1. Modelling the Future Costs of Storing Print and Digital Collections Dr Darryl Mead Acting National Librarian, National Library of Scotland Murat Guven Head of Resources, National Library of Scotland

2. Team Roles Darryl Mead – Acting National Librarian  Strategic planning  Guidance on shape of future budgets  Role is to commission research and then put the results to work Murat Guven – Head of Resources  Responsible for delivering the empty shelf space and provding the digital storage  Likes to model with complex spreadsheets

3. Storing the print collections

4. Print Preservation Strategy Create and maintain an effective print preservation environment for all collections NLS expects to hold and provide access to on a long- term basis Accommodate all growth of collections while maintaining a 5-year buffer of free shelf space We will preserve paper-based assets owned by third parties where they are on loan to us, in the same conditions as we would our own collections

5. Property Asset Management Plan Plan setting out details of all buildings and mapping all shelves, their locations and sizes Calculates  Current print storage capacity  Predicted growth  Options for adding to capacity

6. Property Asset Management Plan Challenge  Can the Library can avoid the need for another large storage building? Tools  Squeeze more books into existing space  Decide how aggressively to pursue the transition to digital rather than print content  Model the costs to see which looks cheaper

8. Causewayside, Edinburgh

9. Squeezing more print in Causewayside Built as a pure book store, high floor loadings Accommodates 100 staff Books shelved loosely when initally stored Space rationalisation programme Move staff to another, cheaper site Replace roof and outer walls to make watertight plus add a whole floor of compact book storage

10. Storing the digital collections

11. Digital Preservation Strategy Create and maintain an effective digital preservation environment for all collections NLS expects to hold and provide access to Rely on the digital preservation processes of the British Library to secure the non-print legal deposit material held within the Digital Library System We will not preserve digital assets where they were created by third parties and we are renting or otherwise making them accessible

12. Storing all collections The National Library of Scotland Storage Model

13. The NLS Storage Model This is a work in progress Larger libraries and archives all deal with similar issues Each one is unique, but there is a lot in common The model is open and can easily be adapted

14. What sort of a Model is it? Microsoft Excel 2010 spreadsheet Top page with:  Simple data input setup using sliders  Graphical output over 30 year period Supporting data tables:  Don’t use these tables unless you want to change the mathematical basis of the model

15. The math behind the Model Normal distributions are often used in the natural and social sciences for real-valued random variables whose distributions are not known Physical quantities that are expected to be the sum of many independent processes often have a distribution very close to normal We chose normal distributions as the basis of calculating transitions from one state to another https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution

16. Normal Distributions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution

17. Cumulative Distributions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution

18. Key variables Rate of decline(?) in the rate of additions to collection of print – currently 2,700 metres per year and about 260,000 items Rate of growth of digital collections we host and must store – current NLS capacity of on-line Tier 1 storage = 380 TB We assume that the Library or partners will always be responsible for our data

19. Print storage assumptions? Legal deposit is flat for UK, with hints of decline We have some say in speed of transition to digital Purchasing = 6% of intake, so has little impact Very large future donations are unknown, but could be added to the model in same way as space-saving projects

20. Digital storage assumptions? The amount of digital intake will rise rapidly and in some way exponentially The cost of storage per terabyte will fall in future; in discrete steps. Possible disruptive technologies? Total cost of digital storage will rise or fall depending on the strength of the relationship between rising data volumes and falling storage costs Digital preservation will require mirroring A mix of online, near-line and off-line systems

21. Economic assumptions? The cost of storage per terabyte will decline over time The cost of creating physical storage will be relatively flat The cost of maintaining physical storage has many variables, but most unit costs are stable to declining Carbon Management Plan reduces on-going costs Move from BS5454 to PAS198 storage environment

22. Included in the Model… Cost of Storage declining over time: (£624/TB/per year to £122/TB/per year) Costs of replacing storage as it wears out Digital overheads increasing Digital born intake rising at a linear rate

23. Not yet included… Cost of digitisation and cataloguing Cost of storing material digitised in-house Running costs Inflation/deflation Back-ups and disaster recovery

24. Not yet included… Scottish Screen Archive requirements Communications costs Access infrastructure Costs of databases, caches, queries, resource discovery tools

25. Model’s Top Layer

26. Data control sliders

27. Print to Digital Transition Rate

28. Cost parameters - digitising collections

29. Cost model of digitising collections

30. Print to digital switchover?

31. High speed with major change: 6.4 year transition with 30% remaining as print

32. Medium speed with major change: 10 year transition with 20% remaining as print

33. Slow speed with modest change: 15 year transition with 55% remaining as print

34. Digital storage capacity profiles

35. Cumulative print storage costs

36. Cumulative storage costs of digitising

37. Cumulative storage costs of born digital

38. Cumulative costs of storage + =+

39. Cumulative storage costs

40. What are our conclusions?

41. Shelf space depletion without active space rationalisation

42. Inactivity = Disaster At 2,700 linear metres of growth per year, and keeping to a 5-year buffer… If we do nothing and the rate of print growth remains unchanged, we will run out of shelf space in 2016 We will need to start build a major storage building now We will fail on our access mission

43. Shelf space depletion with active space rationalisation

44. Active management = Success If we utilise all existing space and take all other steps we can take in 2,700 metres per year and stretch this to 2027 If print falls to only 1,000 linear metres per year in 10 years time, we will not run out of space for 50 years We can deliver our mission to increase access and raise our impact

45. Where to find our Model Our model can be found at: www.nls.uk/storage-costs-model For technical enquiries: Murat Guven, Head of Resources, National library of Scotland m.guven@nls.uk

46. Questions ?  