Conferences and Workshops

Publisher Vendor Relations Discussion Group at ALA Midwinter in Washington

Specific topics discussed:

1. Announcement of changes to electronic products
   Public service librarians often receive no advance warning about changes in electronic products, and they are, therefore, unfamiliar with the changes and feel unprepared when users need help. New product and change announcement literature often is sent only to the library acquisitions units that deal with subscriptions but does not reach those in other areas who need to know in a timely manner. The suggestion was made that publishers and vendors develop e-mail lists of public service librarians who need to receive announcements of changes and new product feature announcements.
2. Slow server response
   Products delivered via the Internet can become unusable when vendors' servers are overloaded, regional or campus network traffic is heavy, or other traffic demand problems arise. Someone used the "World Wide Wait" name for this situation. Some vendors offer a solution in the form of establishing dedicated lines for their services. Another suggested solution is using Java-based interfaces to send compressed pages.
3. Frustration with free trial period for electronic services
   Some library users and librarians report frustration with free trial period services. Apparently many users miss the notification that they are using a time limited trial service and then suddenly miss it when no longer available, especially in cases of very short or very long duration trial periods. One suggestion was to only allow librarians access to trials to evaluate products and only make them available to users as subscribed products that will not go away.
4. Archival access to Internet-based electronic products
   Reliability and plans for long-term, archival access to electronic titles and the impact on cancellations of print copies were discussed. Many smaller academic libraries can not afford both print and electronic versions of materials and presently purchase only print. The larger libraries and consortia that can afford both print and electronic versions tend to acquire both for an average of 125% of the cost of print alone. Most libraries that are canceling print journals are replacing them with electronic document delivery services for articles requested by their users from the canceled titles. Some vendors replied they are guaranteeing access in perpetuity but can not specify the future electronic means since it will change with technology over time. Other vendors said they offer CD-ROMS or tape copies as archival backups for the library to own.

The Publisher Vendor Relations Discussion Group meeting planned for ALA Annual Conference in San Francisco will be a joint program titled, "Selection of Full-Text Online Resources: What You Need to Know," scheduled for 9:30 to 11:00a.m. on Saturday, June 28, 1997. The Reference and User Services Association, Collection Development and Evaluation Section, Computer-Based Methods and Resources Committee will co-sponsor the event which will feature a panel of speakers on electronic journal collections, reference and document collections, and indexing services with links to full-text. Open discussion will follow the panel session.

Heads of Science and Technology Libraries Discussion Group at ALA Midwinter in Washington

Three librarians facilitated the discussion; they represented different types of science and technology libraries. Penny Russman (Wesleyan University, CN) offered her perspective from a smaller institution, Carol Fleishauer (MIT, MA) shared her experiences with budgets in a medium-sized institution, and Bonnie MacEwan (Penn State University, PA) spoke to the issue from her perspective at a large academic institution. Each facilitator described her institution and the science library which she represents and described the collections budget(s), characterizing their development and current significant influences.

The Wesleyan science collection serials spending is split 48% for domestic titles and 52% for foreign titles. Allocations for collections are based on historical precedent, and the split for serials vs. firm-orders is 60%/40%. This university currently receives four electronic serials and has no separate budget for this category of collections. The library provides free Interlibrary Loan or document delivery for anyone at the university. Penny Russman mentioned that providing funding for new faculty is one goal.

An analysis of MIT in 1978 (part of the ARL/OMS initiative) resulted in fund allocations by specific subjects. Allocations have changed over the years, but the process have not been overhauled. MIT has nearly banned purchase of duplicate titles. Serials represent 73% of the MIT budget, and the percentage continues to grow. Focus on MIT is the bottom line and not individual funds. Collections staff can see the whole budget, but MIT has not distributed the collections budget beyond the libraries. MIT does a serials review and cancellation project about every three years.

Penn State's approach to collection development is based on a services model with no strong bibliographer model in place. Selection is based largely on subject expertise at University Park. While faculty are encouraged to participate in collection development, this activity is the responsibility of the PSU libraries and selectors. PSU has determined to set aside 10% of its budget for electronic resources. The selection of electronic resources is "largely opportunistic." PSU has a target of a 70%/30% serials to monographs ratio overall with three years allowed to make a change to the funding model if required. PSU has implemented about 15% in serials cuts over fifteen years. Most of the savings were transferred to electronic resources and maintenance of the collections. Half of the total budget is spent by science selectors. Historical precedent plays a large part in the development of the PSU collections budgets, and no formula is used to derive allocations. The library has made a strong commitment to share information about the collections budgets with library constituents.

These three organizational views revealed both expected differences and some similarities. Selection at Wesleyan is done largely by the faculty with librarians choosing abstracts and indexes, while at MIT and Penn State, librarians do most of the selection. This distribution has direct implications for the development of the budgets. Each of the libraries has been able to maintain control over serials growth and targets a ratio between serials and monographs which is appropriate to the discipline and/or the library. Budgeting for information resources for new faculty was one challenge mentioned. Another was budgeting for electronic resources. Similar to many libraries, these three used budget allocations which are based on historical precedent and have been tweaked over the years to reflect changes in required buying patterns. Sharing information about the collections budgets differed among these three with PSU being the most aggressive in trying to make the budgets available, in complete detail, to those who have interest in collections spending.

Ideas and requests were solicited for the discussion which will be held at the ALA Annual Meeting. STS members are encouraged to submit additional ideas for discussion topics via STS-L.

STS General Discussion Group: Collection Trends in the Sciences

A. Scholarly communication in the sciences > digital future = all varies due to institution specific situation - always want to exercise greatest flexibility and achieve most credibility

• New expectations from faculty and users
• Subject expertise - badly needed but not widespread - developed on job and with info overload & increase in library duties, subject strengths diminish
• Collaboration - different partners in academic enterprise
• Filtering - finding tools have changed
• Role as teachers - one of greatest challenges facing librarians - emerging more and more in research consultation, library instruction has dramatically changed due to emerging new technologies, new emphasis on instruction in undergraduate education
• Popular culture - new heyday for information and infomatics - new respect for science in everyday life - role of media, scifi, etc.

B. Electronic vs print reference sources - databases vs internet access

C. Role of WWW in collection development - for reference functions, internal operations, homepage indexes, personal pages by bibliographers, create & maintain links to obvious partners & liaison assignments, publishers, etc.

D. Acquiring and Mounting of electronic journals

• Archiving
• Finding
• Bibliographic control
• Printing vs mailing - new services
• Access issues

all these issues frustrate librarian and force new issues in service

• Electronic Reserves

E. Future of the Book in Science - all new scenario

• monographic series
• conference proceedings
• pricing structures
• biographies
• history of science
• readership levels
• publisher specific
• lifespan of book - digital resources weather over time

F. Economics of information

• cost of materials
• factor analysis & data collection, citation studies, demand management, value over time
• use studies
• science spending vs whole of materials budget
• dependence on ILL and document supply - ex.) commercial, publisher based, consortia memberships, etc.

G. Serials

• Ratio of serials to monographs & media
• Serial review - by discipline - faculty & user input
• Cancellation reviews and practices - whys
• New titles
• Print vs e-js
• Document supply & access

H. Role of Gov't info in science collections - divided vs unified in Gov Pubs

I. Special Science materials

• Preprints
• Technical Report Literature
• Specs
• Lab manuals
• Grey lit
• Patents, Trademarks
• Illustrations
• Dissertations

K. Acquisition of materials

constantly changing and perceived as guinea pigs for cost reductions in total discount in approval programs but also as targets for reducing high overheads and cost containment

L. Changes in Higher Education - corporate culture in science

• Innovations in pedagogy and collaborative learning
• Advances in information technonolgy, telecommunications and multimedia
• a burgeoning of interdisciplinarity and emerging fields
• requirements from governing and funding agencies for accountability & assessment
• accreditation
• economic stringencies that mandate careful analysis of costs for programs
• Tenure & faculty review - emphasis on research - impact over publication or conferences over journals

M. Conclusions - Science has it tough in this economic reality - publishing is changing - electronic methods of dissemination and storage are forcing a rethinking of searching and delivering information.

We welcome your comments. Please send e-mail to the editor for possible inclusion in a future issue.