Whither Print: A Library Whitepaper on Redefining Print Collections in the Digital Age

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1 Whither Print: A Library Whitepaper on Redefining Print Collections in the Digital Age Collection Managers Group: Mark R. Watson - Facilitator Cara List - Humanities Fund Group Leader Miriam Rigby Social Sciences Fund Group Leader Dean Walton Natural/Physical Sciences Fund Group Leader Consultants: Dave Fowler Head, Licensing, Grants Administration & Collection Analysis Rose Layton Renewals Unit Supervisor Ann Miller Head, Collection Services Rosemary Nigro Acquisitions Librarian 1

2 Presently, American research libraries sit at the cusp of the most profound change in their operations since the Second World War brought the nation s national interest and the research activities of universities into close alignment. The development of the Internet resulted from research conducted on behalf of the Department of Defense at our universities, and the technology boom that this invention ushered into existence has, in turn, fostered the potential for ubiquitous of information access access which now challenges the very foundation underlying the development of vast collections of printed literature in our nation s libraries. At many of our universities, the cherished goal in previous centuries was to build a facility capable of holding vast printed collections collections that would attract scholars with the capacity to build a great research university, regardless of the proximity of the institution to larger population centers. This model for collection development and access, embraced in the face of a scarcity of information, is today becoming less and less relevant to our core mission. As resource sharing and the ability of our institutions to share information about our holdings solidified, reliance upon the broader network of research libraries to help deliver needed resources grew. The digitization and delivery of aggregated content is putting further pressure on the notion that information is a scarce commodity, especially for those resources that are widely accepted as residing in the public domain. The landscape of research libraries includes the management of vast, highlyredundant collections of printed resources for which readily accessible digital instantiations are increasingly available the opportunity exists for our institutions to not only work together to profoundly influence the landscape in which we provide access to cultural resources but to profoundly influence the mechanisms by which we ensure persistence of the printed record. From: HathiTrust Constitutional Convention, Ballot Proposal 1 2

3 Bird s-eye View: Scholarly publishing, dissemination, discovery and use is moving online Secure digital versions exist for millions of titles Print collections available in electronic form are receiving less and less use Library stacks are crowded and keeping print books on the shelves is expensive Demand for better facilities and expanded user services is increasing Many copies of the same titles exist in many research libraries Research libraries are forming alliances to preserve shared print collections Reducing duplication and adopting shared print creates savings and frees resources Research libraries are withdrawing print in order to re-purpose high value space and relieve crowding Whither Withdrawal: A Case for De-Accessioning The academic research library does not find its purpose in storing books, journals, microfilm, nor any other format designed to carry information. Rather, the library achieves its highest purpose when it manages all of the resources at its disposal to maximize the creation, dissemination and preservation of knowledge. The challenges that each research library faces in realizing this purpose derive from the multiplicity of constituents for whom this knowledge is important, the various ways in which collections have been developed over time and the constraints induced by finite resources. Without question, one of the biggest changes to the way that library collections have developed over the past decade is the rapid transition from print to electronic media. All institutions are spending a greater proportion of acquisitions budgets on electronic resources. Even though this transition is dependent on the academic discipline, the average percentage of material expenditures on electronic resources by libraries within the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) comprises 62% of collection budgets. At the UO, print-only journals make up a mere 6% of the 90,666 current serial titles. In 2009/10, the number of electronic books (e-books) increased by 21.7% while the number of print volumes changed 0.9%. Across the board, the results of research and scholarship are moving online to a greater and greater extent. Adaptation to what is being called the electronic age is bringing about changes in the way that users access and work with collections and in the ways that libraries are beginning to manage them. Data collected about the way that information resources are used the UO shows that full-text article downloads now account for 72% of patron use. UO produced digital collections account for an additional 12%. Print circulation is down to 6% of total use. The result is that a very long tail of print materials shelved in the stacks rarely circulate, if ever. A Cornell University Task Force on Print Collection Usage found that 55% of books purchased since 1990 have never circulated and that 65% of books purchased in 2001 had not circulated by the end of Research libraries exist at the epicenter of this digital transition and are compelled to respond to this dynamic where discovery and research is moving online, but the majority of library space is devoted to print collections that are receiving less and less use. The insatiable demand for online resources is mirrored by an increasing demand on the part of users for new and expanded library services. Students seek out spaces in the library for study by themselves and in groups to access technologies, to work with media, to practice presentations, to attend classes, 3

4 to pick up food and beverages activities that underline the importance that library as place plays in the learning process. Unfortunately, as Scott Bennett, University Librarian Emeritus, Yale University points out, research libraries have sacrificed reader accommodation to the imperatives of shelving. The crowding out of readers by reading material is one of the most common and disturbing ironies in library space planning. User space is at a premium. A huge amount of valuable space is devoted to warehousing little used collections. It s not farfetched to wonder if the opportunity costs outweigh the real and considerable yearly storage costs of $4.26 per volume. In response to the mass digitization of print journal collections, research libraries are taking concrete steps to realize the lost opportunity costs associated with storing bound volumes that receive less and less use. At the University of Oregon, the UO Libraries have entered into two different memorandums of understanding that have been reviewed for legal sufficiency. These MOUs govern the UO Libraries participation in the Orbis Cascade Alliance Distributed Print Repository (DPR) and the Western Regional Storage Trust (WEST). In both cases, the UO Libraries has agreed to preserve copies of selected print journals in perpetuity. Other libraries that have also signed the MOU have agreed to do the same. All of the JSTOR I & II titles that have been proposed for withdrawal are represented in these shared collections. This means that UO scholars are guaranteed that each journal will be available in print form. Even if the UO Libraries withdraws a journal for which it is not responsible for holding, the print will be accessible via another holding library through the interlibrary loan system. Having provided full-text content in electronic form and having secured the cooperative preservation of print in the event that it is needed, libraries are now in a position to work with faculty to draw down print collections in a responsible manner. Creating space within the stack core will allow for the transformation of library facilities in a way that expands the opportunities for users to study, collaborate, create and innovate. It should also be pointed out that short of pro-actively expanding user space, the need to reclaim space, if only to relieve pressure once shelving capacities are reached, is an inevitable outcome of continued collection growth. In arguing the case for de-accessioning in the digital age, the debate is only superficially about retaining print or withdrawing it from library shelves. The argument is really about the future of the research library and its purpose moving forward. What type of collections will be acquired and in what formats? What services will be offered to library users? And, what uses will be made of the vast, high quality space currently occupied by miles and miles of shelving? Resources: Reimagining the Academic Research Library. Custom Research Brief. Education Advisory Board, Redefining the Academic Library, Part II: Managing the Migration to Digital Information Services. Education Advisory Board, What to Withdraw? Print Collections Management in the Wake of Digitization. Ithaka S+R, Challenges and Possibilities for Collection Management in a Digital Age. Library Resources & Technical Services 54(3). Tony Horava. University of Oregon Libraries Annual Report,

5 Whither Peers: A Glimpse into What is Happening in Research Libraries: The UO Libraries is not alone in confronting a landscape where the print versions of journals go largely untouched in favor of digital versions that, when available, meet virtually all user needs, while competing needs for library space have continued to mount. Many of its ARL peers are either relocating or withdrawing titles. A recent, informal survey of ARL library directors revealed the following with respect to JSTOR titles in print: ARL Library Still on the In Storage Withdrawn Shared Archive Comments shelves for Print Purdue Last 5 years Alabama Brown Selected titles Connecticut Five Colleges No requests for use in 5 years Northwestern Selected titles CRL Not a single request for print Washington (St. Louis) Selected titles No requests for items in storage BYU Michigan Selected titles Indiana 1994 to present Through 1994 Washington (Seattle) Selected titles JSTOR I & II Orbis Cascade Alliance & WEST Pennsylvania No use of print Utah Louisville Cornell Selected titles UCSD Selected titles WEST UCLA WEST Maryland Chicago Ohio State Selected titles Nebraska- Selected titles Lincoln Johns Hopkins Systematic withdrawal Iowa State All duplicates No negative reactions Pittsburgh Penn State Selected titles Houston 5

6 Temple Selected titles 75% of all JSTOR Arizona State Selected titles Texas Joint with Texas A&M Kentucky Wayne State A few titles Iowa A few exceptions Arizona No requests in 11 years Illinois (Chicago) Selected JSTOR II JSTOR I JSTOR II Titles Kansas Selected titles Missouri (Columbia) Rochester Selected titles Based on this sample, ARL libraries are either moving JSTOR titles into storage and/or moving forward with de-accessioning, especially in cases where shared repository agreements assure preservation of the print. Some ARLs are going ahead and withdrawing the JSTOR titles, but most are relocating the volumes to storage and leaving selected titles in the open stacks. Regardless of what action a library is taking, no one is reporting any significant use of the print. Unfortunately for the UO and OSU, there are no current options for remote storage. OUS has twice put a $13,000,000 storage facility on its capital construction request, but the project has never been funded by the Oregon State Legislature. Instead of being able to transition the JSTOR volumes from the open stacks to storage to eventual withdrawal, Oregon research libraries need to move from placement in the open stacks to de-accessioning and reliance upon distributed print repository agreements. On the surface this approach may sound less incremental and direr, but, in fact, it will save costs associated with placing materials in off-campus storage and rely instead on the UO s library partners to maintain preservation copies of print for use when needed. It should be also noted that the UO itself will also serve in the role of archive holder for selected JSTOR print titles. Whither Outcry: Faculty Concerns about the Removal of Print: Research libraries find themselves in a difficult situation: competing needs for library space continue to mount; the value of local physical collections has fallen precipitously where use has moved online; the direct costs of maintaining open stacks full of print has not changed significantly. Many libraries see the increasing disparity between the cost and the value of maintaining local print journal back file collections and have decided that large-scale de-accessioning of these materials is an increasingly rational choice. Yet getting rid of print remains a controversial proposition at least in some sectors of the university. Cautionary tales abound like the fury generated at Syracuse University Library in 2009 when Dean of Libraries, Suzanne Thorin, proposed moving print titles to a remote storage facility. Angry messages made the rounds, and a letter of protest was circulated by the English department. At the UO, faculty in the Romance Languages Department sent a letter to the Dean of 6

7 Libraries requesting reconsideration of an announced intent to begin the process of de-accessioning of JSTOR I & II titles. A closer look at the arguments for retaining JSTOR print titles in the open stacks is merited in order to highlight the facets of moving to a system where access to print is provided by reliance upon a shared print repository. In the Humanities, we find that going to the stacks and reading the original journals, or books, even if they are a hundred years old is fundamental for our ways of doing research. One facet: there are strong arguments for keeping print journal in the open stacks. The arrangement puts titles in context and allows for serendipitous discovery. Scholars often report the experience of looking for a particular book or an article and discovering an unknown gem that is even more important or relevant for their work. This activity in the stacks tends to go unnoticed, especially if users re-shelve their own volumes, and usage is not recorded in circulation statistics. Hence, the data used to make the argument that use is nearly non-existent present a skewed version of what is really happening. Another facet: serendipitous discovery is indeed a good thing but how many of the users who say that they need to browse the shelves actually come to the library any longer? Furthermore, the browsing experience has always been compromised by factors like the size of the collection, limited funding to build collections, space constraints and selection patterns over time. Materials in circulation or those placed in storage are not on the shelves for browsing, plus the physical arrangement of the collections does not always group related materials together (e.g., oversize, rare, etc.). In many cases, the JSTOR print runs in the UO Libraries collection contain significant gaps often lacking early volumes/issues of a given title. Finally, virtual discovery increasingly offers distinct advantages over browsing by allowing users to search huge repositories, employ faceted browsing, full-text searching and take advantage of tools for translation and definition. Having to summon a journal issue, even if it arrives the next day, slows the research process exponentially. Once facet: good library service will provide users with the materials at the point of their need in a quick and efficient manner. There is no doubt that the trend in research libraries away from storing print in the open stacks (or even in remote storage facilities) requires that libraries take a hard look at the quality of their resource sharing workflows and document delivery systems. These services need to be robust, easy to use and responsive to user needs. Another facet: the withdrawal of print is based on some assumptions that make a delay in the research process a curious argument for keeping bound journals in the open stacks. Libraries have invested in huge and expensive databases of full-text that are available to authorized users at network speed. Users can access the content of the JSTOR I & II journals faster than ever before. The assumption is that the need for print is much, much lower in this environment. Feedback from other libraries indicates that this is indeed the case. 7

8 A flagship institution s library should be able to deliver hard copies of specialized scholarly sources to scholars from near and far. One facet: it is true that the prestige of a research library has been based on the strength of its holdings for a very long time. Only within the past few years has the Association of Research Libraries changed its overall measure of a library s quality from a metric founded on total volumes to one based on inputs. In days before and leading up to the widespread availability of electronic resources, users depended on the university library to collect as widely, deeply and comprehensively as possible. Just in case collection development tried to anticipate the current and future research needs of faculty. In an age where the slogan Content is King became popular, research libraries tried to amass as much content as possible. Another facet: In 2008, the Council on Library and Information Resources produced an influential report, entitled No Brief Candle: Reconceiving Research Libraries for the 21 st Century. In a series of provocative essays, the report demands change, including the redefinition of libraries as multiinstitutional entities because the current model of the library as a stand-alone service provider to the university is obsolete. The report boldly calls for exploiting digital networks and emerging digital libraries and research environments and states that libraries should de-accession duplicate copies of printed books, form coalitions that minimize costs for collection development, and consider sharing staff on a consortial, federated basis. This type of collaboration can generate savings that the library can then allocate to other activities supporting teaching and research. This concept of a research library represents a paradigm shift that transfers worth from the premise that an excellent research library has everything in its collection that a faculty member might want or eventually need to the idea that, by acting in concert, multiple libraries can stretch limited resources across multiple budgets to achieve this comprehensive coverage. We are on the cusp of a technological shift but we are not there yet. As when older manuscript sources and the new printed books co-existed for generations, printed books and digital content will co-exist for generations. And while the content is securely available online, the format is not equally user-friendly for all facets of the research process. One facet: the death of the book and the printed page has been pronounced many times but these exemplars of the analog age are doing just fine thank you very much. Even though Google has digitized tens of millions of books, there remain tens of millions more that exist only in print, unlikely ever to be put under the cameras of a high-speed scanner. In the 21 st century, the printed book is a highly refined descendant of its 15 th century ancestors that rolled off the first printing presses. Adapted to the human form, portable, easy to produce, lend and borrow the scholarly book is ideally suited for research a near perfect tool in the laboratory of the humanities. Another facet: the technological shift is happening faster than many of us expected. Although the total number of print volumes in the UO Libraries now tops 3 million, annual growth is a mere 0.9%. The number e-books added to the collection grew by 21.7% in the past year and the number of online monographs is expanding rapidly (300,000+). At present, 94% of the journal literature provided by the UO Libraries is now in electronic format. Taking into account the caveat above about usage, circulation stats indicate that print accounts for only 6% of total use. In contrast, full-text article downloads make up 72% of patron use and UO produced digital collection account for an additional 12%. 8

9 Whither Process: Key Criteria and Considerations in Withdrawal Assessment: Regardless of whether or not members of the library community envision a future for the management of print collections that is at odds with the ideas of some faculty members at the institutions where the libraries are located, the process of coming to terms with the situation must involve dialogue and mutual problem-solving. Let s stake out the opposed positions that seem relatively entrenched. The library maintains that the time is right to begin de-accessioning print in cases where the content has moved online and access to the print has been secured through legally sufficient MOUs that govern distributed repositories. Faculty maintain that re-locating or downsizing collections is a drastic and inappropriate undertaking that will result in palpable harm to humanities research and teaching. Is there a compromise that can be reached through mutual consultation and agreement? Is it possible that there are JSTOR I & II titles that the UO Libraries can de-accession and others that it can leave on the shelves? Can an all or nothing scenario be avoided? It would be nice to think so, and it might also be possible by using a few key criteria to decide which titles can be withdrawn. 1. Have patrons stopped making use of the print? o Print does not circulate o Library staff members are not re-shelving print volumes 2. Can patrons access the content electronically? o The content is available in cover-to-cover full-text 3. Can the print be obtained through ILL or a consortial borrowing agreement? 4. Is another library preserving the print in perpetuity? 5. Is the print something that the library must preserve locally? Can we agree that if the answers to questions 1-4 are all yes, that the answer to question 5 can be no, providing that faculty can always present extenuating arguments against the withdrawal of any given title? Using these criteria, can the library begin to reclaim and re-purpose space and faculty retain confidence that the print titles of most importance to their teaching and research will be safely preserved either within the UO Libraries or at another institution? Let s find out. Let the consultation begin. 9