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Collections 2021. The Future of the Collection Is Not a Collection. 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) 2000s: Gutenberg is tamed and domesticated
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Collections 2021 The Future of the Collection Is Not a Collection
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) • 2000s: Gutenberg is tamed and domesticated • Print on demand
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)
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
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
Ten Years from Now... • PDA is the new assumption • Smart phone = killer delivery app • Most academic print acquisition is POD (outsourced or local); much is never added to collections • Collecting behavior is trifurcated: • Monuments to Western Civilization (Big Collecting) • Local research & curriculum (Small Collecting) • GBS + just-what’s-needed/just-in-time (Conduit) • We search primary documents, not proxy documents • Library services have become very difficult to distinguish from other educational services • Collections still exist, but their (general) marginality is now freely acknowledged
Stumbling Blocks • Sclerotic librarians • (Fainthearted library leaders) • Legacy accreditation structures • Legacy RPT structures • (Justifiably) fainthearted publishers • Customer-focused competitors
Questions? Contact: Rick Anderson rick.anderson@utah.edu