QUESTIONS TO BE ASKED OF FINANCE-DRIVEN COLLECTION MANAGEMENT

G. E. Gorman, Victoria University of Wellington

Financial Constraints and the Service Imperative

Librarians now generally accept the dictum that bigger is not necessarily better when it comes to collections and collection management. Some argue that the fiscal constraints faced by all libraries have affected present-day collection management and have forced upon us the view that bigger is not better as we seek new ways of making information available to our clients. Others argue that new ways of �building� collections and �acquiring� materials are partly responsible for the fiscal problems that have necessitated a �small is beautiful� approach to collection building.

Whatever the economic and financial arguments might be, there is a service imperative implicit in financially-driven collection management that must be recognised. Nearly 15 years ago Thomas Ballard showed, conclusively in my view, that readers essentially want books on shelves and that they will settle for second or third best rather than go to the trouble of arranging ILL or document delivery of the preferred item (Ballard, 1986). No one has effectively countered these findings, yet we are being driven by financial realities to build ever leaner core collections, with anything viewed as non-core relegated to �just in time� acquisition, and therefore encouraging readers to settle for second best in terms of immediate access.

We need to return to basic principles here, and begin by considering how information should be �acquired�, and especially whether the information should physically reside within the library, in order to provide the best possible service to our clients. In other words, how do we acquire the information our users require - purchase, document delivery, transfer, borrow? Is it the way in which the information is created, stored, accessed, used, or physically transported from one location to another that matters? These important questions are little discussed in the literature related to finance and collection management, even in MCB journals. As recent articles by Kingma and Sanville indicate (see �What the Journals Say� below), the emphasis is almost entirely on cost-benefit analysis rather than service improvement results (although Sanville does move in this direction).

How Are Budgets Affected?

A few years ago Laverna Saunders opined that:

Given the emphasis on accessibility to and not the ownership of materials, future allocation of library collection funds will be made for two purposes: to purchase materials for addition to the on-site library collection and to acquire materials for immediate delivery to library users, with or without consideration of later retention by the library (Saunders, 1993).

Her assumptions have proved to be correct, so now we need to ask, in view of this, how an information resources budget ought to be allocated. What can collection managers learn from the current situation than will assist them in future budgetary decisions?

The bigger question is this: What is happening today that influences the allocation of information resources budgets? Lynden enumerates 10 factors that have direct impact on the library budget: high inflation, declining proportion of funds received from parent institutions, increased range of materials purchased, equipment required for newer materials, electronic equipment, a sophisticated and knowledgeable staff, reduction in staff, inadequate and outmoded library buildings, deteriorating collections and the necessity for preservation and conservation, and education and training of staff (Lynden, 1994) These factors, again little discussed in the current professional literature, significantly influence both library services and collection growth, as well as the distribution of funds in a shift from �just in case� to �just in time� collections.

Biernan predicts a shift in the mix of ownership and access as follows (in percentages): public and school libraries, 70/30; research libraries, 40/60; special libraries, 20/80 (Biernan, 1994). If a typical academic library is evolving to provide just 40 per cent of materials as a core collection and 60 per cent of materials on demand, what will each category contain? The core collection might consist of the basic books and journals needed by undergraduates to complete their degrees, but is this necessarily so? And to what extent will the common core be the same across sectors, thereby relegating non-core to some �other� library, and therefore to oblivion? Another question not adequately addressed in the literature.

How will this scenario affect library budgets? Although we suspect that libraries will be collecting information in electronic formats as well as providing access to information, no data are yet available on what the cost is likely to be to the library for collecting this format. There are costs associated with the hardware and software needed to acquire the information, but are there also staff costs associated with acquiring information? So many questions, so few answers.

What the Journals Say

We need a much clearer focus in the library management literature on the financial implications of a move from ownership to access, and on the service implications as well. Most of the literature in this area is largely economic, concentrating on the cost-effectiveness of certain procedures - as in the article by Kingma and Mouravieva. But, returning to Ballard�s critique, what does this cost effectiveness mean in terms of service? Bruce R. Kingma and Natalia Mouravieva, (2000), �The economics of access versus ownership: the Library for Natural Sciences, Russian Academy of Sciences�. Interlending and Document Supply Vol. 28 No. 1, pp. 20-6. This article applies the economic model of interlibrary loan and library journal subscriptions developed by Kingma in 1996 to data from the Library for Natural Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The model shows whether a library journal subscription or providing access to journal articles by interlibrary loan is more cost-effective. Results are similar to the results found in the Kingma study of library centres of the State University of New York; that is, the most cost-effective way to provide access to scientific journal articles within Russia is to provide additional funding for international interlibrary loan rather than increasing the number of journal subscriptions.

Some (but relatively little) of the literature does look at the impact of access services on use, but of course this is not the same as quality of use. Sanville, for instance, shows that OhioLINK has been �successful� in increasing the use of materials by clients. But what of the value of this use? Are libraries in a consortium simply paying more for more information, rather than seeking to select the best and most valuable resources for their clients? This issue is not broached in the literature on library consortia, and it clearly needs to be. There is scope for much research on the issue of finance-driven collection management, and many journals would welcome reflective papers on this facet of library finance. Tom Sanville, (1999), �Use levels and new models for consortial purchasing of electronic journals�, Library Consortium Management: An International Journal, Vol. 1 Nos. 3 and 4, pp. 47-58.

With electronic desktop delivery of information, the increased ease of access allows far greater information use than previously possible. The extent of this additional use is still an open question, but based on the OhioLINK experience thus far, it appears that improved ease of access has demonstrated the high elasticity in information usage. Libraries and consortia must seek to enable this desirable outcome by adopting purchase models that provide for expanded journal access. Experience in the OhioLINK Electronic Journal Center (EJC) shows that users have executed over 535,000 article downloads. On average each Ohio university uses three times more titles than they previously held in print, and over 50 per cent of downloaded articles were not available in print on each campus. As the evolution to broad scale electronic access continues, libraries and consortia must take advantage of the opportunities illustrated by the EJC that fashion a sustainable economic model of information purchase that maximises information use.

G. E. Gorman
Victoria University of Wellington

References

Ballard, T.H. (1986), The Failure of Resource Sharing in Public Libraries and Alternative Strategies for Service, American Library Association, Chicago.
Biernan, K.J. (1994), �Costs of electronic information�. In Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, Vol. 54, pp. 132-33.
Lynden, F.C. (1994), �Remote access issues: pros and cons�, Journal of Library Administration Vol. 20, pp. 20-3.
Saunders, L.M. ed. (1993), The Virtual Library: Visions and Realities, Meckler Westport, CT.

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