UC Irvine Libraries

Fiscal pressures at academic and research libraries increasingly dictate new practices and cost justifications regarding library spending for collections. Space allocations for existing and future collections seems to be challenged by campus administrations as they perceive the digital environment as replacing the need for print and physical resources. Collecting and managing library resources for future research needs are being discounted as non-critical, replaced by a narrow focus on meeting current needs. Global initiatives promoting open access to new scholarship are often unfunded mandates, and challenge libraries to maintain current practices of blending new information outputs from a wider range of publishing options. This presentation will explore what kinds of long-term solutions for sustainable funding can protect and continue the important role of academic research libraries as they struggle with how to retain traditional yet critical functions of collection stewardship while expanding to embrace new expectations as the academic landscape shifts.

Perceptions that libraries are no longer retaining physical collections suggest that library staffing and the need for physical space can be reduced when in fact the transitions to more digital assets and maintenance require new and different staffing models, skill sets, and space for users and staff alike. The financial commitments shift to greater needs than expectations of reduction. The translation of this scenario explores how “Just in Case Collecting vs Just When Needed” is being addressed by libraries and how publishers and information providers are changing acquisitions and licensing models of their products in variable formats. The impact of greater subscription offers, packages, reliance on aggregators are all examples of this trend on a global scale. Academic leaders, faculty and librarians are continually exploring how best to handle open educational resources (OER) and respond to the changing role of the textbook, which has seen steep price increases.

Digital collections require additional attention and resources to handle web archiving, promote the digitization of legacy collections previous contained in microform or newsprint and other media, and offer challenges in incorporating born digital content released on a range of platforms utilizing multiple technologies. Academic libraries are taking the lead in responding to scholarly outputs or mandates and incorporating best practices in how to establish and utilize repositories, the open access movement and research data management. There are new opportunities for streaming media and multimedia while libraries learn to respond to format obsolescence and migration, which contribute to additional costs in collection management. The more complex processing issues of electronic resources have forced library reorganization efforts to consider how to achieve efficiencies in time on task, reduce costs, mainstream staff and get the product to the user when needed.

This presentation offers new ideas in how sustainable practices derived from management, logistics, and library practice can apply to new thinking about roles for collections in academic research libraries and address how libraries are exploring laudable new roles as publishers as well as stewards of previous generations of scholarship.