Should Consortia Replace
Local Collection
Development?
"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?
…. of course they shouldn’t!
But why not, actually?
Collection Development:
What does it mean?
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 sets the limits?
• 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?
User
requirements
Funds
• 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.
Which are the Users’ Requirements?
Core
requirements
Important to have
Nice to have
Which are the Users’ Requirements?
Looking at E-Journals at ETH Library
E-Journal Usage: All Titles
1400
No. of journals
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
ETH Library, 3’000 e-journals, 12 months 2001
2800
2600
2400
3000 and over
No. of full text dow nloads
2200
2000
1800
1600
1400
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0
0
Focussing on Journals with
fewer than 100 Downloads
E-Journal Usage: All Titles
600
400
300
200
100
No. of full text dow nloads
ETH Library, 3’000 e-journals, 12 months 2001
over 100
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
0
No. of journals
500
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
Which are the Users’ Requirements?
Looking at E-Journals at ETH Library
• 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 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?
Core
requirements
Important to have
Nice to have
Which are the Users’ Requirements?
What Would Consortia Ideally Include?
Consortium
What Do Consortia Usually Offer?
Consortium
Consortia - Advantages
• Financial advantages
• Extension of library
collection
• Inclusion of new
material
 Cross Access
 Additional Access
Consortium
Consortium
Consortia - Facts
• Consortia – especially
Big Deals – offer a slice
through all zones.
Consortium
Consortium
Advantages of Big Deals: More Titles
All 3 Consortia (Springer, AP, SciDirect)
400
300
200
Journal in print collection
Increased collection
ETH Library, 3’000 e-journals, 12 months 2001
MECH
PHYS
MED
MATH
EARTH
0
CHEM
100
BIOL
No. of journal titles
500
Advantages of Big Deals: Cross Access
50'000
40'000
30'000
20'000
Journal in print collection
MECH
PHYS
MED
MATH
EARTH
0
CHEM
10'000
BIOL
No. of full text downloads
All 3 Consortia (Springer, AP, SciDirect)
Article Cross Access
ETH Library, 3’000 e-journals, 12 months 2001
Consortia - Disadvantages
• Less money left for other
materials.
• Consortia “dilute”
collection profile.
Consortium
Consortium
Consortia - Disadvantages
Consortium
Consortium
Collection Development in a Consortial
Environment
Collection Development in a Consortial
Environment
Academic Libraries of the Future?
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
Academic Libraries of the Future?
The Journal That Ate the Library
The Consortium That Ate the Library
The Consortium That Ate the Library
The Consortium That Ate the Library
Getting Things Right
• It is not consortia, but Big Deals, that are
replacing local collection development.
Consortia
?
=
Big Deals
Getting Things Right: 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: Consortia
• 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
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)
The End
The Final End