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

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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

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Group-scale: Boston Library Consortium

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17 librariesLiberal 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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Largest print book

collectionin BLC is

>100X greater

than smallestcollection

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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%‘coverage

requires

cooperation’

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At every scale…

ChiPitts

58%

SoCal

47%

Charlanta 67%

coverage requires collaboration

regional coverage

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>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

Shared Print Titles in WorldCat April 2014

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Boston College

Williams College

U Mass Amherst

Median duplicati

on

23% as of May

2013

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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

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Stewardship of the scholarly record

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

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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?

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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