Thinking about collections

1. Thinking about collections Lorcan Dempsey Fiesole retreat The University of Hong Kong 13 April 2007

3. Diversion

7. Back to business

8. Some topics • Reflections on collection directions • Systems support • Rareness is common • The long tail and library logistics • Access to scale: moving to the network level • Aggregate collections • Conclusions

9. Reflections on collectiondirections …

10. A simplistic and reductive model

11. stewardship high low Books Journals Newspapers Gov. docs CD, DVD Maps Scores Freely-accessible web resources Open source software Newsgroup archives low uniqueness • Research and learning materials • ePrints/tech reports • Learning objects • Courseware • E-portfolios • Research data Special collections Rare books Local/Historical newspapers Local history materials Archives & Manuscripts, Theses & dissertations high

12. Bought? • Opportunity costs • Digitization and offsite storage • Sharable > licensable • Licensed? • The ‘end of publishing’ - through the gates? Ingest into local collections New behaviors and support for research and learning Digital ‘record’ more important(prospectus, course catalog, student records) Focus of much digital library activity. Why? Distinctiveness.

13. Special: primary materials? Curatorial responsibility for more unique materials? Institutional Capacities? Collaborative sourcing? • Examples • Thematic research collection • Curated databases • Institutional ‘identity’

14. Managing digital? • An archival perspective? • Provenance • Evidential integrity • Versioning • Institutional capacities? • Collaborative sourcing?

15. Fine grained Task oriented Provenance Context Versions

16. University of Minnesota http://www.lib.umn.edu/about/mellon/KM%20JStor%20Presentation.pps

18. Securing the scholarly record The scholarly record ain’t what it used to be? • Community? Institution? • Intervention required • Preserving print?

19. Mature? • Institutional maturity – an industry and cooperative structures • Structures under pressure • Libraries organized around this quadrant (‘owned’) • Emerging techniques for licensed • New systems framework for licensed Institutional immaturity • Organizational models for collective activity, reducing costs, etc, in development. • Commodity systems not available

20. 2. Changing systems support

21. Metasearch Resolver Catalog Repositories … Digital Research&learning outputs Licensed Print ERM Knowledgebase … Repositories … ILS

22. User environment Switch: delivery, routing, resolution … Management environment

23. Network level workflow Google, … Personal Workflow RSS, toolbars, .. Institutional Workflow Portals, CMS, IR, … … Integrated local user environment? Library web presence Resource sharing, … library Consumer environments Management environment Bought Licensed Faculty& students Digitized Aggregations Resource sharing

24. 3. Rareness is common

25. Rareness is common … in the G5 • G5 aggregate collection: • 10.5 million books • ~60 percent represent unique • contribution by one or another • of the G5 libraries 3% Held by 5 6% Held by 4 10% Held by 3 61% Held by 1 20% Held by 2

26. … and beyond • System-wide print book collection (as of January 2005) • ~32 million print books 5% Held by > 100 3% Held by 51 - 100 5% Held by 26 - 50 37% Held by 1 20% Held by 6 - 25 30% Held by 2 - 5

27. Language distribution Language Google 5 System-wide English 0.49 0.52 German 0.10 0.08 French 0.08 0.08 Spanish 0.05 0.06 Chinese 0.04 0.04 Russian 0.04 0.03 Italian 0.03 0.03 Japanese 0.02 0.04 Hebrew 0.02 0.01 Arabic 0.01 0.01 Portuguese 0.01 0.01 Polish 0.01 0.01 Dutch 0.01 0.01 Latin 0.01 0.01 Korean 0.01 0.01 Swedish 0.01 < 0.01 All others 0.07 0.08 More than 430 languages in Google 5 collection

28. Cumulative age distribution of G5 holdings > 80 percent of Google 5 collection post 1923

29. TRLN collection analysis http://www.trln.org/TaskGroups/CollectionAnalysis/TRLN_CollAnalysis_June2Report.pdf

30. Implications for preservation, storage, mass digitization

31. 4. The long tail and library logistics

32. Library “Inventory” 20% head 80% long tail Libraries aggregate supply at the local level… “About the only places you could explore outside the mainstream were the library and the comic book shop.” Chris Anderson, “The Long Tail”

33. The long tail Systemwide efficiences • Aggregation of supply • Unified discovery • Low transaction costs • Aggregation of demand • Mobilize users • Brand Impact?

34. Aggregate supply? 1.7% of circulations are ILLs (60% of aggregate G5 collection owned by one library only) Aggregate demand? 20% of collection accounted for 90% of use (2 research libraries over ~4 years) Each book its reader Each reader his/her book Libraries and the long tail dynamic

35. Note: All statistics are preliminary and subject to change. Final report forthcoming soon. The Library Long Tail(using holdings as measure of popularity) “Head” Number of Holdings Figure not drawn to scale; for illustration purposes only “Long Tail” Items ranked by system-wide popularity Head: Top 10% of WorldCat records (ranked by holdings) account for 80% of total WorldCat holdings Long Tail: Bottom 90% of WorldCat records (ranked by holdings) account for 20% of total WorldCat holdings

36. Note: All statistics are preliminary and subject to change. Final report forthcoming soon. ILL and the Long Tail(FY 2005 OCLC ILL transactions) ~75% of ILL requests were directed at the “Head” Number of Holdings ~25% of ILL requests were directed at the “Long Tail” Items ranked by system-wide popularity By comparison, Chris Anderson (The Long Tail, 2006) reports: Amazon: ~ 25% of sales from the “long tail” Netflix: ~ 20% of sales from the “long tail” * Question: are current ILL systems adequately supporting demand for the library long tail?

37. Conclusions 5. Access to scale: moving to the network level

38. Libraries Librarian readers Cataloguer, repository, collection, … Moving to the network level In the lone houses and very small villages which are scattered about in so desert a country as the Highlands of Scotland, every farmer must be butcher, baker and brewer for his/her own family. Adam Smith

39. Trajectory … Then • Cataloging & resource sharing • A&I and e-Journals • Collections Now • Growing realization that much more can be done at the network level

40. Collections Shared offsite storage Aggregate and analyse digital collections Institutional repository Digital storage and preservation Social and consumer environments Social networking services: tagging, reviews, recommendations Virtual reference D2D Consolidated discovery Knowledge base Resolution - Service routing – fulfilment Business intelligence Synthesize and mobilize shared usage data Recommendation, management decisions Digitization and offsite storage Multilevel approach to …

41. 6. Aggregate collections

42. Collection development Mass digitization Off site storage Discovery to delivery Find it – get it Preservation Thinking about collections in aggregate or systemwide terms Opportunity costs Space Attention/value On demand Print on demand Buy on demand Digitize on demand Management data: holdings, circulation, … Aggregate collections

43. Best practices + organizational contexts for: • Off site storage (see NAST, UKRR) • Mass digitization • Preservation (see Portico, CLOCKSS, …) • D2D ?

44. 7. Conclusions

45. The scholarly record: what is it and how is stewardship exercised? • Recalibrate local and ‘collaboratively’ sourced • Systemwide/network level • Plural business and delivery models • Develop a more instrumental view of organizations at the network level?