Some reflections on libraries and stewardship of the scholarly record

Constance Malpas

Program Officer, OCLC Research

3 June 2014, Boston College

BLC Networking Day

Collection Directions

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Inside-out

Outside-in

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Collection Directions: Academic Libraries

Low Stewardship

High Stewardship

In few collections

In many collections

Collections Grid

Research & Learning Materials

Open Web ResourcesPurchased MaterialsLicensed E-Resources

Special CollectionsLocal Digitization

Licensed

PurchasedOutside-in

Inside-out

Dempsey & Childress, OCLC Research

Institutional Needs – Academic Libraries: Current situation vs. 5 years from now

Low Stewardship

High Stewardship

In few collections

In many collections

Licensed

Purchased

Key Trends:• increased reliance on group provisioning of print and licensed content

• more integration of freely available web-based content

• special collections focus on institutional mission, reputation

• growing attention to teaching/learning materials; limited library capacity

Institutional Needs – Research Libraries: Current situation vs. 5 years from now

Low Stewardship

High Stewardship

In few collections

In many collections

Licensed

Purchased

Key Trends:• strategic realignment around purchasing/licensing ‘collections as services’

• redirection of investment toward reputation management, research support

• emphasis on effective disclosure of distinctive assets: special collections,

research data, expertise

A landscape in transition

• Fragmentation in higher education sector (elite, convenience, ‘squeezed middle’) will drive changes in academic libraries – increased differentiation in portfolio of collections and services

• Shared infrastructure enabling transition from local-to group-scale management of purchased and licensed content

• Institutional capacity to redirect resources from commodity collections toward distinctive services will depend on availability of appropriate cooperative infrastructure

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Collective collection: print books

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31%90%

North American Print Book Landscape, January 2011

US libraries hold

90% of titles in

North American print

book collection

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North American Mega-regions

12 zones of highly integrated economic activity

• Does distribution of library resource align with

distribution of economic activity?

• What are the implications for stewardship of North

American print book collections?

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Relative size of regional print book collections (2011)

92% of North American print

book collection concentrated in

12 mega-regions

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Inventory continues to

grow in all

regions

Median +3%

between 2011

and 2013

+4% growth in

Bos-Wash

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• Largest mega-regional print book resource

in North America

• 27.9M print book titles; 56% of North

American print book resource

• 199.6M library holdings; 22% of North

American print book inventory

• Avg. 7 in-region library holdings per title

• 75% of titles held by <5 libraries in region*

• 33% of titles are unique to region*

Bos-Wash print book collection (2013)

*based on 2011 data

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Bos-Wash Coverage of other Regional Collections (2011)

Bos-Wash regional resource

duplicates 65-95% of print book

titles in other regions …next largest regional collection can

duplicate just 50% of Bos-Wash collection

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Bos-Wash Institutional Infrastructure (2011)

• >4000 holding libraries

• Top 5 libraries account

for 15-34% of titles (each)Academic libraries

account for >70% of

regional inventory

Group-scale: Boston Library Consortium

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17 libraries

Liberal arts colleges, professional schools, research institutions,

state library . . .

• all affiliates of FCLD print journal archive

• many (all?) participating in Eastern Academic Scholars Trust

Right scale for

stewardship

is…small

consortium?

Large, loose

confederation?

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Largestprint book

collection

in BLC is

>100Xgreater

than smallest

collection

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Median

BLC member

‘coverage’

of Bos-Wash

collection

is 2%

‘coveragerequires

cooperation’

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Median

NERL member

‘coverage’

of Bos-Wash

collection

is 5%

‘coveragerequires

cooperation’

At every scale…

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ChiPitts

58%

SoCal

47%

Charlanta 67%

coverage requires collaboration

regional coverage

>266M library holdings in WorldCat

Shared Print Collections

• Cooperative stewardship of

aggregate print resource

• Part of broader trend toward

‘group-scale’ library

operations

• >30 active shared print

groups in North America

• 9 major groups registering

shared print holdings in

WorldCat

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Shared Print Titles in WorldCatApril 2014

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Boston College

Williams College

U Mass Amherst

Median

duplication

23% as of

May 2013

Stewardship of the Evolving Scholarly Record

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Format transition:

Print-centric to digital, networked

Boundaries blurring:

Articles/monographs, but

also research data, computer

models, video, blogs,

visualizations, conference

posters & presentations,

pre-prints, etc.

Stakeholder roles reconfiguring:

New paths for the scholarly communication ‘supply chain’

Scholarly record

Stewardship of the scholarly record

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Create

Fix

Use

Collect

Factors impacting stewardship …

• Increasing volume of content

• Increasing diversity/complexity of content

• Increasing distribution of custodial responsibility

‘local copies’ of scholarly record are increasingly partial

discovery and management are increasingly fragmented

coherence of scholarly record is reduced

Questions for academic library consortia

• Is available cooperative infrastructure adequate to

support deeper collaboration around collections

management, custodial care of scholarly record?

• Do existing consortia represent the right mix of

stakeholders for collaborative stewardship

arrangements?

• How can consortial efforts ‘scale up’ to meet

system-wide stewardship needs? What mechanisms

are needed to federate group-scale approaches?

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Thanks for your attention.

©2014 OCLC. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Suggested attribution: “This work uses content from [presentation title] © OCLC, used under a Creative Commons Attribution license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/”

malpasc@oclc.org

@ConstanceM

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