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"Is digital different? New trends and challenges in acquisition and collection development" IFLA Preconference Munich, 30 - 31 July 2003
Alice Keller, ETH Library Zurich
Should Consortia Replace Local Collection Development?
Should Consortia Replace Local Collection Development?
…. of course they shouldn’t!
But why not, actually?
Collections are caused to:• grow, • become larger,• more advanced.
• Good collections don’t develop by chance or coincidence, but by careful planning and selection.
Collection Development: What does it mean?
• Collections are developed along collection profiles defined by user requirements.
• The limits to collection building are– financial constraints,– available space,– resources for processing.
Collection Development: What sets the limits?
• Speaking to colleagues, financial constraints are the greatest limit to collection development: Most librarians would
agree that they should have more funds to fulfil all user requirements.
Collection Development: What sets the limits?
User requirements
Funds
Which are the Users’ Requirements?
Nice to have
Important to have
Core requirements
Which are the Users’ Requirements?Looking at E-Journals at ETH Library
E-Journal Usage: All Titles
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ETH Library, 3’000 e-journals, 12 months 2001
E-Journal Usage: All Titles
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ETH Library, 3’000 e-journals, 12 months 2001
Focussing on Journals with fewer than 100 Downloads
Focussing on Journals with more than 3’000 Downloads
• Science, Am.Assoc.Adv.Science
• Nature, Macmillan • PNAS, Nat.Acad.Sciences • Journal of Biological Chemistry,
ASBMB• Journal of the ACS, ACS• Lecture Notes in Computer
Science, Springer• Journal of Organic Chemistry,
ACS• Cell, Cell Press• Tetrahedron Letters, Elsevier• Organic Letters, ACS
• Physical Review Letters, APS• Journal of Chemical Physics, AIP• Chemical Communications, RSC• Journal of Physical Chemistry A,
ACS• Physical Review B, APS• Journal of Cell Biology, Rockefeller
Univ. Press• Biochemistry, ACS• Nature Biotechnology, Nature
America• Applied Physics Letters, AIP• Tetrahedron, Elsevier• EMBO Journal, OUP
ETH Library, 3’000 e-journals, 12 months 2001
• 8,3% of the e-journals were never accessed during 2001.
• A further 53% are not accessed more than 50 times.
• 22 journals are accessed more than 3000 times.
Few journals are consulted heavily, many journals are consulted very rarely.
ETH Library, 3’000 e-journals, 12 months 2001
Which are the Users’ Requirements?Looking at E-Journals at ETH Library
Which are the Users’ Requirements?Looking at Databases
• 34% of all accesses are to one database alone.
• 60% of all accesses are to the top 5 databases.
ETH Library, 80 databases with usage statistics, 12 months 2002
Which are the Users’ Requirements?
Nice to have
Important to have
Core requirements
• Financial advantages• Extension of library
collection• Inclusion of new
material Cross Access Additional Access
Consortium Consortium
Consortia - Advantages
• Consortia – especially Big Deals – offer a slice through all zones.
Consortium Consortium
Consortia - Facts
All 3 Consortia (Springer, AP, SciDirect)
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Journal in print collection Increased collection
Advantages of Big Deals: More Titles
ETH Library, 3’000 e-journals, 12 months 2001
All 3 Consortia (Springer, AP, SciDirect)
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Journal in print collection Article Cross Access
Advantages of Big Deals: Cross Access
ETH Library, 3’000 e-journals, 12 months 2001
Consortium Consortium
• Less money left for other materials.
• Consortia “dilute” collection profile.
Consortia - Disadvantages
Academic Libraries of the Future?
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Academic Libraries of the Future?
The Journal That Ate the Library
The Consortium That Ate the Library
GASCO
The Consortium That Ate the Library
GASCO
The Consortium That Ate the Library
Big Deal
Getting Things Right
• It is not consortia, but Big Deals, that are replacing local collection development.
Consortia Big Deals=?
Big Deals– Offer desirable short-term benefits and expanded
information access for users.– On the long run they will weaken the power of
librarians. – Librarians will lose the opportunity to shape the
content or quality of journal literature.
Short-term institutional benefits are achieved at long-term expense of the academic community.
(K. Frazier, 2001)
Getting Things Right: Big Deals
• Consortia – not Big Deals – mark the beginning of a new form of in-depth library cooperation.
• Consortia involve sharing of resources in many areas:
• collection building• computing expertise• server infrastructure• digital preservation• management of electronic resources• increased purchasing power
Getting Things Right: Consortia
New Opportunities for Consortia
• Consortia should be seen as a new hub of in-depth library collaboration in the area of collection development.
• Looking beyond licensing of commercial products:A consortium can act as an ideal nucleus for
innovative forms of library co-operation. This can include building up document
servers, launching digital archives or digitising material.
Finding the Right Partners
• Alliances are powerful tools for a competitive advantage.
• However, consortia are mostly formed on a regional/national basis.
• Powerful consortia should be alliances based on: common interests (e.g. subject areas) strategic or political goals (e.g. coalition of
large libraries of a city) technical co-operations (e.g. common IT
infrastructure)
