From: Sean Andrews <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:20:43 -0600

> From: Wilhelmina Randtke <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 23:06:05 -0500
>
> Do you mean work to do tracking down individual articles?  If you mean work to do getting more comprehensive access through subscriptions, then students getting exposure to the broader range of resources is an issue as well as professors getting access.  I wonder if widespread alumni access to databases would shift the expectations on libraries. It's a bigger deal if professors tend on average to come from better ranked universities than they teach at.

****

I mean just basic access.  And it isn't necessarily about rank but
about size and emphasis. I studied at a large state university, which
had broad access to a variety of disciplinary sources in support of
its graduate and professional programs. For my purposes as a student,
it was helpful to have access to their extensive list of economics,
history, and law journals (along with the culture and media focused
ones I needed for my own work).  After graduation, so far as I know, I
wasn't able to access those resources.  I now am a faculty member at a
mid-sized private school with a focus on arts and media (so all those
more professional resources in law and economics are not in their
holdings) and a fellow at a small liberal arts college (whose access
is significantly less).

As a faculty member (and fellow), I have a broader set of research
interests than either of the schools I work - something I'm aware of
because I used to have access to it at the larger university.  I would
say it would shift my expectations of my local libraries significantly
if I had access to that large collection at the large university
through some sort of alumni arrangement.

In many cases, I already look for other ways to get it before going
begging at the schools that house me.  It's much faster to ask
colleagues elsewhere to use their access - something I suspect is
widespread among faculty in similar circumstances.  In general, I
don't rely much at all on my library for my own access to digital
resources, believing it's really there to help the students.  If I had
alumni access I'd likely never use it at all except to check on a
resource for my courses or arrange for the occasional print materials
(often via consortium or ILL).  I suppose there's a significant
opportunity for unbundling here if libraries/colleges at large could
arrange for it.

Sean