1. Feasibility of a Primarily Digital Research Library Geneva Henry and Lisa Spiro Center for Digital Scholarship Rice University

2. 30 October 2008BooksOnline Workshop, Napa, California2 Issue Can a new university, starting from scratch, rely solely on digital resources for research and teaching? Asian University for Women (AUW) in Bangladesh was initial driver for serious analysis How this question is answered will impact the shape of current university libraries

3. 30 October 2008BooksOnline Workshop, Napa, California3 Approach for Analysis and Existing Initiatives Usability requires more consideration than digital content available online Four broad areas must be considered: Technical support Economics Policy issues Social concerns Mass digitization efforts offer an interesting starting point for analysis, especially the Google settlement

4. 30 October 2008BooksOnline Workshop, Napa, California4 Challenges and Research Issues Technical Concerns Long term access to resources, adequate discovery and research tools, e-readers that can be used to do research, quality, preservation Economics What is the true cost: infrastructure, staffing, fees, end-user required resources

5. 30 October 2008BooksOnline Workshop, Napa, California5 Challenges and Research Issues (cont’d) Policy Issues Licensing, liability in using (e.g. partial use and derivative works), library services redefined, copyright models and education Social Issues Trust, recruitment and retention, student skills and credibility as researchers, collaboration, methods of conducting research

6. 30 October 2008BooksOnline Workshop, Napa, California6 Strategy for Fully Addressing Comprehensive research agenda must be defined Collaboration in addressing is critical Our initial effort is to identify current landscape and a roadmap for tackling the research questions Are we asking the right question? Isn’t it really about the knowledge environment needed for living in a digital information world? Many promising dissertations in the offing