What Faculty Want Roger C. Schonfeld Ithaka Research ICOLC Montreal, Quebec April 24,

Questions for Discussion How Faculty Members Value the Library As new options develop, the environment is becoming increasingly competitive for libraries. Should they manage a strategic retreat from the gateway function or develop a strategic response? The Future of Books Few librarians or faculty members view e-books as being fundamentally transformative. Will they be proved right? Preservation and Archiving Everyone agrees this is essential, and yet faculty are confused; how can librarians provide desperately needed leadership for preservation? Repositories How should repositories be managed if they are primarily used to store and disseminate local knowledge assets? How can groups of libraries tackle each of these priorities more effectively than individual libraries acting on their own?

How Faculty Members Value the Library Perceived dependence on the library is in decline. The buyer function is most highly valued. This pattern holds across almost all stratifications of faculty members. Is this the function to which the library adds most value?

Valuation of the Library by Discipline There are noticeable disciplinary differences in sources of value. The value of the library’s gateway function is perceived to be in steep decline among scientists and economists. As new options develop, the environment is becoming increasingly competitive for libraries. How can they thrive in this marketplace?

The Future of Books E-books are ill-used by faculty and rarely important to them, and few expect them to become so in five years’ time. There is widespread skepticism among faculty members and librarians that e-books can fully replace print versions (with notable disciplinary variation). Many librarians view e-book licensing as a very important function. Are they responding to faculty demand, anticipating it, or focusing on students?

Preservation and Archiving The perceived importance of hard- copies and of their preservation are in decline everywhere. Both faculty members and librarians have become more focused on preservation of electronic materials. There is consistent confusion among faculty; how can librarians provide desperately needed leadership for preservation? How should this shift be managed strategically, to avoid some of the challenges that arose from the massive reformatting of newspaper collections?

Repositories Repositories are far more common at universities than at colleges, although there is widespread interest in them. Their main use is for images and special collections, and cross- institutional sharing is important. The objective is to control and preserve the institution’s intellectual assets and locally- generated knowledge. How should repositories be managed and when should they be managed on a cross- institutional basis?

Questions for Discussion How Faculty Members Value the Library As new options develop, the environment is becoming increasingly competitive for libraries. Should they manage a strategic retreat from the gateway function or develop a strategic response? The Future of Books Few librarians or faculty members view e-books as being fundamentally transformative. Will they be proved right? Preservation and Archiving Everyone agrees this is essential, and yet faculty are confused; how can librarians provide desperately needed leadership for preservation? Repositories How should repositories be managed if they are primarily used to store and disseminate local knowledge assets? How can groups of libraries tackle each of these priorities more effectively than individual libraries acting on their own?

What Faculty Want Roger C. Schonfeld (212)

The Transition to an Electronic-Only Environment Faculty are becoming prepared for the cancellation of print versions to allow exclusive reliance on e-journals, but are less ready to see backfiles discarded. Future opportunities to contemplate strategic responses will continue to vary tremendously by discipline. A strategic approach is urgently needed, both on the campus level and across the community, to ensure that this transition proceeds effectively and securely.

Preferences for Academic Journals Maximizing the impact of their work is the most important feature of a scholarly communications system for scholars themselves. Disciplines differ to some degree on the specifics, but the “impact” generalization holds true for all. How can we best design a system that responds to authors’ understandable desire to maximize impact?