Challenges and
Opportunities for
Academic Libraries
Collaborative Imperatives to Support Collections,
Digital Initiatives, and New Services for a Changing
Academic Environment
Four Pillars of Library Work
•
•
•
•
Curation / Collection Building
Publishing / Dissemination
Engagement with research and learning
Creating and managing spaces devoted to
users and collections
Collaboration Axis
Research
&
Learning
Curation
Spaces
Publishing
Shared
Contextspecific
Network
Local
Courtesy: John Wilkin, Dean
University of Illinois Library
Trend 1: Collaborative Collection
and Curation
Challenges:
•Library funding is decreasing as proportion of university budget
•Collections funding is flat – we are just keeping-up with inflation
•Electronic resources take up increasing proportion of budget
Solutions:
Networked approach to collection development, digitization, and even
technical services spread costs for infrastructure and allow funds to
be allocated toward user needs.
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Declining share of resources
Library Expenditure as % of Total University Expenditure
(Average of 40 US Institutions Reporting Since 1982)
4.00%
3.80%
3.60%
3.40%
3.20%
3.00%
2.80%
2.60%
2.40%
2.20%
2.00%
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
1995
1993
1994
1992
1991
1990
1989
1988
1987
1986
1985
1984
1983
1982
1.80%
© Association of Research Libraries, 2012
Serial Expenditures in ARL Libraries, 1986-2009
Source: Kyrillido and Morris eds. (2011)
Digital Collections:
HathiTrust Digital Library is a
digital preservation repository
and highly functional access
platform. It provides long-term
preservation and access
services for public domain and
in copyright content from a
variety of sources, including
Google, the Internet Archive,
Microsoft, and in-house partner
institution initiatives.
Established in 2008
Currently Digitized
12,667,070 total volumes
6,489,942 book titles
330,942 serial titles
4,433,474,500 pages
568 terabytes
150 miles of shelving
10,292 tons of books
4,759,432 volumes(~38% of total) in
the public domain
http://www.hathitrust.org/home
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Annual Operating Cost of Hathi Trust
Year
Operations
2009
$1,932,830
2010
$1,364,750
2011
$1,969,476
2012
$2,034,749
2013
$1,724,396
Cooperative Collections:
• Shared Positions:
– Cornell U. and
Columbia: Slavic
Studies;
• Shared print
repositories:
– Print Journal
backfiles among 15
universities
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Trend 2: Data & Digital Scholarship
LOD Cloud Diagram as of September 2011CC BY-SA
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3.0 Anja Jentzsch
Data Services
The National Science Foundation and its federal partners commit to the direction by the
White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to develop policies in collaboration
with all stakeholders to accomplish full public access on behalf of science and the future
of the United States.
Image Credit: Thinkstock
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?
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cntn_id=127043
Data Services
Impact on Academic Libraries
•Open Data
•Data Plan Management
•“Big Data” Research
Within Library and Information Science Education
New programs focused on:
•Data Mining
•Data Curation
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Digital Scholarship
Spatial Humanities –
Mapping, GIS, Humanities
Scholars
Visualization through topic
modeling
Textual Analysis – using
large digitized collections to
analyze impossibly large
bodies of work.
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Web Archiving – Environmental
NGOs
•
•
•
•
•
•
Archive of web sites from
NGOs around the world
(currently over 100 sites)
Focus on Sustainable
Development
Attempt to collect &
preserve “grey literature”
from local, noninternational, organizations
Potential use for future
scholars
Could be preservation
option for organizations
Does not require
organization’s scarce
resources
http://webarchives.cdlib.org/a/WorldSustainability
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Digital Acquisitions – “Catch and
Release”
• Fund onsite digitization
within regions / countries
• Make resources available
in US without export of
cultural heritage
• Support new forms of
digital research
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Trend 3: New Service Models
Creating new spaces and modes of engagement
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International Reference Services
Slavic Reference Service:
•Established in 1976
•Funded by Library and grants from the
US State Department.
•Nearly 3,000 reference questions per
year to patrons around the world
•Focus on reference / access through ILL
and purchase
International Reference:
•Current strategic plan to expand on
Slavic model
•Hired International Reference Librarian in
Summer 2014
•Working with librarians across the Library
to integrate international into reference
services / develop new service areas –
Latin America etc…
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Engagement / Outreach
Reception for President of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Music and Culture
Lectures
Workshops
Film
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Thank You
Steve Witt
Associate Professor
Head, International and Area Studies Library
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
swwitt@illinois.edu
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