The document discusses how libraries are moving away from traditional print collections (ponds) and toward providing on-demand access to digital information sources (rivers). It notes that reference services, physical collections, and the OPAC are becoming less important as discovery and access have moved online. The future of libraries is predicted to involve smaller local print collections but access to large public digital collections, fewer subscriptions in favor of pay-per-view article access, and libraries focusing more on brokering access rather than maintaining extensive local collections. Publishers are also predicted to move away from bundling journals in large packages toward an a la carte, transaction-based model.

1. Rivers vs. Ponds Why the Future of the Collection Is Not a Collection

2. The Recent Past: a Quick Review 1990s: The Gutenberg Terror comes to an end Stage 1: Journals Stage 2: Books – piecemeal (NetLibrary, etc.) Stage 3: Books – wholesale (Google, Hathi Trust) 2000s: Gutenberg is tamed and domesticated Print on demand

3. The Recent Past: a Quick Review Library hegemony comes to an end Massive drop in unit price of information Radical increase in ease of finding Ready reference becomes a social exercise Full-text searching obviates the proxy record Access (for many) becomes virtually ubiquitous Meanwhile, librarians working busily to undermine their own role as brokers (OA)

4. The Current Reality The collection is a bad guess at patron needs Massive budget cuts make collecting hard to defend Reference service is bypassed and unscalable The OPAC is completely eclipsed as a discovery tool (even with WorldCat) Circulation is down dramatically Gate counts are up, but the stacks are deserted

7. The Current Reality The collection is a bad guess at patron needs Massive budget cuts make collecting hard to defend Reference service is bypassed and unscalable The OPAC is completely eclipsed as a discovery tool (even with WorldCat) Circulation is down dramatically Gate counts are up, but the stacks are deserted

8. Circ Trends at the University of Utah

9. New Models Online  just-in-time (both e and p) Online  breakdown of collection walls Higher prices/less budget  less speculation Higher prices/less budget  less archival purchasing Less circulation  strong e-only momentum Online + better data + higher prices + less budget  the end of the Big Deal and of the Medium Deal (title-level journal subscriptions) in favor of the Tiny Deal Bottom line: Less collecting (ponds), more real-time brokerage (access to the river)

10. What We Are Doing at UU Formalised stance: e-first/patron-first PDA pilot programs: MyiLibrary, ebrary, NetLibrary, EBL Espresso Book Machine No more bibliographers/subject specialists Instead, College & Interdisciplinary Teams SHEM (Science, Health, Engineering, Mines) SEBS (Social Sciences, Education, Business, Social Work) FAAPH (Fine Arts, Architecture/Planning, Humanities) DOCMAPS (Documents, Maps) MEDIA (Multimedia) INTERINTER (International, Interdisciplinary)

12. Access to enormous public collections (Hathi, Google)

13. Few subscriptions, if any

14. No packages

16. Fainthearted library leaders

17. (Legacy accreditation structures)

18. (Legacy RPT structures)

19. (Justifiably) fainthearted publishers