Collaborative Collection Management Revived? Michael Jubb RIN Strategic Management of Monographs Discussion Forum 17 March 2011

Weve been here before…… Parry Committee 1967 lack of evidence on the adequacy of academic library collections to meet the needs of faculty members and research students Atkinson Report 1976 recommends self-renewing libraries, with low-use material being discarded to make way for new material explicit assumption that discarded material would be available from BL Computer Board (John Forty) 1988 recommends hub and spoke model of regional research libraries Follett Report 1993 develop networks and groupings of institutions based on particular centres to support particular subjects…. Anderson Report 1996 avoid unnecessary duplication in acquisition and retention establish local and regional cooperative arrangements Research Support Libraries Programme ???

RSLP Projects…….

Research Support Libraries Group Evidence a few bilateral agreements voluntary subject-based agreements short-term project funding most librarians in favour of sharing if appropriately conducted different attitudes among academics, varying by discipline Analysis So far as collection sharing is concerned…. very little success has been achieved to date… major libraries have been particularly cautious, and few appear willing to 'give up' ownership of material. Even where electronic access to little- used material is guaranteed (for example, through JSTOR) many libraries are still reluctant to dispose of print copies. the primary barrier to resource sharing is that no strong case has ever been made to HEIs potential benefits of deep resource sharing perceived as relatively marginal Conclusion Nothing will happen without funding body leadership and resources Barriers to Resource Sharing Among Higher Education Libraries, 2002

. Follett Report 2003 national strategy for provision much deeper collaboration between research libraries RIN established 2005………..

But what has worked, and why? UKRR, engendered out of a sense of crisis fears of running out of space guilt that this was happening when content was increasingly online what to say to the Vice Chancellor? CURL/BL report 2005 Optimising Storage and Access in UK Research Libraries 350km shortage of shelf space by 2015 focus on how to encourage disposals in order to achieve space and cost savings little said about co-ordination of decision-making UKRR established 2008 cash to encourage libraries to achieve savings: culture-change low-use print journals (often associated with online provision) not monographs structure to co-ordinate decision-making

Why not monographs? large number of individual items to be dealt with to achieve significant savings in space high process costs digitisation less advanced than for journals Optimising Storage and Access in UK Research Libraries, 2005 UKRR target title:metre ratio of 1.0 multiply by checking and processing per item likely to be at least as high E-readers, Google books, Hathi Trust, Project Gutenberg……….

Culture Change?

Library attitudes? there is sufficient material in the mass-digitized library collection managed by the HathiTrust to duplicate a sizeable (and growing) portion of virtually any academic library in the United States, and there is adequate duplication between the shared digital repository and large-scale print storage facilities to enable a great number of academic libraries to reconsider their local print management operations

Some Questions are the perceived benefits strong enough? savings in space and costs cash incentives are the changes in behaviours and attitudes strong enough? shifts to online provision disciplinary differences are the risks and the costs low enough? national policy drivers and strategic frameworks? are we ready for strategic management?

Thank you Michael Jubb