Tower of Babel: New Realities in Foreign Acquisitions Charleston Conference, 2016

East View – a source for foreign language acquisition Uncommon information from extraordinary places, with exceptional service. Corporate headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota since 1989. Offices in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Beijing. Distributor of resources from Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia serving academic, government, NGO/NPO and corporate researchers and libraries. All subjects, sources and formats

East View – a source for foreign language acquisition

Then and Now 2016 2000 Armenia Lithuania Azerbaijan Moldova Belarus Afghanistan Iraq Mongolia Slovakia Albania Israel Montenegro Slovenia Belarus Hungary Oman Taiwan Bosnia & Herzegovina Japan Poland Turkey China North & South Korea Qatar Czech Rep. Kuwait Romania Greece Lebanon Saudi Arabia Iran Macedonia Serbia Armenia Lithuania Azerbaijan Moldova Belarus Russia Estonia Tajikistan Georgia Turkmenistan Kazakhstan Ukraine Latvia Uzbekistan

Challenges in Acquisition: Russia as Exemplar Sometimes unwilling partners and unrealistic expectations Many regional publishers no longer attend large events such as the Moscow Book Fair Transportation to Moscow from publishing centers in Russian Regions is time-consuming, expensive and sometimes unreliable Regional statistical publications are moving to CD/DVD New Political Realities (How history repeats…)

Challenges in Acquisition: Russian Resources with Scholarly Value Some Facts & Figures Out of 120K books published, about 30% are of good scholarly value 53% have a print run of 1,000 copies or less 35% of publishers have only one book/yr, and 77% published 12 books or less Reprints increased from 26% in 2008 to 36% in 2015 Translations make up 10-11% of all books published 40% of books are published in series & are 70% of all books published

Challenges in Acquisition: New Directions Amazon, Ozon and other e-commerce sites mean more availability, but less authority Cooperative acquisition efforts such as MARLi, Borrow Direct, etc. lead to deeper collection needs & more sophisticated management Popularity & economy of e-resources steer libraries from print to electronic formats, except for eBooks Changes in dedicated language-capable staff at libraries drives vendors to bridge the gap

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