"Is digital different? New trends and challenges in acquisition and collection development" IFLA Preconference Munich, July 2003 Alice Keller, ETH Library Zurich Should Consortia Replace Local Collection Development?

…. of course they shouldn’t! But why not, actually?

Collections are caused to: grow, become larger, more advanced. Good collections don’t develop by chance or coincidence, but by careful planning and selection. Collection Development: What does it mean?

Collections are developed along collection profiles defined by user requirements. The limits to collection building are –financial constraints, –available space, –resources for processing. Collection Development: What sets the limits?

Speaking to colleagues, financial constraints are the greatest limit to collection development:  Most librarians would agree that they should have more funds to fulfil all user requirements. Collection Development: What sets the limits? User requirements Funds

Which are the Users’ Requirements? Nice to have Important to have Core requirements

Which are the Users’ Requirements? Looking at E-Journals at ETH Library ETH Library, 3’000 e-journals, 12 months 2001

Focussing on Journals with fewer than 100 Downloads

Focussing on Journals with more than 3’000 Downloads Science, Am.Assoc.Adv.Science Nature, Macmillan PNAS, Nat.Acad.Sciences Journal of Biological Chemistry, ASBMB Journal of the ACS, ACS Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer Journal of Organic Chemistry, ACS Cell, Cell Press Tetrahedron Letters, Elsevier Organic Letters, ACS Physical Review Letters, APS Journal of Chemical Physics, AIP Chemical Communications, RSC Journal of Physical Chemistry A, ACS Physical Review B, APS Journal of Cell Biology, Rockefeller Univ. Press Biochemistry, ACS Nature Biotechnology, Nature America Applied Physics Letters, AIP Tetrahedron, Elsevier EMBO Journal, OUP ETH Library, 3’000 e-journals, 12 months 2001

8,3% of the e-journals were never accessed during A further 53% are not accessed more than 50 times. 22 journals are accessed more than 3000 times.  Few journals are consulted heavily, many journals are consulted very rarely. ETH Library, 3’000 e-journals, 12 months 2001 Which are the Users’ Requirements? Looking at E-Journals at ETH Library

Which are the Users’ Requirements? Looking at Databases 34% of all accesses are to one database alone. 60% of all accesses are to the top 5 databases. ETH Library, 80 databases with usage statistics, 12 months 2002

Which are the Users’ Requirements? Nice to have Important to have Core requirements

Which are the Users’ Requirements?

What Would Consortia Ideally Include? Consortium

What Do Consortia Usually Offer? Consortium

Financial advantages Extension of library collection Inclusion of new material  Cross Access  Additional Access Consortium Consortia - Advantages

Consortia – especially Big Deals – offer a slice through all zones. Consortium Consortia - Facts

Advantages of Big Deals: More Titles ETH Library, 3’000 e-journals, 12 months 2001

Advantages of Big Deals: Cross Access ETH Library, 3’000 e-journals, 12 months 2001

Consortium Less money left for other materials. Consortia “dilute” collection profile. Consortia - Disadvantages

Consortium Consortia - Disadvantages

Collection Development in a Consortial Environment

Academic Libraries of the Future? C C C C C C C

The Journal That Ate the Library

The Consortium That Ate the Library GASCO

The Consortium That Ate the Library GASCO

The Consortium That Ate the Library Big Deal

Getting Things Right It is not consortia, but Big Deals, that are replacing local collection development. ConsortiaBig Deals = ?

–Offer desirable short-term benefits and expanded information access for users. –On the long run they will weaken the power of librarians. –Librarians will lose the opportunity to shape the content or quality of journal literature.  Short-term institutional benefits are achieved at long-term expense of the academic community. (K. Frazier, 2001) Getting Things Right: Big Deals

Consortia – not Big Deals – mark the beginning of a new form of in-depth library cooperation. Consortia involve sharing of resources in many areas: collection building computing expertise server infrastructure digital preservation management of electronic resources increased purchasing power Getting Things Right: Consortia

New Opportunities for Consortia Consortia should be seen as a new hub of in-depth library collaboration in the area of collection development. Looking beyond licensing of commercial products:  A consortium can act as an ideal nucleus for innovative forms of library co-operation.  This can include building up document servers, launching digital archives or digitising material.

Finding the Right Partners Alliances are powerful tools for a competitive advantage. However, consortia are mostly formed on a regional/national basis. Powerful consortia should be alliances based on:  common interests (e.g. subject areas)  strategic or political goals (e.g. coalition of large libraries of a city)  technical co-operations (e.g. common IT infrastructure)

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The Final End