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The River, the Pond, and the Future of the Research Collection

The River, the Pond, and the Future of the Research Collection. Rick Anderson Acting Dean. The Recent Past: a Quick Review. 1990s: The Gutenberg Terror comes to an end Stage 1: Journals Stage 2: Books – piecemeal (NetLibrary, etc.) Stage 3: Books – wholesale (Google, Hathi Trust)

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The River, the Pond, and the Future of the Research Collection

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  1. The River, the Pond, and the Future of the Research Collection Rick Anderson Acting Dean

  2. The Recent Past: a Quick Review • 1990s: The Gutenberg Terror comes to an end • Stage 1: Journals • Stage 2: Books – piecemeal (NetLibrary, etc.) • Stage 3: Books – wholesale (Google, Hathi Trust) • 2000s: Gutenberg is tamed and domesticated • Print on demand

  3. The Recent Past: a Quick Review • Library hegemony comes to an end • Massive drop in unit price of information • Radical increase in ease of finding • Ready reference becomes a social exercise • Full-text searching obviates the proxy record • Access (for many) becomes virtually ubiquitous • Meanwhile, librarians working busily to undermine their own role as brokers (OA)

  4. The Current Reality • The collection is a bad guess at patron needs • Massive budget cuts make collecting hard to defend • Reference service is bypassed and unscalable • The OPAC is completely eclipsed as a discovery tool (even with WorldCat)

  5. The Current Reality • The collection is a bad guess at patron needs • Massive budget cuts make collecting hard to defend • Reference service is bypassed and unscalable • The OPAC is completely eclipsed as a discovery tool (even with WorldCat) • Circulation is down dramatically • Gate counts are up, but the stacks are deserted

  6. Circ Trends at the University of Utah

  7. New Models • Online  just-in-time (both e and p) • Online  breakdown of collection walls • Higher prices/less budget  less speculation • Higher prices/less budget  less archival purchasing • Less circulation  strong e-only momentum • Online + better data + higher prices + less budget  the end of the Big Deal and of the Medium Deal (title-level journal subscriptions) in favor of the Tiny Deal Bottom line: Less collecting (ponds), more real-time brokerage (access to the river)

  8. What We Are Doing at UU • Formalised stance: e-first/patron-first • PDA pilot programs: MyiLibrary, ebrary, NetLibrary, EBL • Espresso Book Machine • No more bibliographers/subject specialists • Instead, College & Interdisciplinary Teams • SHEM (Science, Health, Engineering, Mines) • SEBS (Social Sciences, Education, Business, Social Work) • FAAPH (Fine Arts, Architecture/Planning, Humanities) • DOCMAPS (Documents, Maps) • MEDIA (Multimedia) • INTERINTER (International/Interdisciplinary)

  9. Predictions • The future of the library will not look much like a library • Small, focused local collections of books • Access to enormous public collections (Hathi, Google) • Few subscriptions, if any • No packages • A need for consolidated brokerage service at article level, not title level • Journals are going the way of the record album • We’re headed back to a “song” economy • Journal publishers are going the way of the record label • You can’t make as much on a 99-cent song as you can on a $15 album

  10. Stumbling Blocks • Sclerotic librarians • Fainthearted library leaders • (Legacy accreditation structures) • (Legacy RPT structures) • (Justifiably) fainthearted publishers • Customer-focused competitors

  11. Discuss! Contact: Rick Anderson rick.anderson@utah.edu

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