The River, the Pond, and the Future
of the Research Collection
Rick Anderson
Acting Dean
The Recent Past: a Quick Review
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1990s: The Gutenberg Terror comes to an end
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Stage 1: Journals
Stage 2: Books – piecemeal (NetLibrary, etc.)
Stage 3: Books – wholesale (Google, Hathi Trust)
2000s: Gutenberg is tamed and domesticated
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Print on demand
J. Willard Marriott Library
The Recent Past: a Quick Review
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Library hegemony comes to an end
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Massive drop in unit price of information
Radical increase in ease of finding
Ready reference becomes a social exercise
Full-text searching obviates the proxy record
Access (for many) becomes virtually ubiquitous
Meanwhile, librarians working busily to undermine
their own role as brokers (OA)
J. Willard Marriott Library
The Current Reality
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The collection is a bad guess at patron needs
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Massive budget cuts make collecting hard to defend
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Reference service is bypassed and unscalable
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The OPAC is completely eclipsed as a discovery tool
(even with WorldCat)
J. Willard Marriott Library
J. Willard Marriott Library
J. Willard Marriott Library
The Current Reality

The collection is a bad guess at patron needs

Massive budget cuts make collecting hard to defend

Reference service is bypassed and unscalable

The OPAC is completely eclipsed as a discovery tool
(even with WorldCat)

Circulation is down dramatically
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Gate counts are up, but the stacks are deserted
J. Willard Marriott Library
Circ Trends at the University of Utah
Initial Circs Per Enrolled Student
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
J. Willard Marriott Library
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
New Models
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Online  just-in-time (both e and p)
Online  breakdown of collection walls
Higher prices/less budget  less speculation
Higher prices/less budget  less archival purchasing
Less circulation  strong e-only momentum
Online + better data + higher prices + less budget  the end
of the Big Deal and of the Medium Deal (title-level journal
subscriptions) in favor of the Tiny Deal
Bottom line: Less collecting (ponds), more real-time brokerage
(access to the river)
J. Willard Marriott Library
What We Are Doing at UU
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Formalised stance: e-first/patron-first
PDA pilot programs: MyiLibrary, ebrary, NetLibrary, EBL
Espresso Book Machine
No more bibliographers/subject specialists
Instead, College & Interdisciplinary Teams
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SHEM (Science, Health, Engineering, Mines)
SEBS (Social Sciences, Education, Business, Social Work)
FAAPH (Fine Arts, Architecture/Planning, Humanities)
DOCMAPS (Documents, Maps)
MEDIA (Multimedia)
INTERINTER (International/Interdisciplinary)
J. Willard Marriott Library
Predictions
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The future of the library will not look much like a library
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Journals are going the way of the record album
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Small, focused local collections of books
Access to enormous public collections (Hathi, Google)
Few subscriptions, if any
No packages
A need for consolidated brokerage service at article level, not
title level
We’re headed back to a “song” economy
Journal publishers are going the way of the record label
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You can’t make as much on a 99-cent song as you can on a
$15 album
J. Willard Marriott Library
Stumbling Blocks
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Sclerotic librarians
Fainthearted library leaders
(Legacy accreditation structures)
(Legacy RPT structures)
(Justifiably) fainthearted publishers
Customer-focused competitors
J. Willard Marriott Library
Discuss!
Contact:
Rick Anderson
[email protected]
J. Willard Marriott Library