When Rubber Meets the Road:

Rethinking Your Library Collections

Roger C. Schonfeld

Manager of Research, Ithaka S+R

Charleston Conference

November 5, 2010

ITHAKA is a not-for-profit organization that helps the academic

community use digital technologies to preserve the scholarly

record and to advance research and teaching in sustainable ways.

We pursue this mission by providing innovative services that aid in

the adoption of these technologies and that create lasting impact..

Our Mission

• Ithaka S+R is a research and consulting service that focuses on

the transformation of scholarship and teaching in an online

environment, with the goal of identifying the critical issues facing

our community and acting as a catalyst for change.

• JSTOR is a research platform that enables discovery of, access

to, and preservation of scholarly content.

• Portico is a digital preservation service for e-journals, e-books,

and other scholarly e-content.

Our Services

Ithaka S + R – Research Areas and Sample Projects

Sustainability of Digital Resources

» Sustaining Digital Resources: An On-the-Ground View of Projects Today

The Role of the Library

» What to Withdraw: Print Collections Management in the Wake of Digitization

Practices and Attitudes in Scholarly Communications

» Ithaka S+R Faculty Survey 2009

Teaching and Learning with Technology

» Unlocking the Gates: How and Why Leading Universities Are Opening Up

Access to Their Courses

Scholarly Publishing

» University Publishing in a Digital Age

What Users Want

Roger C. Schonfeld and Ross Housewright,

Faculty Survey 2009:

Key Strategic Insights for Libraries, Publishers, and Societies

(April 2010)

http://www.ithaka.org/ithaka-s-r/research/faculty-surveys-2000-2009/faculty-survey-2009

Faculty members from the U.S.; most disciplines but no health sciences; 3,025 completed

responses, for an 8.6% response rate that is representative of the sample.

The print to electronic transition for current issues

“If my library cancelled the current issues

of a print version of a journal but continued

to make them available electronically,

that would be fine with me.”

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Humanities Social Sciences Sciences

2003 2006 2009

» Support for cancelling local

print subscriptions in favor of

online-only access has grown

steadily

» Although there are disciplinary

differences, essentially all

disciplines are moving in the

same direction

» Certain disciplines such as art

history and Asian Studies are

outliers

The print to electronic transition for journal backfiles

“Assuming that electronic collections of

journals are proven to work well and are

readily accessible, I would be happy to

see hard-copy collections discarded and

replaced entirely by electronic collections.”

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Humanities Social Sciences Sciences

2003 2006 2009

» Note this question measures

enthusiasm

» Enthusiasm for replacing print

collections of backfiles with

electronic-only access has

grown significantly

» Lots of initiatives by libraries to

consolidate collections.

Although growing steadily in perceived importance,

are e-books suitable for a format transition?

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Databases of academic

journals

E-books

Percent of faculty responding “very important” to “For each item that you

use, please indicate how important that item is to your research or your

teaching”

2006 2009 2009 (predicting importance 5 years from now)

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Humanities Social Sciences Sciences

Strong agreement with “Within the next five years, the use of e-books will be so prevalent among faculty and students

that it will not be necessary to maintain library collections of hard-copy book.”

2006 2009

What users want

For scholarly journals, user needs are moving steadily away

from print versions.

Faculty members’ needs are changing more slowly than those

of students.

Other material types may have different affordances.

The Library Dilemma

User needs for print journals are steadily migrating away from

print formats.

Growing institutional perception that print collections are no

longer used.

Push for reduction of library expenses, at least for print

collections.

Libraries must take a more vital role in the lives of their users

than as managers of print collections.

Strategic inputs

The tactics are more complicated than the strategy

» User needs may be shifting, but in many fields they are not uniform.

» Online availability is growing steadily, but many journals are not yet

available online or not reliably so.

And, in serving the needs of the parent institution, do we

threaten shared values associated with preservation and

access?

But -

Is It a Balance?

Mission

alignment:

Reduce print

collections

investment

Shared

values:

Maintain

preservation

role

Or Can We Find Alignment?

Reduce print collections investment

Maintain shared values

One opportunity: library collaborations to ensure preservation

while increasing flexibility in print journal collection

management

Requirements:

» Achieve consensus around shared values

» Select a model for a sustainable trust networks

Alignment

Achieving Consensus on Shared Values

» Shared values are not always well-specified.

» Visions for operationalizing shared values can differ.

» Achieving consensus among librarians can be complex.

» Achieving consensus with other stakeholders can seem

impossible.

» A research-based scientifically-driven model can help.

The Consensus Challenge

A Variety of Approaches for Journals

» UK Research Reserve: 1-3 copies in the UK

» University of California shared print: 1 validated copy in the

UC system.

» WEST: Conditions associated with preservation will vary by

digitization status and availability.

Ithaka S+R’s Approach

» Risk-informed

» Research-based

» Science-driven

Three steps

1. Define rationales for print preservation

2. Based on these rationales, categorize materials according to their

relative preservation needs

3. Use an operations research methodology to determine the levels

of print preservation required for each category

What to Withdraw: Print Collections Management in

the Wake of Digitization

For journals following digitization, sources of risk include:

» Scanning errors

» Inadequate scanning standards & practices

» Inadequate digital preservation

» Unreliable access

Recommendation: 20 year minimum retention for “ideal

scenario”

Requirement: A minimum of 2 page-validated, non-

circulating copies.

Roger C. Schonfeld and Ross Housewright,

What to Withdraw: Print Collections Management in the Wake of Digitization (September 2009)

http://www.ithaka.org/ithaka-s-r/research/what-to-withdraw

Modeling Sustainable Trust Networks

for Collaboration

System Structure

Locally

Governed

Centrally

Governed

System Structure

Locally

Governed

Centrally

Governed

Library Special

Collections

National

Archives

Incentive-Driven

Trust Networks

Knitting Together Regional Print Initiatives

Assumptions

» Existing incentives have already led some libraries to create

regional print repositories for space-saving or last-copy retention

» Sufficient print preservation concerns as an incentive to bind

regional initiatives together

Method

» Information sharing and analysis re preservation activities.

» What to Withdraw analysis: can my library withdraw our copy?

» For other materials, regional print repositories accession

additional copies to allow their members to save space.

Concerns

» How to pay for the information sharing and analysis?

» Is print preservation an adequate incentive over time?

What to Withdraw: Supporting Library Decisions

Ithaka S+R’s Proof of Concept Decision-Support Tool

» focuses on JSTOR-digitized journal titles

» based on holdings in JSTOR-affiliated print repositories

» freely available online

» permits libraries to assess what can be withdrawn without preservation

risk

We hope to develop a more mature holdings analysis system

» holdings analysis for all interested print archiving entities

» decision support for all digitized journals

Implications – for journals

In the absence of central planning, libraries can withdraw print

holdings as appropriate in local institutional context without

threatening the shared value of their long-term preservation.

In developing collections management strategies, libraries can

use an accepted system-wide framework in communicating

with campus stakeholders.

By bringing collections management to the system level,

libraries can deploy scarce collections management and

preservation resources more effectively, and ultimately

provide better services in support of research and learning.

Government Documents – GPO recently contracted with Ithaka

S+R to develop new models for the Federal Depository

Library Program that are practical and sustainable in a

digital environment.

» Please follow our progress and share your perspectives and

suggestions at fdlpmodeling.net

Monographs – How will libraries rethink the role of monograph

collections, based on digitized versions available through

Google Books and HathiTrust?

» CLIR’s The Idea of Order

» Cloud Library project among NYU, Recap, OCLC

And – other content types

The issue in your conference bag features articles on

Managing Our Collections in a Digital Age –

» Emily Stambaugh of the University of California on WEST’s model

for sharing journal collections across libraries

» Frances Boyle on the UK Research Reserve for preservation of

and access to journal holdings

» Bob Kieft on Occidental College’s collections management

initiative, which prominently features monographs

» Judy Russell of the University of Florida on government documents

collections and services and the ASERL initiative

» Ross Housewright of Ithaka S+R on library strategic planning

Finally – Against the Grain

When Rubber Meets the Road:

Rethinking Your Library Collections

Roger C. Schonfeld

rcs@ithaka.org

Twitter: @rschon