Collect/connect The future of library collections and collection management Libraries Australia Adelaide, 27 October 2011 Caroline Brazier, Director of Scholarship and Collections

Looking towards 2020 Changing demand for services

Document Supply 1973 – 2011

Reading Room demand 2005 – 2011

Looking towards 2020 Changing models of publishing

UK journals: print to digital migration 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Year Per cent of output Print %Parallel %Electronic % Source: EPS 2004

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Year Per cent of output Print %Parallel %Electronic % UK books: print to digital migration Source: EPS 2004

2020: What leading thinkers told us STM research will continue to be well funded at the expense of research in A&H Increasingly, consumers will have the opportunity to pay what they want for e-books. Willingness to pay will indicate value Lifelong learning will become more important because of the need to learn new skills to remain employable Technology removes burdens from information specialists – there will be a smaller, distributed network of specialists who guide people to resources Academic publishing will go through the same cultural change that the newspaper industry is going through now Computers enable you to do things faster and therefore the rate of change increases The university will be light on its feet and run like a venture- capital firm, with more disruptive people in it By 2020, the word ‘digital’ will have no meaning because everything will be digital Digital natives will assume everything is on the web Stories will be conveyed through interactive computer games rather than books Legal redress (re. illegal file sharing) is impossible when technology is so far advanced of any control If a service can be charged for, then the public sector should not be involved It will be possible for people spread across the world to work simultaneously on the same piece of digital text

2020: And what it might mean for libraries? ‘BL should have a far larger team focused on web developments. At the Guardian, 150 out of 450 staff worked directly on web developments during the transition from a print to a web-based product.’ ‘With public libraries closing, a digital BL could become the knowledge point for the citizen after school’ ‘Libraries need to act soon and comprehensively or Google or someone else will do it’ ‘BL should replicate the Glastonbury festival feeling and, at the same time, provide the great scholastic silence’ ‘Libraries should not continue to buy so much material but should develop national strategies to ensure adequate coverage’ ‘Libraries should be loved by a few people rather than liked by a lot’ ‘The BL could copy the BBC and charge overseas customers for access to licensed material’ ‘Libraries will need to continue to demonstrate value’ ‘The BL needs to decide if it’s aiming at the mass market or the niche market’ ‘All major research libraries will be interoperable’ ‘People will use libraries as interactive research spaces’

2020: Collecting is no longer enough Create Manipulate Discover, Access Collect, Catalogue, Preserve, Store Capitalise Passive support Active support

What does this mean for library collections and collection management?

Create knowledge through research Enable search, navigation and discovery Develop and improve the research process Store and preserve research information Aggregate research information Publish and disseminate research outputs Libraries and the research information cycle

Create knowledge through research Enable search, navigation and discovery Develop and improve the research process Store and preserve research information Aggregate research information Publish and disseminate research outputs Can we transform traditional roles?

Create knowledge through research Enable search, navigation and discovery Develop and improve the research process Store and preserve research information Aggregate research information Publish and disseminate research outputs Can we find new roles?

Transform traditional roles: 1. Aggregate research information

Shifting priorities to meet economic reality Content Development 10 year overview /0303/0404/0505/0606/0707/0808/0909/1010/1111/12 Financial years £m Purchased AcquisitionsMaintaining purchasing power

Collecting new content

2. Store and preserve research information Transform traditional roles:

Green Library 3,838,874 Red Library 5,857,315 Blue Library 5,579,486 2,226,013 58% 3,379,251 58% 3,110,620 56% 1,266,219 22%/23% 401,016 10% /7% 410,214 11% /7% 801,631 21% /14%/ 14% Will you deduplicate? Source: OCLC Worldcat

Guarantee digital access for future generations

3. Enable search, navigation and discovery Transform traditional roles:

From text to TXT

4. Develop and improve the research process Find new roles:

Embed libraries in digital research

New skill sets to support digital research

5. Create knowledge through research Find new roles:

Publicly funded ClosedOpen Commercially funded Transform traditional roles: 6. Publish and disseminate

85 The Guardian 81 Facebook 80 Google 69 Harvard 68 Tate Gallery 67 Library of Congress, Stanford, BBC 63 British Museum 61 British Library 56 JISC, Cambridge 50 Europeana 48 Bodleian, Hathi Trust 40 Gale Cengage

In 2020, the British Library will be a leading hub in the global information network, advancing knowledge through our collections, expertise and partnerships Advancing the world’s knowledge

In 2020, the British Library will be a leading hub in the global information network, advancing knowledge through our collections, expertise and partnerships Advancing the world’s knowledge

●Collections and collection management remain at the heart of what we do BUT… ●Learn to manage both collaboration and competition ●Transform collection skills to give us new relevance ●Be open to new partnerships, within and beyond the library community

Thank you for listening