52 Advisor Op-Ed / The Charleston Advisor /July 2005 www.charlestonco.co
▼ ADVISOR OP-ED Reflections About Collections With the Help of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore
SEVENTH FIESOLE RETREAT Melbourne, Australia 28–30 April 2005 By Ann Okerson (Associate University Librarian for Collections and International Programs,Yale University Library)
Ed. Note: The following paper was delivered as the opening keynote presenta- In the 1960s, h u ge amounts of money came into our hands in the U. S. , tion at the Seventh Fiesole Collection Development Retre at , in Melbourn e, Au s- for both new and old universities and libraries, all growing faster than tralia, April 28–30, 2005. staff could manage. So Richard Abel and Co. (Oregon) hired a cadre of subject selectors to do a piece of academic book selection that was being rep e ated daily in libra ries all over the country. His company then Introduction supplied its selected books on “ a p p rova l ” to libra ri e s , wh i ch could My ge n e r ation of Canadians loved the famous skits by Peter Cook, choose to accept or return the books. It was a brilliant idea, “outsourc- Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett, and Jonathan Miller called Beyond the i n g ” b e f o re the wo rd was a commonplace. Now “ o u t s o u rc i n g ” i s Fringe. Clueless, or wacky, or dilettante, or demented, or totally out- increasingly common, as academic booksellers, and not just in west- of-it Brits sat around and pondered the mysteries of the universe from ern countries, provide additional services such as online catalog copy their unique life perspectives, perhaps a coal mine or a mountaintop. or “ s h e l f - re a dy ” books upon delive ry. We re our libra ries to re claim the One of my favorites in BTF is “Aftermyth of War.” Here, heroic Eng- selection, acquisitions, and cataloging work that has been entrusted to lish folk contemplate life during the Great Second World War, consol- our commercial colleagues, our staff costs would surely at least dou- ing themselves throughout the bombings by having “a nice cup of hot ble. tea.” “Squiffy,” the wife says to the yokel towards the very end of the sketch, “it’s the end of an era,” and this time they console themselves N ex t , in this postmodern libra ry age, l a rge aggregat o rs of electro n i c by having “a nice cup of boiling hot water.” books are entering the marke t p l a c e : for ex a m p l e, n e t l i b r a ry, eb ra ry, and ebooks.com are among the newcomer generalists, while special- We are going to take the next short while to reflect on whether we are ists such as Safari, Knovel, and Books24x7 offer narrower ranges of reaching the end of an era, through the voice of a librarian as often as collecting ex p e r t i s e. As e-book consolidations pro l i fe rat e, l i b ra ry selec- not in the coal mine of collections. But please understand that , as I tion becomes even more fully outsourced and we in libraries have less look at the current and future academic research library scene, partic- fl exibility to reject titles. The Yale libra ry now “ h o l d s ” well over a half u l a rly with re l ation to collections deve l o p m e n t , the right or best strat e- million volumes of e-books purchased and licensed, none of wh i ch gies for moving forward with a long-term collections strategy aren’t were chosen as single titles (and a number of which replicate our print particularly clear to me. collections). All that is befo re the promise of the Google Print and other mass digitization projects. My primary message today is that none of us believes our libraries are s e l f - s u ffi c i e n t , and they are not. Ye t , in spite of evidence to the contra ry, Let me emphasize that all the developments described here reduce local we too often act as if we are still very much autonomous. collections and selection activ i t y, a n d – – h e r e ’s the hook that ge t s u s – – gre at ly expand the accessibility of mat e ri a l s . B u t , at the same time, wh e rever more and more selection wo rk is done outside of libra ri e s Building Library Collections: The End of an Era? and/or collections are licensed by us, content ava i l able through re s e a rch Libraries go back centuries, but the ambitious library, focused on and l i b r a ri e s , at least in North A m e ri c a , is becoming more similar each open to a broad community of users, is, for the most part, a very mod- year. ern concept. The antecedents of the Yale Library––troves owned and o p e rated by sch o l a r s of ex t ra o r d i n a ry learning and bri l l i a n c e – – we re The journals collecting enterp rise is in some ways diffe rent from book b r ought home to me re c e n t ly. We have just finished cat a l o ging and collecting, but in other ways it is now similar. Selecting a single jour- c o nve rting bibl i ographical re c o rds for one of these unique old encl ave s , nal biases future acquisition: once having selected a journ a l , the libra r- the Yale Babylonian Collection, nu m b e ring some 10,000 items, i . e. , a s i a n ’s default incl i n ation has been to continue re c e iving the subscri p t i o n large as the whole of Yale Library was until late in the nineteenth cen- indefinitely. Thus, until the 1990s, selection of journals––by contrast tury. Throughout this project, a joint venture between our library and to monographs––already felt “efficient” and was done almost exclu- the distinguished faculty curator of the Y B C , we heard stories about the sively title by title, with the business support being taken on by sub- “old” days when faculty and graduate students would drop their own s c r iption agencies (wh o , u n l i ke book ve n d o rs , do not select fo r work and go on “book hunts” through the warren of YBC rooms, in libraries). o rder to find a book for a visiting scholar who needed a particular item. That said, the zeal for seeing the benefits of electronic publishing was Collections in that storybook wo rld we re built with mu ch learning and nowhere so intense in the 1990s as in the area of scholarly, and partic- mu ch intuition; we now build teams of specialist bibl i ograp h e rs , s c o u r u l a r ly STM journ a l s , wh e re ch a n ge was rap i d. I was among the earl i e r the world to fill our gaps, and scoop up new publications. l i b r a rians invo l ved in consortial nego t i ations for wh at we now call “ t h e The Charleston Advisor / July 2005 www.charlestonco.com 53
Big Deal” (licensing all or virt u a l ly all of a publ i s h e r ’s titles in one some funds for acquisitions, and we now have a back l og of some 4 , 0 0 0 financial arra n ge m e n t ) , i n i t i a l ly with Academic Pre s s , in conve rs at i o n s books in these language s , titles that do not appear in the large cat a- that began in a corridor at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 1995. Through loging utilities or databases. Nor can these booksellers supply us with the late 1990s, we begged publishers for such scaled-up arrangements c at a l og re c o rds . If we are successful, the 1 8 months of money we have and rejoiced at the greater comprehensiveness of titles for a small pre- will take care of less than half of the backlog, but we may not be able mium in dollars. Now the pendulum has swung, and librarians more to find someone for this work. often speak of the Big Deal as the devil’s spawn––while at the same That is, the biggest research libraries are still unable to polish off var- t i m e, we are impatient with publ i s h e rs of single titles who have not ious cat a l og back l ogs in unusual language s , or in special collections and found the cash or tech n o l ogical savvy to integrate their product with the archives, let alone the new media (particularly electronic) coming on rest of the world’s e-journals. b o a rd in tsunami-like quantities. Th e re is simply too mu ch “ s t u ff,” Wh at ever one may think of ap p roval plans, or of the rapid adva n c e m e n t mu ch of it only in electronic fo r m delive red over the Web. Incre a s- of online technologies, or of e-book collections, or of e-journal aggre- i n g ly, we don’t even speak of cat a l oging any m o re – – we call it “ a s s i g n - gations and big deals, they have surely affected libraries’ collections ing metadata,” some of which is extracted by computers. Of course, development in at least two profound ways. mu ch more such automation needs to be done, t hough it is easy to a rgue for the “ b e t t e r ” and “higher quality” re c o rd that a skilled pro fe s- Fi rs t : The Reader Rules. A wo rld in wh i ch more re a d e rs have more sional cataloger can create. places and times wh e rein they can access info rm at i o n , whether thro u g h libraries or online, through licensed materials or free sites, has made And here ’s an important bu d get conu n d rum for collections deve l o p- this an age of the reader in remarkable ways. Whatever else happens, ment offi c e rs such as I. As cat a l og re c o rds are offe red by book or e-ve n- and whatever we try to do, the reader today has unprecedented access d o rs , those access costs are more and more commonly added to or bu n- and control over his or her info rm ation supply and needs––and thus dled with the costs of the content. The lines between collections and over his or her demands and expectations of libraries. This inevitably access, already a little blurry, overlap and intermingle all the more in is moving libra ries from being collection-driven to being re a d e r- d rive n . budgetary negotiations, whether for catalog records or servers or soft- ware. These days in virtually every major research library, we engage S e c o n d : Wh e re Doesn’t Mat t e r. Te ch n o l ogical advance has re i n fo rc e d in a gre at deal of back and fo rth across the collections-access line, a long-term trend by expanding interlibrary loan and document deliv- o p e n ly or surrep t i t i o u s ly. Wh i ch bu d get pays for access? To wh at ex t e n t ery services. It is no longer as important to have exactly the right con- to the actual collections themselves matter and where does one draw tent in one’s bu i l d i n g. For ex a m p l e,Yale is a founding member of a con- the boundaries? sortium of seven large book-lending and borrowing research libraries p a rt i c i p ating in a project called Borrow D i re c t , a pat ro n - i n i t i ated pro c e s s A quick word about preservation: As the growth and variety, formats, for selecting a desired book from any libra ry in the consortium and and media of library materials have accelerated, the challenge of pre- placing an online request for its physical delive r y. By 2003 we had s e rving content has grow n , o u t s t ripping completely libra ri e s ’ fi n a n c i a l achieved a fill rate of over 80 percent, up from 43 percent; a response and human resources available for the job. There is far too much con- time down to four days on average (about as long as it takes for that tent for us even to dream of compre h e n s ive pre s e rvation initiat ive s . A m a zon book that you ord e red to arrive); and transaction costs re d u c e d Our Library of Congress is taking a national lead through its NDIIPP by some 60 percent. This has been an immense success, and, as you p ro j e c t , and other national libra ries and groups are wo rking hard on know, many other library consortia are providing similar services. digital preservation technologies and models. LOCKSS, for example, o ffe rs a caching solution, a controve r sial solution but one libra ries can implement locally, even if fo r, so fa r, a limited ra n ge mat e ri a l s , to ke e p Organizing and Preserving Collections: them safe for a time. The A n d rew W. Mellon Fo u n d ati on sponsore d Down in the Coal Mines Ithaka group will unroll its Portico e-journal preservation service this Let us leave for a moment the topic of autonomy in book selection and Ju n e. So fa r, both LOCKSS and Po rtico are just for journals. Other collections development and turn to library self-sufficiency in organi- components of the pro blem remain large ly and fri g h t e n i n g l y unre- zation of materials. In the early 1970s, for example, it was possible to solved. see simultaneously in the great libraries of Dublin, Ireland, three gen- Thus we re ly incre a s i n g ly on publ i s h e rs as the authori t at ive sourc e s e rations of tech n o l ogy , all now swept into obsolescence: old bound for e-journ a l s , re fe rence wo rk s , and e-book collections. We see contro l book cat a l ogs at the National Libra ry, a home-built and handmade card slipping away, with no local or outsource model in hand yet to give us catalog at University College, and vendor-supplied card cataloging at c o n fi d e n c e. A n d, of cours e, G o og l e, with its widely-touted digi t i z a- Trinity College. Each newer technology repeated the pattern of mech- tion initiative, seems poised to join this outside-the-library group on a n i z ati on and outsourcing described ab ove for books and journals. Th e whom we will have to re ly, but is reticent about its plans and so can do L i b ra ry of Congress began selling cat a l og cards in the U. S. in the early little to assuage our anxieties. 1900s and OCLC and RLIN began to develop their services in the 1960s and 70s. If Yale Library had to do original cataloging for all the materials we buy these days, we would surely be spending $5 to $10 Enter the Rabbit million per year on this activity. We have quick ly rev i ewed decades of libra ry outsourcing and automa- Sometimes re s e a r ch libra ri e s ’ collecting policies have us purch a s e tion––did we re a l ly think outsourcing had been invented only a few books we cannot cat a l og immediat e l y, against the hap py day when we short years ago? If you are a Monty Python fan, you’ve seen The Holy will find re s o u rces to do so. For ex a m p l e, we are now re c ruiting for an G ra i l ( m ovie) and perhaps even the new Bro a dway play, S p a m a l o t, 18-month position, which requires subject knowledge of South Slavic with the enormous Trojan rabbit being pulled to the French castle by or Hungarian literature or culture, or knowledge of one or more addi- King A rt h u r ’s knights. We might imagine the rabbit to be full of ch o c o- tional Finno-Ugrian or Slavic languages. The University has provided l ate delights, or we might fear that heav i ly armed knights will leap 54 Advisor Op-Ed / The Charleston Advisor /July 2005 www.charlestonco.co f r om it to destroy all that we hold dear. But, t h e n , p e r h aps the S p a- THIRD. RISE OF THE E-AGGREGATORS: GOOD m a l o t rabbit offe rs none of these pre d i c t ables and thus there may be no NEWS OR BAD? easy resolution to our story. We libra rians are quick to notice when large journal publ i s h e r s bu y other journal publishers or bid to produce under contract journals that were previously individually published or published by small produc- Present: The Trends of Today e r s. Less noticed but of equally high impact has been the rapid and Let us bring our attention now to the present, the real present. To see amazing growth of content offe r ed by third party consolidat o rs or the pre s e n t , it is necessary to discover the tre n d s , c u rve s , m ovement all aggregators of e-journals and databases. Here are some not-for-profit around us. Let me identify five key components of today’s library col- aggregator numbers: lections landscape. ■ The ALPSP Learned Jo u rnals Collection was launched in 2003 with 247 journal titles from its member publishers. It now stands at 433 FIRST. MAKING AN ELECTRONIC MARKETPLACE for 2005 and grow i n g. This is a part n e rship of large ly not-fo r- p ro fi t When the e-info rm ation age arrived in fo rce (mid to late 1990s), we had publishers with Swets. few precedents for arra n gements between e-info rm ation prov i d e rs and ■ BioOne began in 1999 with 40+ journals; it now delivers 81 titles, l i b r a ri e s , let alone consortia of libra ries contracting for content on with aims for over 200. This is a largely not-for-profit partnership behalf of all their campuses and re a d e r s. Eve rything needed to be including societies and libraries. spelled out. In the give and take, b a ck and fo rth of nego t i at i o n s , l i b ra ri e s and prov i d e rs began to learn how talk to each other pro d u c t ive ly, t o ■ Project Muse, launched in 1995 by the Johns Hopkins University come to some accommodation (often in such an agreement, everyone P ress and Libra ry, c u rre n t ly electro n i c a l ly publishes over 250 titles, is a little unhap py, wh i ch can be the hallmark of a decent arra n ge m e n t ) . mostly in humanities and social sciences and mostly from univer- At this time, license agreements have come to describe the network of sity presses; Muse regularly adds new titles to its collection. business relationships among various constituencies of the electronic Some of the largest or growing fo r- p ro fit aggregat o r s include EBSCO, c o m mu n i t y. In fa c t , the license became the means by wh i ch it was pos- Fa c t iva , L ex i s - N ex i s , and ProQuest––with thousands of titles each , s i ble to cre ate an electronic marke t p l a c e. It is even conceivable that many of which fall in and out of the databases with terrifying unpre- license terms will become so standard for va rious cat ego ries of content d i c t ab i l i t y. Note that just a few ye a rs ago Kluwer (OV I D- S i l ve r P l at t e r ) ( s u ch as e-journals) that we will not need them mu ch at all; all that was the largest single source producer of indexing and ab s t racting ser- will be left will a pricing agreement––for, as we all know, price con- vices, with about 150 databases. Quietly, it has been overtaken by the t i nues to be the gre atest area of dissent and disagreement betwe e n e l e c t r onic publishing side of EBSCO Info rm ation Serv i c e s , n ow offe r- libraries and their suppliers. ing 150 e-dat ab a s e s , of wh i ch it owns about half (and offe rs them pre t t y mu ch ex cl u s ive ly ) , as well as 5,500 active full-tex t , p e e r- rev i ewed jour- SECOND. ECONOMIC CHURN AND UNCERTAINTY nals. Recall my earlier comments about consolidation and outsourc i n g of library collections decisions! The cost of production and the prices particularly for electronic pub- l i c a tion are in seemingly unending ch u rn. The conve rsion of print jour- FOURTH. INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORIES nals to e-journals is rapidly maturing. And while e-books have yet to find their way into the commonplace in academic libraries, the recent An institutional repository is a beautiful concept and a necessary ser- h u ge initiat ive of Google Print to make e-books indispensable may v i c e. The idea bega n , I believe, with the philosophy that re s e a rch insti- accomplish that transition at supposedly a cost of about $1 0 per scanned tutions should stop giving away the info rm ation they produce and care volume. for it in perpetuity at home, while enabling access for free for the wo rl d. I n i t i a l ly intended to solve one pro bl e m , IRs are now are being con- Meanwhile, the rapid development of aggregations of electronic con- structed to solve another much more significant one: to capture many tent has made possible the distri bution of far more info rm at i o n , a n d or all of an institution’s pro d u c t ivity and activ i t i e s : u n ive rsity arch ive s , far gre at e r u s age, per dollar for electronic re s o u rces than for print. A n d, d ep a rtmental re c o rd s , faculty and student wo rks such as dat ab a s e s , e d i- aggregations of libraries are pushing down price increases, though not torial projects, geospatial and other data, images, courses and course necessarily prices, somewhat. The big challenge today comes as these materials, and much more. Every institution needs to make such pro- consortia are trying to dismember the e-journal Big Deals from larger visions for its cre ations. Doing this is decidedly not ch e ap. As we under- p u bl i s h e rs , unwilling to give up mu ch of the access that has been ga i n e d take it, I confess that taking care of material already being published in signing up for these deals in the late 1990s. and archived elsewhere may not be the highest priority. For example, because of budget constraints on the part of a growing number of our members, our consortium (NERL, with 26 ARL-sized FIFTH. GOOGLE PRINT libraries and 42 smaller affiliated institutions) has begun downsizing By virtue of the spectacular quantity of digi t i z ation (at least by today ’s talks with a handful of big publishers whose three-year package deals standards) Google has established a leadership position in the e-mar- are set for renewal next year or the year after. This will be a defining ketplace, which brings revenue, recognition, and control––all without moment. One has offe r ed us an interesting opening proposal. If we doing ve ry mu ch yet! Smaller initiat ives may be obscured for now wish to cancel, say, 5 percent of our package price, library members (those of Brewster Kahle and Carnegie Mellon University’s “Million participating in that particular arrangement would need to cancel their Books Pro j e c t ” and A m a zo n ’s “Inside the Book,” to say nothing of immediate access to e-journals that received 5 percent of the use – we thousands of smaller digitizing projects in many libraries). By aiming could choose whether this would be one 5 percent title or multiple titles for huge scale, Google Print becomes a powerful symbol or metaphor whose use totaled 5 percent. Gives one a headache, doesn’t it? I won’t for all digitizing that is happening and will happen. To d a y, in 2005, even mention the churn and allure of Open Access, which has earned the future of Google is a great unknown, and a potentially destabiliz- its own program segment at this conference! ing one for existing players in the content “space.” In the news yester- The Charleston Advisor / July 2005 www.charlestonco.com 55 d ay (Ap ril 27, 2 0 0 5 ) , we all read that 19 European national libra ries are • Why did we and each of our peer institutions go through its own petitioning their gove r nments to establish Goog l e - s i zed pro j e c t s , i n RFP process and contractual arrangements for separate Integrated order to assert their own leadership and cultural patrimonies. L i b ra ry System pack age s , a process that easily took us two to thre e ye a rs , a gre at deal of human re s o u rc e,and some “ l o s t - o p p o rt u n i t y ” Meanwhile, I asked one of my colleagues in one of the Google insti- t i m e , in addition to money––so that now we must deve l o p tutions wh at they we re doing diffe re n t l y with rega rd to collections tools––often they have large limitat i o n s – – a c ros s those ILS systems d evelopment. The answer wa s : nothing re a l ly. We are proceeding with in order to do cost-effective resource sharing? our same book purchasing progra m s , licensing electronic re s o u rc e s , digitizing special collections. Google plans to index some 20 million • Could we have developed our remote shelving facility with other books in the OCLC dat ab a s e , and yet our libra ry life goes on as it libraries in our region for more efficient access and de-duping of always has. How can this be? materials? • Could we develop our future collections by spending money more e ffe c t ive ly, i . e. , focusing on our strengths and developing those, Four Future Strategies and Paths to Future while looking to partners for materials in which they excel? Collections Success • Why does each of our libraries load catalog records for commonly I can ga ze into no crystal ball. To think of the future is to develop pri n- held electronic resources into its own online catalogs? ciples and strategies to embrace opportunities that come to us – big, s c a ry, and ex c i t i n g,in real time, o p p o rtunities to deliver more and bet- • Does each institution need to build completely from scrat ch , at con- ter content and support to our readers. siderable effort, its own institutional repository? THIRD. BUILD AND CONTRIBUTE FIRST. THINK SYSTEMATICALLY THROUGH SPECIALIZATION We need to learn to think of the totality of the re s e a rch info rm at i o n Do we want each to invest in collections that are increasingly similar universe in which we live and have our being, to think with keen and to those of our peer institutions? What if we thought instead that we a c c u rate quantitat ive sense, and to identify our role in that unive rs e. might want to get past our traditional hori z ontal libra ry collections Successful services depend on it. Along those lines, I was most (lots of everything for everybody, defined by the diversity of people at i m p ressed by a new study rep o rted at the Coalition for Netwo rke d the unive rsity) and chose instead a ve rtical model (info rm a tion in dep t h I n fo rm at i o n ’s (CNI) meeting earlier this month by Brian Lavoie (OCLC for a given sch o l a rly community to use wo rl dwide)? Pe r h aps we could re s e a rch) and Roger Sch o n feld (Ithaka). Using OCLC’s Wo rl d C at , t h ey not so effe c t ive ly pursue such a strat egy for print mat e ri a l s , but is there h ave made some careful fi rst order counts of the size of the “ m o n ograp h not gre at potential for specialization of our electronic effo rt? The ke e n - u n ive rs e ” in libra ri e s , the distri bution of copies of individual titles, a n d eyed and often contra r ian observer and consultant Jo s eph Esposito the rates of growth over time. The data are in some cases stunning. Fo r advocates exactly such a shift, reasoning that (1) mass digitizing can- ex a m p l e , t h ey indicate that half the books ever published in the not and will not be comprehensive; and that (2) to the extent that the wo rl d – – t i t l e s , not just individual copies, half the titles – have ap p e a re d S t a n fo rd / M i ch i ga n , e t c. , books are ra re or idiosyncratic (rather than since 1977. Th ey estimate 26 million individual monograph titles (i.e. , those held by hundreds of libra ri e s ) , t h ey will present a false picture of n o n j o u rn a l s , n o n s e ri a l s , n o n gov e r nment documents) in the 20,000+ the cultural re c o rd, e s p e c i a l ly when machines are incre a s i n g ly heav i l y OCLC member libra ries. Th ey observe that about 24 percent of the used to search this re c o rd. So, should we “ d i gi t i ze wh at Google left individual titles are held by more than 10 libraries, and only 5 percent out?” Or is that an ineffective and inefficient way to proceed? Might of the individual titles are held by as many as 100 libraries in OCLC’s we in academic libra ries better utilize our re s o u rces through care f u l d at a b a s e. The 9 million titles held in only one OCLC libra ry ri s k and planned specializat i o n , so that the cultural re c o r d is not just becoming orphans if we “ d i gi t i ze from the top,” so to speak. “ R a re n e s s Google’s record but the record of many specific domains? is common,” t h ey observe with a wry sense of provo c ation. (One other s o b e ring nu m b e r : about 83 percent of all the books ever publ i s h e d FOURTH. EFFECTIVELY DEVELOP ap p e a red fi rst after 1923––in other wo rd s , within the pre s u m p t ive ra n ge PARTNERSHIPS AND ALLIANCES of the A m e r ican copy right protection peri o d. The public domain is “ We shall all hang toge t h e r,” said Benjamin Fra n k l i n , “or assure d ly much smaller than you think.) we shall all hang separately.” I have tried in this paper to signal how Wh at does this mean for our collections activities of the future? Should our past and to some extent current stand-alone practices lead us to librarians build collections? Become publishers? Why? continue to imagine our libraries as more self-contained than not. I’ve shown at least briefly, and without any attempt to be exhaustive, some need to make common cause. We librarians still do not as easily rec- SECOND. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ognize our huge interdependence on other libraries, consortia, shared SYSTEMWIDE SAVINGS collections to satisfy our own readers––let alone our interdependency To be sure, we libra ries have orga n i zed ours e l ve s , and not badly, i n on publishers and suppliers. We have a long way to go to learn how to o rder to deliver info r m ation to our users. Our consortia license work together. Just why that is could be the topic of another essay. resources for the benefit of many libraries; we enter into cooperative Here the challenge is first to see, then to make ourselves act: see what a rra n g ements to share books (Borrow Direct); we contri bute to and we are now doing, match that with our goals (of building collections derive our catalog records from one another. Each library belongs to and serving re a d e rs ) , d evelop ways in wh i ch we might most effe c t ive ly numerous, almost uncountable groups and partnerships that are help- build collab o rations and cooperat i o n , then act to build these wisely and ful in some way. Th at said, I am pretty sure we have not gone fa r we l l , or even to risk beginning unwisely (though not stupidly!) and enough, at least not in an efficient way. Here are some of the specific thereby learn important lessons. Such thinking will be most effective questions I have about my own environment, for example: if we imagine cooperation on a grander scale than most of what we do 56 Advisor Reports from the Field / The Charleston Advisor /July 2005 www.charlestonco.co t ogether now (of cours e, t h e re are some ex c eptions). Is there leaders h i p think that a few hundred independently funded, academic libraries t h a t can bring us together effe c t ive ly to re i m agi ne ours e l ves in this wo rking sep a rat e ly and collab o rating on small- to medium-scale way? Wh at would such leadership look like? A re we at risk from alway s projects are ready for this, we are, I have to say, nuts. thinking too small? If the issues I have outlined do not persuade you Let me remind us all again of the Lavoie/Schonfeld numbers and the that we think too small, then let me throw a few more onrushing aster- breathtaking fact that half of our printed books are under 30 years old. oids into the field of vision. We re a l i ze, on that scale and even with a limited sense of ge o m e t ry, t h at • The explosion of content provision in a wo rld of bl og s , v l og s , p o d- the new half life of printed information will soon be 20 years and less. c a s t s , and the like. Th e re is serious mat e rial there that needs to come In other wo rd s , t h e re is reason to think that the collections and content inside the fence of intelligently managed and accessible informa- we will need to manage will more than double within our lifetimes and tion. These are the collections of the future, along with the about- p ro b ably double twice or three times in the lifetimes of the ve ry yo u n g. to-be mass digi t i zed libra ry collections. Wh at have we done to make Growth of that scale cannot be managed by business as usual. them available? My friends, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. • Two wo rd s : China and India. The unive rse of people who consume Which one shall we take next? ■ serious academic information is exploding right now, today. If we
▼ ADVISOR REPORTS FROM THE FIELD Life After the Reference Desk Co-Creating a Digital Age Library By Mary M. Somerville (Assistant Dean, Information and Instructional Services, Robert E. Kennedy Library, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo)
midst conve rging and conflicting ch a n ges in academic uni- posing and retooling can position public service staff members - libra r- versities, reference librarians at California Polytechnic State ians as well as paraprofessionals - to contribute in new ways to 21st A U n ive rsity (“Cal Po ly”) in San Luis Obispo seized the oppor- Century Digital Age knowledge management and knowledge integra- tunity to rethink and redesign their wo rk. Employing systems thinking, tion initiatives. knowledge creation, and information literacy principles and practices, they have reconsidered their roles and responsibilities so as to better It’s Always Been That Way align with unive rsity learn i n g, t e a ch i n g,and re s e a rch pri o rities. Refe r- For as long as anyone could re m e m b e r, p u b lic services libra rians at ence desk service and bibliographic instruction sessions that eighteen Cal Poly sat at the desk answering questions. For at least the last two months earlier comprised their exclusive foci have been replaced with d e c a d e s , this occupational pri o rity was supplemented by didactic teach- d i gital portal content deve l o p m e n t , i n t egr ated re l ati onal info rm at i o n ing; students sat and libra rians spoke upon request from academic fa c- literacy, curriculum-aligned digital and print collection development, ulty to impart “ i n fo rm ation competence” p ro ficiencies. A count of re f- and high-end physical and virtual research consultation. In addition, e r ence desk transactions and instructional sessions we re ro u t i n e l y integral to their newly constituted learning community, librarians are collected and rep o rted to the Chancellor’s Office for the Califo rn i a responsible for contributing a special competence to the Information State University (CSU) System, in which Cal Poly serves as one of 23 and Instructional Services (IIS) team’s knowledge base to ensure con- campuses. No use was made of these nu m b e rs locally nor was the qual- tinuous individual and group learning. ity of info rm ation and instructional services eva l u at e d. A n nua l staff The transformation process, now in its eighteenth month, has infused performance reviews were largely anecdotal in nature; neither perfor- explicit info rm at i o n - f ocused learning into the wo rk p l a c e, t h e r eby mance plans nor assessment cri t e ria guided the personnel ap p ra i s a l re a dyi ng libra rians for intellectual collab o r ation with academic fa c- process. Professional development was occasional and at will with no u l t y. This re o ri e n t a tion is in ke epi ng with a national trend to move anticipation for reporting out to colleagues. Although there was some b eyond “sitting at the re fe rence desk,” s a tisfying “ m e d i ated search ” seasonal variation in the pace of activities, with more traffic in the fall gatekeeper roles, and delivering bibliographic instruction “50 minute when the school year began and less activity in the spring as thoughts stand” lectures. In the Cal Poly case, this first hand reintroduction to t u r ned to summer va c a tion plans, a perva s ive malaise ch a ra c t e ri ze d i n q u i r y-based collab o rat ive learning also prep a res long time re fe re n c e the workplace. l i b r a rians to move out from behind the desk and collab o rat ive ly co- Within this staid env i ro n m e n t , p e riodic announcements of another bu d- i nvent physical and virtual Learning Commons with campus stake- get cut interrupted wo rkplace calm. Over time, consistent erosion of the holders. bu d get served to conve rt re t i rements into “ s a l a ry sav i n g s ” t h rough per- Here we sketch the journey of Information and Instructional Services manently eliminating lines that, if filled, would further jeopardize the (IIS) group members in generic terms transferable to other academic m at e ri a l s ’ bu d g et. Short ly after a new head of IIS was hired in Sep- libraries seeking deep transformative changes better aligned with the tember 2003, a permanent 10.75 percent reduction in the annual base d i gital age. Our concluding re m a rks illustrate how orga n i z ational rep u r- bu d g et was announced, wh i ch pre c i p i t ated orga n i z ation wide re c og-