This presentation was provided by Roger Schonfeld of Ithaka S+R, during the NISO event "Changes in Higher Education and The Information Marketplace." The virtual conference took place on June 17, 2020.

1. Strategies for
the Information Community
Roger C. Schonfeld | @rschon | rcs@ithaka.org
June 2020

2. Relevant Ithaka S+R Work
• Higher Ed’s Response to COVID-19 and Plans for Reopening
• Roundtables with more than 40 library leaders (with Kimberly Lutz)
• Pre-pandemic survey of library directors (Jennifer Frederick and
Christine Wolff-Eisenberg)
• Crowdsourced library space closures and service changes (Christine
Wolff-Eisenberg with Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe)
• Preparing to field a fall survey of library directors
• Higher education forecasting framework
• Client work on library budget forecasting in a period of almost complete
uncertainty

3. Immediate Challenges
HIGHER EDUCATION
• Enormous complexities around decision-making
• Organizations that know almost nothing about public health and have
avoided asking hard questions about their own business models are now
grappling with both
• Reopening decisions have become highly politicized
• And yet some of the fall enrollment numbers are not nearly as bad as
some have feared

4. Long-Term Impact
HIGHER EDUCATION
• Revenue decline: tuition, appropriations, healthcare, gifts, endowment
• Distance learning even for traditional/residential institutions
• An acceleration of institutional closures and mergers.
• Substantial equity issues

5. Strategies

6. Budget
ACADEMIC LIBRARIES
Almost all will face substantial budget reductions
Uncertainty is making long-term planning essentially impossible
Librarians often prefer to take cuts out of materials budget; faculty
members often prefer to take cuts out of library personnel

7. Space and Personnel
ACADEMIC LIBRARIES
Libraries have been positioning space for learning as one of their most
important services. How will this translate into a distance environment?
Many institutions have supported in-person staffing models to this point
but will not continue if institutions are remote this fall

8. Collections
ACADEMIC LIBRARIES
HathiTrust’s Emergency Temporary Access Service has been a godsend for
members
Some libraries might prefer to limit print availability in order to enable the
service to continue
Libraries that have not already done so will transform physical materials
processing

9. Acquisitions / Sales
LIBRARIES AND PUBLISHERS
Permanent acceleration in the shift away from print acquisitions towards
increasingly digital
Libraries are already beginning to request/demand price cuts from
vendors. Some out of necessity, some opportunistic. Distinguishing
between the two is proving to be a real challenge.

10. Product Directions
PUBLISHERS
Some publishers have already recognized their dependence on the
academic library and have sought to diversify revenue channels. This will
continue.
This will pull publishers towards products and services that support the
research and/or instructional enterprises.
Which will in turn require a different type of scale and drive strategic
partnerships and organizational realignments.

11. Structure
ACADEMIC LIBRARIES
Will we see increasing mergers with presses, museums, teaching and
learning centers, and other collecting and academic support enterprises?
Will we see stronger consortia and even library mergers across disparate
higher education institutions?

12. Management and Culture
LIBRARIES AND PUBLISHERS
For all organizations, this extraordinary period, which has included not
only a public health emergency but also a profound economic disruption
and a national crisis around racial justice, is exposing bad culture and
practices.
Will organizations enable a permanent shift towards remote work and the
vastly different performance expectations and management practices that
this will entail?

13. Thank Youroger.schonfeld@ithaka.org
@rschon