Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2017 13:27:02 +0000

In response to Joseph J. Esposito’s query of how libraries need to change in a world where journals increasing are open access (both legally and illegally), in my view the answer begins with librarians needing to shift their focus to where libraries provide the highest unique value in support of the academic enterprise.  Specifically, the reconfiguration of research and scholarship in the networked digital environment should encourage a pivot in the focus of library collections beyond the traditional fixation on consumption of proprietary/toll-access periodicals:  that is, publishers sell as many journals as they can profitably produce and libraries buy subscriptions to as many titles as they can afford.

This transformation begins with librarians aggressively engaging in “right sizing” expenditures by focusing on continuing only the most critical subset of essential/core journal subscriptions, and thereby achieving significant permanent reductions in traditional spending patterns.  In tandem, when appropriate and to the greatest extent possible, collections and staffing dollars need to shift from simply acquiring content to offering products and services that enhance support for research beyond consumption to including its creation, capitalization/assessment, and when applicable curation/management.  By supporting research through the entire life cycle libraries can actually enhance their role and value.

As part of effecting this transition, librarians need to consider the opportunity costs of continuing past spending patterns focused on toll-access journals and not changing by investing in the acquisition/provision of other kinds of content.  When doing so, they could/should shift collections dollars from proprietary e-journals along the following lines:

•       Pursuing minimal rather than maximal acquisitions strategies for toll-access journals as “good enough” solutions, which means cancelling e-journals big deals whenever practical;

•       Supporting core pre-print services and open-access journals;

•       Moving expenditures from “outside-in” to “inside-out” collections that results in a service portfolio actively supporting their own researchers’ workflows and making it widely available rather than only accumulating content produced outside their institutions and expecting the resulting collections to exercise gravitational pull on researchers;

•       Acquiring other kinds of digital media, e.g., steaming high-quality video products that explain and demonstrate new procedures that help labs stay abreast of breakthrough innovations, save time in training and learning, and enhance the quality and effectiveness of research;

•       Acquiring more books, including cost-effective e-books collections that are not available elsewhere on the open internet.

•       Subscribing to services that improve discovery and the assessment of the value of research, including alt-metrics.

This transformation begins with reviewing and revising past collections practices.  As an essential component of creating a new internal and external narrative about collections and what they should be, librarians need to adopt a different and less conservative mindset and corresponding behavioral changes.  Based on present and probable future fiscal realities in a collecting world of plenty, this view encourages librarians to take calculated and bounded risks in changing collections philosophies, priorities, and strategies from those regnant in the past.  In conclusion, remaining a vital library entails becoming a different kind of library.

Luke Swindler

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Luke Swindler
Collections Management Officer
Davis Library CB #3918
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, NC  27599   USA
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TEL (919-962-1095)
FAX (919-962-4450)
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