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.)
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