing packages because we can’t walk away from the responsibility to support the educational mandate. The resolution for mandatory deposit in the Institutional Repository needs commitment and compliance. One idea for encouraging researchers to publish in open access journals is to set up a pool of funds that can be tapped by the authors. We need to make alternative models attractive (encourage faculty members to develop journals, work with faculty on editorial boards to educate about the issues, consider co-payments for articles downloaded rather than subscribing to journal titles)

 

Kevin M. Guthrie, President, Ithaka, “Repackaging the Library: What Do Faculty Think?”

Guthrie shared results of recent (2009) faculty surveys and compared them with previous results to show trends.  A paper outlining 2006 results of the survey can be found here: 

The most important role of libraries was seen as a “buyer”.  The debate about open access has made it obvious that libraries pay for materials. We should continue to invest in the buyer role and archiving/preservation, but consider carefully any investments in “gateway services”. Added value to physical objects is not so important now as society is moving away from the warehouse model to the service model (e.g. Blockbuster and Netflix).

 

Allen Powell, President, EBSCO Information Services, “Times of Crisis Accelerate Inevitable Change.”

For information services economies, flat is the new “up”.  Over one-third of libraries surveyed have started to “debundle”. Usage stats are key to buying what is frequently used – the 80/20 rule often applies to serial titles – 80% of the use is with 20% of the titles. Short term strategies that libraries reported are: move to e-only, cancel duplications, break up packages. Metrics used are: usage stats, faculty recommendations, historical price increases, impact factors.

 

Carla J. Stoffle, Dean of Libraries, University of Arizona, “From Surviving to Thriving.”

Stoffle reviewed changes in the organizational structure and culture over the last few years at the University of Arizona. Their basic approach is “library as service”, and they are utilizing savings strategies as well as new revenue sources. They are managing information, not collections (e.g., moving to digital, remove duplicate print, user-driven selection, anytime/anyplace access, discovery and desktop delivery, collaborative collection development, shared repositories.)

 

Resource Description & Access (RDA) webinar

In case you have not heard, Resource Description & Access (a.k.a. RDA) is the cataloging code slated to  replace the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules (AACR) sometime in the near future. I say sometime because release dates for RDA have been moving around for years.

In the cataloging community, views on RDA are mixed. For some, RDA is the next big change in cataloging and for others it is a tool where adoption of it is iffy at best. Lately, the pricing model has received a large number of comments on various discussion lists. For more information, see RDA frequently asked questions may be found on the RDA site.