InsideOCULA

By Pamela Jacobs

One of the things I love about my job is that I’m never bored – overwhelmed, yes; confused, occasionally – but bored, never. In this article I will briefly touch on what I see as the key issues in collection development for today’s Ontario university libraries.

 
Through the combined purchasing power generated by programs such as the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN), its award-winning predecessor the Canadian National Site Licensing Program (CNSLP), and the Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL) it has become possible for small to mid-size university libraries to provide access to a depth of scholarly digital information previously unthinkable.  The ongoing development of Scholars Portal (another award winning initiative) takes this concept a step further by locally loading and thus securing permanent access to a significant core of journal literature. The degree of cooperation shown by university libraries nationwide and more particularly within Ontario is a model to all library sectors and universities. Libraries are no strangers to the concept of partnership (think interlibrary loan) and it is more than fitting that we take a leading role in demonstrating how these partnerships can be used to benefit research and learning nationwide. Being part of OCUL, it is easy to become complacent about the relative abundance of resources and level of cooperation we enjoy here in Ontario. I think it is important to remember just how truly unique we are – particularly as we stand perched on the cusp of the brave new world of Knowledge Ontario[1] – a provincial partnership that spans library sectors. And at this point I’ll step off my soap box.

 
In the current climate of consortial purchasing, budgeting becomes at once both simplified and complex (say again?). Packages of content based on publisher or aggregator no longer allow for the title-by-title selection that dominated the print world. A single one line invoice from the consortial office replaces multi-line invoices from our vendors. An electronic package including titles in more than one subject makes budgeting by discipline an increasingly complex, some may say impossible, task. As our methods of access and acquisition become more innovative, our budgets need to become more flexible in order to capitalize on the opportunities that such innovations present.

 
No discussion of library collections can be complete without mentioning the issue of space. No matter where you are in the province, what the size of your library collection is, or whether or not you have storage facilities (either on- or off-site), you can count on one universal lament from collections librarians: there is never enough space (okay there’s never enough money either, consortial purchasing notwithstanding, but I digress). This is despite the tremendous shift from print to electronic format, at least for journal and database content.  The printed word still arrives in weekly shipments on our doorsteps as the universe of scholarly information continues to grow at an exponential rate.

 
The shifting demographic of library staff also bears consequences for university library collections. According to the 8R’s study, The Future of Human Resources in Canadian Libraries (which should be required reading for all Canadian librarians), two in five librarians and three in ten library support staff are predicted to retire by 2014[2].  As staff at all library levels retire, we are rethinking our priorities and workflows. Of particular concern to collection development is the loss of subject expertise carefully garnered through years of practical experience. Our retiring subject experts have witnessed nothing less than a revolution in collection development over the past 30 years: the dire journal cancellations of the 80’s and 90’s, the sudden and chaotic birth and near-immediate popularity of online journals, the complexity of aggregator databases with their adds, drops and embargoes, and the confusing pricing and access schemes of eBooks.  But I think it is fair to say that the heart of collection development has not changed - understanding the information needs of a subject discipline at an institutional level – knowing the courses that are taught, the research needs of the faculty, the breadth and depth of the field as related to other disciplines and so forth. Our experienced subject specialists have this information and we would be foolish not to mine this institutional memory and expertise. We can do this by keeping our collection development policies current (treating them as living documents), by sharing information on the use of specialized resources and developing cross-training programs so that such expertise can be shared.

 
Oh, and did I mention the internet? Have you noticed how much information is out there? I mean useful legitimate information. What are we doing about that? It is all too easy to fall into the trap of thinking of collection development solely in terms of licensing and purchasing. What about all the freely available resources like Project Gutenberg, Google Books, the Open Access Initiative and the seemingly infinite world of online government documents? How are we providing access to these resources? What role does the library catalogue play in providing access to this rapidly expanding web of content? The fact that that the venerable Library of Congress has commissioned a report on The Changing Nature of the Catalog and its Integration with Other Discovery Tools[3] speaks volumes to the challenges we face in this regard. If a collection is only as good as its access points, then it’s pretty clear we all have some work to do.

 
The digital world presents us with wonderful new possibilities for collections such as the addition of digital images and streaming audio and video content. It also allows for the possibility of digitizing our own unique collections to open them up to the scholarly universe – assuming of course that we can make our way through the fog that is digital copyright legislation. What is clear is that developing a university library collection has grown increasingly complex and we aren’t likely to be bored anytime soon.

 
Pamela Jacobs is Associate University Librarian, Collection Resources at Brock University