Collection Management
in a Digital Age:
‘Crouching Tigers’ and
a few strategies
Tony Horava
OLA SuperConference
Feb. 3, 2011
Agenda
• What is collection management today?
• What factors affect our understanding of a ‘collection’
• An environmental scan – the transformed world in
which we develop and manage collections
• A few ‘crouching tigers’ that we face
• Ideas and strategies to mitigate the challenges (taming
the tigers, or at least preparing ourselves better…).
Collection management – a
sampling of definitions:
– ‘Simply put, collection management is the systemic,
efficient and economic stewardship of library resources”
(Paul Mosher)
– “The goal of any collection development organization must
be to provide the library with a collection that meets the
appropriate needs of its client population within the limits
of its fiscal and personnel resources.” (Bonita Bryant)
– “Collection development is a term representing the process
of systematically building library collections to serve study,
teaching, research, recreational, and other needs of library
users.” (Michael Gabriel)
Key traditional activities under
this umbrella:
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Selection & acquisition of materials;
Collection development policy;
Assessment of patron needs;
Collection analysis;
Budget management;
Space management including storage
Community outreach & liaison
Resource-sharing arrangements
De-selection/cancellation & preservation
Traditional assumptions regarding
collections
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Ownership
Control
Tangibility (mostly on-site materials)
Permanence
Predictability (eg formats)
Comprehensiveness
Implicit pride and prestige for the institution
Implicit value judgements -privileging/selecting sources
– How much of this still holds true today?
Discoverability
“….if the library long tail is to be effectively prospected, then the
‘cost’ of discovering and using library collections and services
needs to be as low as possible”
- Lorcan Dempsey, “Libraries and the Long Tail” D-Lib
Magazine, April 2006
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/april06/dempsey/04dempsey.html
The challenge: how we lower the barriers in the fulfillment chain
- to aggregate supply and aggregate demand for information
resources and demonstrate our unique capabilities –in the
long shadow of Google Books.
Google forces us to demonstrate why a library collection is still
important as ever..
Snapshot of current landscape
• A post-control, media-rich, world defined by
participatory culture
• An exponential growth in available resources; the
information tsunami is forever
• Uncertainties of post-secondary funding in Ontario
• Flat or declining budgets
• Pressures to repurpose physical collection space for
learning & study purposes
• New and non-traditional forms of knowledge, eg oral
history, streaming audio and video, research datasets,
blogs, tweets, etc.
Snapshot of current landscape
(cont’d)
• Digital format becoming dominant
• Consortial acquisitions extremely important ; consume
large portion of collection budgets
• Challenge of aggregating supply and demand for online
information resources
• Challenge of adapting to new forms of scholarly
communication and information-seeking behaviours
• A swirl of research metrics to assess the impact of
authors, journals, and articles.
Content and containers
• The relationship between content and containers is
being challenged as never before – what happens when
we deconstruct the relationship?
• Content and interactivity now are intimately linked in
ways previously impossible before the digital era.
• Mining the collection to the smallest possible unit:
unlocking new possibilities for knowledge & learning
“We’ve always been burdened by the “stuff.”We are
about manuscripts, then books, and then digital files.
We are the People of the Container.”
- Mike Ridley, The Information Age is Over. It’s Toast. Done. OLA
Access May 2010
http://www.libraryng.com/sites/libraryng.com/files/RidleyInfoAge
Done.pdf
Core values
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Equity of access
Intellectual freedom
Privacy
Stewardship
Trustworthiness
Democracy
Commitment to literacy
How do we maintain core values while recognizing that our
collection management activities/workflows and
scholarly communication practices are undergoing
radical change?
Tech services backdrop
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Increasing demands with fewer staff ; much greater complexity of
work re digital resources.
Our collection strategies & budgets are predominantly digital – the
need to ‘right-size’ our tech services to allocate adequate staff to
manage digital resources: ‘Print Inversion Paradox’ (R2
Consulting)
Transformation of workflows: Creating more efficiencies and
matching staff skill-sets to evolving roles & responsibilities
required to support information management tasks, eg ordering,
receiving, payment, troubleshooting, etc.
E-resources management systems: critical for collection
maintenance and various workflows involving renewals, access,
licensing, etc.
What are the attributes of a
‘collection’ today?
• Embedded in multi-dimensional spaces, both virtual and
physical
• Sense-making function: translating information
resources into knowledge to solve problems
• Multiplicity of access channels and acquisition models
• More dynamic and user-centric than ever before
• A hybrid, distributed model - access or ownership
• Accountability and demonstrating value for money
• Anchored in learning and research outcomes
• Both an intellectual construct and a critical, tangible
presence that still defines the library: shrinking down to
micro devices while expanding across space and time.
Crouching tiger #1: Budget
allocation
• How do we determine budget allocation, to best meet
the research and curriculum priorities of the institution?
• Traditional budget structures (format, discipline, library)
are inadequate for the multiplicity of challenges today.
• The average ARL university library is spending “51% of
its materials budget on electronic resources.” (2008
report)
• Costs for ongoing commitments consuming an evergrowing portion of the collection budget
Budget allocation (cont’d)
• A few issues –
– deep interdisciplinarity of research;
– bundled resources;
– serials/monographs balance;
– consortial commitments;
– complex pricing models;
– resources that just ‘don’t fit’ in our budget structures
Multiple publishing models (from
Rick Anderson*
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‘The Unitary Chunk’ – one-off publications
‘The Pile-On’ – a cumulative collection
‘The Churning Constant’ – aggregator database
‘The Teenager’ – a collection that is growing over time
‘The Big Deal’ – committing to a spend level while
gaining access to an entire collection at low marginal
price
*’Managing Multiple Models of Publishing in Library Acquisitions’ Against
the Grain Feb 2010, 18-20
*Source: ARL Statistics 2005-06,
Association of Research
Libraries, Washington, D.C.
*Includes electronic resources
from 1999-2000 onward
http://www.stm-assoc.org/2010_04_16_STM_Journal_Publishing_in_2010.pdf
Crouching Tiger #2:
Unsustainability
• Major collision course between increase in journal
publication and budgets under severe pressure
• Increased usage is a double-edged sword: can justify
our expensive investments while allowing the vendor to
use unit costs per download as argument for increased
value and pricing.
• At the same time, new products/packages are
developed at a feverish pace
• Vendor business plan predicated on expanding their
market share, ie library take-up of new resources
Crouching Tiger #3: Information
Fragility
• The enormous challenges of digital preservation:
– Multiple possible scenarios for digital data loss;
– Scale of collaboration required;
– Policies and procedures;
– Human and technological resources;
– Organizational commitment
– And not ignoring the importance of print
preservation either...
• “How do scholars and librarians work together to ensure
that resources created today will be available in the
future?
- Deanna Marcum, “Preservation of Scholarship: The Digital Dilemma”
http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ffp0305s.pdf
Stewardship and uniqueness
correlates
Lorcan Dempsey and Eric Childress,
http://www.oclc.org/reports/escan/appendices/collectiongrid.htm
The many threats to digital
information...
“...these potential threats include media failure,
hardware failure, software failure, communication
errors, failure of network services, media and hardware
obsolescence, software obsolescence, operator error,
natural disaster, external attack, internal attack,
economic failure, and organizational failure.”
-Trustworthy Repositories Audit & Certification: Criteria
and Checklist. Chicago: OCLC and CRL, 2007
Crouching Tiger #3 : Information
Fragility (cont’d)
• Scholars Portal is working towards ‘Trusted Digital
Repository’ status to certify its commitment to preserve
purchased materials for which we have local loading and
perpetual access rights, in perpetuity.
• Involves - organizational infrastructure; risk
management infrastructure; comprehensive policies and
procedures
• What about information resources that can’t be
purchased or locally hosted, or can’t be loaded for
technical reasons? And what about analog collections?
Crouching tiger #4: The
Cancellation Monster
• Fiscal restraint means purchasing power is being
reduced in all libraries; cancellations will become more
frequent
• Spreading the pain equitably across disciplines or
research areas is a challenge, but can be an opportunity
to re-evaluate older decisions that may not apply any
more.
• Multi-year, locked-in commitments and the challenge of
the Big Deal – weighing pros and cons
• Key issues: Usage statistics, input from users, cost
considerations, interface/functionality issues.
Cancellation Monster (cont’d)
• Can be an opportunity to:
– Review usefulness of print subscriptions;
– Save money by switching from an unlimited license
to concurrent user model;
– Compare overlapping resources and cancel the less
valuable one;
– Determine whether an open access alternative
exists;
– Sensitize faculty and others to the cost of resources
(‘sticker shock’)
– Determine whether alternatives, eg ILL/docdel, are
good enough
Crouching Tiger #5: Risk Aversion
• Conservatism and risk aversion are endemic to educational
institutions
• We aim to be all things to all people, with respect to
delivering information resources
• We need to retain the best of our traditions -our values, our
experience, our knowledge—while embracing the
opportunities in a more imaginative & focused light.
– “For academic libraries, fostering a culture of “continuous
change” will require increasing agility, embracing
innovation and experimentation, and approaching the
unknown and the evolving with greater ease and sense of
opportunity” – Maloney, Antelman, Arlitsch, and Butler, “Future
Leaders’ Views on Organizational Culture” College & Research Libraries July
2010: 323.
Risk Aversion & innovation (cont’d)
• Innovation means many things to many people– how does it
support our strategic directions in regard to collections
activities?
• “...Invariably cheaper and faster, disruptive technologies are
often easier to use even if quality is not high and capacity is
not large at the outset. In general, disruptive technologies
require new service models and pricing structures that
challenge established organizations and the interests and
expertise of the individuals within them.
– Walter Lewis, “The Innovator’s Dilemma: Disruptive Change and
Academic Libraries,” Library Administration & Management 18, no.
2 (Spring 2004): 68-74.
Risk Aversion & innovation (cont’d)
• ‘Sustaining change’ (incrementally improving what we
currently do) vs ‘transformative change’ (paradigm
change to create a different value proposition for the
patron)
• To what extent do we embrace transformative change
and the opportunities/risks involved?
• To what extent do our organizations support a discourse
on transformative change? And an open dialogue on the
implications of making choices?
• Divergent or lateral thinking is a valuable tool to
develop for mapping the future (whether for collections
issues or more broadly)
Some strategies to consider
• #1:Focusing on what is sustainable
– Prioritizing our collection-related activities in light of
strategic goals, eg aligning ourselves with evolving
institutional needs and directions.
– Issues such as: wider use of approval plans;
streamlining tech service workflows; repurposing
physical space; optimizing resource access for
mobile devices; embedding librarians in academic
departments
– Viewing these issues through the lenses of scholarly
communication systems and information-seeking
behaviours of our diverse community, and
organizational efficiency
Strategies (cont’d)
• #2: Consider what a collection does rather than what a
collection is.
– The value of the tonnage model (size of collection)
has been largely replaced by the access model.
– The ways in which collection resources are integrated
into the researcher’s workflow is becoming critical for
the optimal use of the materials.
What tools do we have to support the informationseeking behavior of researchers and how do we
support interactivity and immediacy of access?
Some strategies (cont’d)
• #3: As our parent institutions are changing, so must
we.
– Our collection needs to reflect the changing
institution, such as: New areas of research;
realignment of departments/programs; new forms of
collaboration; impacts of interdisciplinarity; strategic
programs for the institution; new student
demographics; new information technologies
– Being attuned to the institutional pulse, we are able
to better argue for increased and targeted
commitment to the library collection profile.
Some strategies (cont’d)
• #4: In the multi-format universe, we need to make
strategic decisions about what formats we support
– Our world of “containers” is becoming very volatile,
fast-paced, and unpredictable
– Which formats will best support the value we bring
to our different audiences
– Which formats can be best integrated into our
technological infrastructure, and will be most usable
– Thinking about this in relation to preservation,
usability, and integration
Some strategies (cont’d)
• #5: Changing current practices will add value for our
patrons
– Disruption can be an opportunity for innovation and
refocusing our efforts.
– Important possibilities include patron-driven
acquisition models, pay-per-view models, print-ondemand, and creating alternative scholarly
publication models
– Can we help develop non-library sources of funding
to support the scholarly communications enterprise?
– The ‘just-in-case’ approach is giving way to ‘just-intime’: delivering the item at the point of need.
Some strategies (cont’d)
• #6: We need to seek the right balance between
competition and collaboration
– We collaborate in numerous ways, eg consortial
purchasing, interlibrary loan networks, shared
cataloguing, etc.
– But our institutions compete intensely for
researchers, funding, and students: our institutions
have agendas and interests on a very different plane
– The line between competition and collaboration is a
gray and shifting zone; the balance changes as
organizations change
Some strategies (cont’d)
• #7: We need to seek creative partnerships with
publishers and vendors
– Our relationships with publishers and vendors are
essential for success, eg discount agreements,
selection of materials, ordering and physical
processing workflows
– These partnerships will evolve in relation to new
opportunities and collection needs; they need us as
much as we need them.
– We need to maximize these relationships in relation
to new technologies, new institutional directions, and
the wide range of formats and specific collections &
resources available.
Some strategies (cont’d)
• #8: We need to measure collection value in new ways
– Accountability: how we determine return on
investment is a question of signal importance to
senior administrators and external stakeholders
– The importance of promoting learning outcomes to
measure tangible benefits of our collection activities,
eg The ACRL Library Guidelines for Higher Education.
– This can drive new indicators and insights into
understanding the ways our collection meets
research and teaching requirements – to
demonstrate value.
Some strategies (cont’d)
• #9: We need to exploit our understanding of the
collection to the best of our ability
– Meeting curricular needs but also addressing the
interdisciplinary nature of learning outcomes;
recognizing the intellectual, cultural, and social
needs of a diverse student body and professoriate
– Linking the value of the collection to information
competencies and analytical skills.
– Usage statistics need to tell a compelling story; raw
numbers aren’t enough.
Some strategies (cont’d)
• #10: Collection librarians need to expand their
traditional skills and expertise
– Developing a keen understanding of the scholarly
communications, publishing and technological
landscapes
– A passion for exploring new forms of knowledge and
new approaches to learning
– Imagination, leadership and creativity in how we
acquire and deliver information resources
– An ability to build innovative bridges with our patron
community
– Being an agent of change, of course!
The New Normal
• New forms of delivery and integration will be key to
defining collection value in the digital era
• As roles blur, we can re-imagine our role as collection
managers in our institutions in new ways – as curators,
collaborators, teachers, publishers, knowledge
managers
• The digital library has become mainstream, but print
will still be relevant in areas like humanities.
The New Normal
• Our collection investments need to be justified as never
before, in the face of many competing alternatives
• Promoting a deep engagement with our collections will
enable us to remain integral to scholarship and learning
• The ‘cloud’ collection – everywhere and nowhere – is
our new paradigm
• The future is highly dynamic and full of possibilities
Article references:
“Challenges and Possibilities for Collection Management in
a Digital Age” Library Resources and Technical Services
54 (3) July 2010: 142-52.
“Collection Management and Sustainability in the Digital
Age: Chasing the Holy Grail” Against the Grain 22 (6)
January 2011: 22-27.
Thanks! Any questions?
Sources
• Paul Mosher, “Collection Development to Collection
Management: Toward Stewardship of Library
Resources” Collection Management 4 no. 4 (1982): 45.
• Bonita Bryant, “The Organizational Structure of
Collection Development” Library Resources and
Technical Services 31 (1987): 118.
• Michael Gabriel, Collection Development and Evaluation:
A Sourcebook (Lanham: MD: Scarecrow, 1995), 3.