Charleston Conference Friday Morning Plenary November 5, 2010, 10:15 AM

1. When Rubber Meets the Road:
Rethinking Your Library Collections
Roger C. Schonfeld
Manager of Research, Ithaka S+R
Charleston Conference
November 5, 2010

2. ITHAKA is a not-for-profit organization that helps the academic
community use digital technologies to preserve the scholarly
record and to advance research and teaching in sustainable ways.
We pursue this mission by providing innovative services that aid in
the adoption of these technologies and that create lasting impact.
.
Our Mission

3. • Ithaka S+R is a research and consulting service that focuses on
the transformation of scholarship and teaching in an online
environment, with the goal of identifying the critical issues facing
our community and acting as a catalyst for change.
• JSTOR is a research platform that enables discovery of, access
to, and preservation of scholarly content.
• Portico is a digital preservation service for e-journals, e-books,
and other scholarly e-content.
Our Services

4. Ithaka S + R – Research Areas and Sample Projects
Sustainability of Digital Resources
» Sustaining Digital Resources: An On-the-Ground View of Projects Today
The Role of the Library
» What to Withdraw: Print Collections Management in the Wake of Digitization
Practices and Attitudes in Scholarly Communications
» Ithaka S+R Faculty Survey 2009
Teaching and Learning with Technology
» Unlocking the Gates: How and Why Leading Universities Are Opening Up
Access to Their Courses
Scholarly Publishing
» University Publishing in a Digital Age

5. What Users Want
Roger C. Schonfeld and Ross Housewright,
Faculty Survey 2009:
Key Strategic Insights for Libraries, Publishers, and Societies
(April 2010)
http://www.ithaka.org/ithaka-s-r/research/faculty-surveys-2000-2009/faculty-survey-2009
Faculty members from the U.S.; most disciplines but no health sciences; 3,025 completed
responses, for an 8.6% response rate that is representative of the sample.

6. The print to electronic transition for current issues
“If my library cancelled the current issues
of a print version of a journal but continued
to make them available electronically,
that would be fine with me.”
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Humanities Social Sciences Sciences
2003 2006 2009
» Support for cancelling local
print subscriptions in favor of
online-only access has grown
steadily
» Although there are disciplinary
differences, essentially all
disciplines are moving in the
same direction
» Certain disciplines such as art
history and Asian Studies are
outliers

7. The print to electronic transition for journal backfiles
“Assuming that electronic collections of
journals are proven to work well and are
readily accessible, I would be happy to
see hard-copy collections discarded and
replaced entirely by electronic collections.”
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Humanities Social Sciences Sciences
2003 2006 2009
» Note this question measures
enthusiasm
» Enthusiasm for replacing print
collections of backfiles with
electronic-only access has
grown significantly
» Lots of initiatives by libraries to
consolidate collections.

8. Although growing steadily in perceived importance,
are e-books suitable for a format transition?
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Databases of academic
journals
E-books
Percent of faculty responding “very
important” to “For each item that you
use, please indicate how important that
item is to your research or your
teaching”
2006 2009 2009 (predicting importance 5 years from now)
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Humanities Social Sciences Sciences
Strong agreement with “Within the next
five years, the use of e-books will be so
prevalent among faculty and students
that it will not be necessary to maintain
library collections of hard-copy book.”
2006 2009

9. What users want
For scholarly journals, user needs are moving steadily away
from print versions.
Faculty members’ needs are changing more slowly than those
of students.
Other material types may have different affordances.

10. The Library Dilemma

11. User needs for print journals are steadily migrating away from
print formats.
Growing institutional perception that print collections are no
longer used.
Push for reduction of library expenses, at least for print
collections.
Libraries must take a more vital role in the lives of their users
than as managers of print collections.
Strategic inputs

12. The tactics are more complicated than the strategy
» User needs may be shifting, but in many fields they are not uniform.
» Online availability is growing steadily, but many journals are not yet
available online or not reliably so.
And, in serving the needs of the parent institution, do we
threaten shared values associated with preservation and
access?
But -

13. Is It a Balance?
Mission
alignment:
Reduce print
collections
investment
Shared
values:
Maintain
preservation
role

14. Or Can We Find Alignment?
Reduce print collections investment
Maintain shared values

15. One opportunity: library collaborations to ensure preservation
while increasing flexibility in print journal collection
management
Requirements:
» Achieve consensus around shared values
» Select a model for a sustainable trust networks
Alignment

16. Achieving Consensus on Shared Values

17. » Shared values are not always well-specified.
» Visions for operationalizing shared values can differ.
» Achieving consensus among librarians can be complex.
» Achieving consensus with other stakeholders can seem
impossible.
» A research-based scientifically-driven model can help.
The Consensus Challenge

18. A Variety of Approaches for Journals
» UK Research Reserve: 1-3 copies in the UK
» University of California shared print: 1 validated copy in the
UC system.
» WEST: Conditions associated with preservation will vary by
digitization status and availability.

19. Ithaka S+R’s Approach
» Risk-informed
» Research-based
» Science-driven
Three steps
1. Define rationales for print preservation
2. Based on these rationales, categorize materials according to their
relative preservation needs
3. Use an operations research methodology to determine the levels
of print preservation required for each category

20. What to Withdraw: Print Collections Management in
the Wake of Digitization
For journals following digitization, sources of risk include:
» Scanning errors
» Inadequate scanning standards & practices
» Inadequate digital preservation
» Unreliable access
Recommendation: 20 year minimum retention for “ideal
scenario”
Requirement: A minimum of 2 page-validated, non-
circulating copies.
Roger C. Schonfeld and Ross Housewright,
What to Withdraw: Print Collections Management in the Wake of Digitization (September 2009)
http://www.ithaka.org/ithaka-s-r/research/what-to-withdraw

21. Modeling Sustainable Trust Networks
for Collaboration

22. System Structure
Locally
Governed
Centrally
Governed

23. System Structure
Locally
Governed
Centrally
Governed
Library Special
Collections
National
Archives
Incentive-Driven
Trust Networks

24. Knitting Together Regional Print Initiatives
Assumptions
» Existing incentives have already led some libraries to create
regional print repositories for space-saving or last-copy retention
» Sufficient print preservation concerns as an incentive to bind
regional initiatives together
Method
» Information sharing and analysis re preservation activities.
» What to Withdraw analysis: can my library withdraw our copy?
» For other materials, regional print repositories accession
additional copies to allow their members to save space.
Concerns
» How to pay for the information sharing and analysis?
» Is print preservation an adequate incentive over time?

25. What to Withdraw: Supporting Library Decisions
Ithaka S+R’s Proof of Concept Decision-Support Tool
» focuses on JSTOR-digitized journal titles
» based on holdings in JSTOR-affiliated print repositories
» freely available online
» permits libraries to assess what can be withdrawn without preservation
risk
We hope to develop a more mature holdings analysis system
» holdings analysis for all interested print archiving entities
» decision support for all digitized journals

26. Implications – for journals
In the absence of central planning, libraries can withdraw print
holdings as appropriate in local institutional context without
threatening the shared value of their long-term preservation.
In developing collections management strategies, libraries can
use an accepted system-wide framework in communicating
with campus stakeholders.
By bringing collections management to the system level,
libraries can deploy scarce collections management and
preservation resources more effectively, and ultimately
provide better services in support of research and learning.

27. Government Documents – GPO recently contracted with Ithaka
S+R to develop new models for the Federal Depository
Library Program that are practical and sustainable in a
digital environment.
» Please follow our progress and share your perspectives and
suggestions at fdlpmodeling.net
Monographs – How will libraries rethink the role of monograph
collections, based on digitized versions available through
Google Books and HathiTrust?
» CLIR’s The Idea of Order
» Cloud Library project among NYU, Recap, OCLC
And – other content types

28. The issue in your conference bag features articles on
Managing Our Collections in a Digital Age –
» Emily Stambaugh of the University of California on WEST’s model
for sharing journal collections across libraries
» Frances Boyle on the UK Research Reserve for preservation of
and access to journal holdings
» Bob Kieft on Occidental College’s collections management
initiative, which prominently features monographs
» Judy Russell of the University of Florida on government documents
collections and services and the ASERL initiative
» Ross Housewright of Ithaka S+R on library strategic planning
Finally – Against the Grain

29. When Rubber Meets the Road:
Rethinking Your Library Collections
Roger C. Schonfeld
rcs@ithaka.org
Twitter: @rschon