1. The Digital Transformation of
Scholarly Communication
Its Impact on Academic Libraries and
their Users

2. Libraries: Connecting People to
Information

3. Rate of Periodical Inflation
1989-99
1989-1999 % Change
Annual Cumulative Price Increase +3.1%
Cumulative CPI Increase +35.7%
Annual U.S. Periodical Price Index +11%
Increase (USPPI)
Cumulative USPPI for +183.9%

4. Acquisitions Budget Increase for
Oberlin Group 1999-2002
1999/00 2000/01 2001/02 2002/03
6.18% 6.7% 5.11% 2.66%

5. How We Spend our $$
Oberlin Group Data
Year 1999/00 2000/01 2001/02 2002/03
Books 36% 37.3% 34.3% 32.7%
Serials 49% 50% 50.1% 51%
Electronic 11.1% 11.8% 13.3% 15.55%
Resources

6. What Can We Stop Buying?
 Tri-college Study
 53% said print should be kept somewhere in Tri-Colleges; 39%
said e-only is fine
 DLF/CLIR Study
 Over 60% of respondents said keep everything
 Only 15% of respondents suggested we might not need to keep
print journals
 Varied by discipline:
 Physical Sciences, Law and Business 13%
 All other disciplines 7-8%
 Net effect of e-resources is additive, not substitutive

7. Other Collection Development
Issues
Have I got a deal for you!
Preserving these resources

8. Creating the Connection:
Cataloging and Metadata
Disappearing ink: the problems of
bibliographic control of e-resources
Aggregation/Dis-aggregation
Web sites
The “I know I used that journal last month,
why can’t I get to it today” problem

9. Helping Make the Connection
 Ensuring the resources are catalogued in the
OPAC
 Designing Web sites that help users locate these
resources
 Integrating resources into CMS
 Contracting with service providers like Serials
Solutions to maintain lists of e-journals
 SFX and other linking services, so that no matter
where a user starts their search, they can chain
through to needed resources

10. Why Can’t my Library Catalog
be more like Amazon?
In evaluating whether a book might be useful, the following
types of information are most helpful
 Table of Contents - 88%
 Reviews in Disciplinary Journals - 88%
 Preface/introduction - 72%
 Bibliography - 61%
 First chapter - 56%
 General book reviews - 56%

11. Why Can’t I Get …?
OCLC study found that a major barrier to
successful use of library resources is the
inability to access databases remotely due to
password and/or license restrictions
Printing management
Public computers: how many are enough?

12. Reference and Help Seeking
False confidence syndrome: Students are
very confident in their abilities to find
information; 3 of 4 say they are successful
in finding information needed for courses
and assignments
Only 20% ever use a reference librarian
80% prefer face to face contact when
seeking help

13. Interlibrary Loan
ILL
Lending increased 35% from last year (first
quarter data)
Borrowing increased 20% in same time period
Licenses restrict ability to ILL e-journals

14. What is our Competition?
 About 30% of faculty, graduate and undergraduate
students cite the library as a very important source
for information for keeping current
 Faculty most often responded that personal
subscriptions/libraries were very important
(55.9%)
 Students most often responded that the open
Internet was very important
 But varied by discipline

15.  Faculty report that 59% of information used in
research comes from the physical or virtual library
 Graduate students reported over 70%
 Undergrads reported that 66% of information
needed for coursework came from the library
 But they also reported using Internet sources about
the same percentage
 90% of students use library’s print resources

16. Where do Faculty and Students
do their Research?
 27% of Swarthmore faculty came into the library
at several times a week or more
 72% used online resources from home or office
several times a week or more
 Faculty reported that 74% of the time that they are
accessing info they are in their offices (contrasted
with 9.6% in library)
 90% of students access library web from home
and 80% prefer that form of access

17. Where do our Students Go to do
their Assignments?
 2001 study found 65% of Swarthmore students
started their research at the Catalog
 OCLC Study found 79% of college students first
choice web resource for most assignments are
search engines
 Only 40% said they used library web site for most
assignments
 Pew Study found 73% reported using Internet
more than library for information searching

18. What do Users Value?
Convenience
Speed
Ease of Access
Quality/accuracy
Currency
Coverage
Ability to search and to print

19. Is Information Overload a
Problem?
25% of students said it was
For small colleges, 90% of the downloads
were from journals previously not owned
by the library
Downloads of articles indicate significantly
higher use than print.
Recent survey of Oberlin Group found on
average 16,000 + JSTOR articles viewed

20. Academic Libraries Respond
 New collection development models
 New ways to manage the administrative data
Development of digital repositories
 Enhanced cataloging
 Linking services
 Dynamic library websites to provide alternative
ways to get to resources

21. Academic Libraries Respond
Library support for CMS
Systems to allow for remote access to these
resources
Printing and public computing management to
control costs and improve access
Online reference services
Library instruction
More support for ILL

22. Some Concluding Thoughts
What challenges remain?
 Integration of open Internet and library based
resources (RedLightGreen)
 Better design that reflects needs and practices
 Integration between print and online
 More backfiles
 Greater clarity about what’s available or not
 Ease of authentication for remote use of
proprietary sources