College and Research Libraries Research Library Collections in a Changing Universe: Four Points of View Pauline Atherton Cochrane, Oscar Handlin, Hendrik Edelman, and William Herbster Compiled and edited by Dan C. Hazen and J. Gormly Miller In 1977 the Cornell University Libraries received an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant to study collection development and management. The immediate concern was to develop and test techniques that would allow Cornell's libraries, and academic libraries in general, to control their collections and collecting costs in a period of financial crisis. The "Cornell University Libraries' Project for Collection Development and Management'' (or the II Mellon Project, ''as it came to be known), experienced shifts in both emphasis and personnel over time. Project Director J. Gormly Miller's Collection Development and Management at Cornell: A Concluding Report on Activities of the Cornell University Librarjes 1 Project for Col- lection Development and Management, July 1979-June 1980, with Proposals for Fu- ture Planning. Prepared under a Grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (Ithaca: Cornell University Libraries, 1981) offered general and specific suggestions concern- ing the collection development process. The report's broadest conclusions, which addressed the role of the research library and library collections in the university of the future, became the focus of a half-day seminar held on the Cornell campus early in April1983. This seminar was organized so that each participant commented on the role and mission of the university re- search library, and on the organization of information resources networks within universities" within the context provided by the Concluding Report. · PAULINE ATHERTON COCHRANE Professor Cochrane focused her com- ments on the appropriate role of the aca- demic research library in the contempo- rary information environment. Her thematic reference point was the dedica- tion ceremony for Cornell's Olin Library, twenty years before. The past two decades have indeed chal- lenged librarians. The University of To- ronto initiated its automated catalog, now known as UTLAS, in the same year as the Olin dedication. The Library of Congress began distributing MARC tapes fourteen years ago, when Lockheed also inaugu- rated the Dialog literature search service. Channel 2000, a home-based interactive Pauline Atherton Cochrane is professor, Syracuse University School of Information Studies; Oscar Ha111:d1in is professor and director of libraries, Harvard University; Hendrik Edelman is university· librarian, Rutgers Univer- sity; and William Herbster is senior vice president, Cornell University. Dan C. Hazen is visiting curatarfor the Latin American Collection, Stanford University; and ]. Gc:mnly Miller is, former direetor of libraries, Comelf University. This paper has been reviewed and approved by each of the four participants with the understanding that it was being prepared for publication in C&RL. 214 information system in Columbus, Ohio, began offering banking services, access to the public library catalog, announcements of local interest, and the like, three years ago. The Chicago Public Library inaugu- rated an informational database, detailing local events and other timely information, two years ago. And only this spring the Li- brary of Congress unveiled its exhibit on the American cowboy, which includes an optical disk as an integral component. LC is also exploring disk applications for pres- ervation, and has created interactive disk programs to instruct users about its online catalog. This skeletal ·chronology of technologi- cal change allows several generalizations. First and foremost, technology has indeed impinged upon information and upon li- brary services. Speakers at the Olin Li- brary dedication stressed the need for co- operative support for the country's then-burgeoning area studies cotlections. Automation, phrased as the "push- button library," was scarcely mentioned. We have since experienced a telecommu- nications revolution, and the old assump- tion :that books (perhaps augmented by film) would forever remain the principal medium for storing and transferring infor- mation is no longer viable. The library pro- fession, :in other words, must be con- cerned with the development both of collections per se, and of mechanisms- databases and interfaces-to link and pro- vide access to information. The contemporary environment has been shaped by the following circum- stances: 1. Information services and links within the tibrary ·can be employed to connect us- ers to information sources located outside the library. 2. The bibliographic and substantive in- formation services which libraries offer can, conversely, be constdted at remote lo- .cations. Nonetheless, the books remain in the library. Can library holdings them- selves be made as easily available as infor- mation about them? 3. Libraries are creating their own infor- mation resources, and are electronic pub- lishers in their own right. The RUN and OCLC databas·es, for instance, are really Research Library Collections 215 electronically published catalogs. The Li- . brary of Congress has established a direct link with Harvard, whereby Harvard will add its cataloging copy to the MARC data- base. In even broader focus, the "Linked Systems Project" will provide access to RLIN, WLN, and LC, and will allow users to switch between the databases and to search all the authority files. Such cooper- ation may minimize the impact of catalog- ing cutbacks at LC, as well as fulfilling li- braries' growing potential as electronic publishers. 4. Librarians continue to mediate be- tween their immediate clientele and infor- mation resources. Increasingly, though, they are also linking distant users with their services and resources. These trends are attracting ever more at- tention. The National Library of Medicine, for instance, has solicited proposals from academic medical libraries to develop an "integrated academic information man- agement system." A recent report from the Association of American Medical Col- leges highlighted technology's potential to transform medical libraries and infor- mation by integrating them within a gen- eral information system. This kind of sys- tem could provide ready access to such divergent data as test results, the medical literature, bibliography, patient histories, and billing information. The possibilities are clear, though the role of the academic medical library in realizing them may be less so . Other educational institutions are simi- larly concerned with the role and potential of electronic technologies. A meeting on ''The College Enters the Information Soci- ety," held earlier this spring, focused on how libraries will function within the "wired" academy. Will libraries act as "switching points" between the multiple information nodes characterizing these in- stitutions? While this mediating function would be somewhat new, it will also be an increasingly necessary response to the de- veloping environment of electronic infor- mation. The extent to which new technology has pervaded academia is also reflected in still-tentative efforts at electronic publish- ing. As early as 1961, the American Insti- 216 College & Research Libraries tute of Physics envisioned journals that would incorporate online peer review. Many scientific reports, comprising the so-called "grey literature," are now pre- pared electronically. Scientists do use these materials, and database suppliers and retrieval system vendors have taken the lead in providing them. Librarians, too, need services that will link this elec- tronic literature with our book collections. Nuclear Science Abstracts tracks the reports accessible to the Atomic Energy Commis- sion and records their eventual publica- tion in printed journals. In this case, re- port literature is documented both as originally submitted and in its fully assim- ilated, published form. On the other hand, not all fields are embracing-or be- ing embraced by-technology with equal dispatch. A draft report on circulation pat- terns at Virginia Polytechnic Institute has revealed very different patterns of collec- tion use between types of material and us- ers and disciplines. The humanities, for instance, will almost certainly be among the fields last affected by the electronic revolution. Collection development must reflect the process and progress of information trans- fer in all areas of knowledge. Online data constitute a new link in the chain of knowledge. Library users are aware of this information, and they want libraries tore- spond to their needs. Academic libraries must thus expand their approach to infor- mation resources in order to meet their us- ers' widening expectations. Enhanced access will not only involve traditional collection development, with its implicit corollary of physical access to information resources, but also intellec- tual and bibliographic access to informa- · tion per se. User requests must be matched with information, however that information happens to be packaged. Changing the terminology, libraries must assume the function of maintaining and providing addresses for warehoused in- formation in all forms. One example is on- May 1984 line library catalogs which, right now, in- tegrate in-house bibliographic data with circulation information: both the existence and the location of a work can be deter- mined. Collection management is another area in which the developing electronic environment may have a major impact, though here the effects have yet to be ad- dressed. In sum: Stephen McCarthy's remarks at the Olin Library dedication emphasized that Cornell seeks to create a unity out of its multiplicity and diversity, and that the library should echo this goal. An informa- tion resources network, drawing fully on the possibilities of contemporary technol- ogy, will similarly enhance a sense of com- mon purpose and a degree of order. Herein lies our future. OSCAR HANDLIN The academic research library is a library dedicated to research and located within a university that both establishes its context and limits its autonomy. The academic re- search library justifies its existence through its relationship with the univer- sity. Within the university, then, the re- search library devotes itself not to the mere accumulation of books, but rather to the development and maintenance of col- lections. Its proper terms of reference are its constituent collections, not the total number of titles or volumes that it may possess. This focus on the collection has been complicated by such pernicious fan- tasies of academic life as ''I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study.'' t Good-hearted though they are, such declamations are entirely misleading. The university is lim- ited in the fields that it can support and in the persons that it can accommodate. So is the research library limited: it cannot and should not seek to provide any book in any subject for anybody. Rather, the aca- demic research library should focus on *Stephen A. McCarthy was Cornell's director of libraries from 1946 until1967 . tA quote from Cornell's founder, Ezra Cornell, which has been immortalized as the university's motto. tightly defined areas of interest that some- how relate to the university's work and as- pirations. Academic research libraries can follow several courses in attempting to develop collections relevant to the university's re- search needs. One approach is to monitor current research interests by consulting with faculty members and students and to construct acquisition policies designed to satisfy these immediate needs. This ap- proach guarantees disaster. Building col- lections to satisfy current demand is build- ing them too late, and librarians must instead anticipate the research interests of twenty years hence. To cite a concrete ex- ample, Harvard and the New York Public Library began. collecting Russian materials in the 1920s, when no one else was inter- ested. These collections remained virtu- ally untouched for years. But when the field of Soviet studies did emerge, in the 1940s and 1950s, early materials were no longer available, and the Harvard and NYPL collections proved invaluable. Deaccession is also an integral part of the library dynamic. Harvard removes about 45,000 volumes each year, though this process focuses on volumes rather than collections, and emphasizes out- dated instructional texts, duplicates, and the like. Collecting ventures are occasion- ally suspended, as when Harvard relin- quished its incipient efforts in Africana. The process is continuous, but also prob- lematic. Thus, for instance, Harvard has built the world's preeminent collection on Islamic law, but no one in its law school is using these materials. The collection has value by virtue of its existence, and Har-" vard may have thereby incurred an obliga- tion to the Western scholarly community to maiiltain it. But law library users would rather have another terminal for online in- formation, and future funding- arrange- ments for the Islamic collection are un- clear. An appreciation of the collection's long-term worth must at least partially off- set the clamor of immediate concerns. As the above-cited example of Soviet studies may suggest, the "magic" in cre- ating research collections derives from specialists who can make educated guesses for the future. Adequate re- Research Library Collections 217 sources are likewise essential. Where in- adequate funding precludes the imple- mentation of specialist insights, the . library will fail as certainly as if its selectors focus on inappropriate material. There are no shortcuts, and no formula will allow the research library to maintain its stature. The conjunction of scholar-bibliographers and dollars is indispensable for success. Even as libraries require funds to de- velop their collections, then, library bud- geting remains intractable to the logic of accountants. Were libraries conceived of as economic enterprises, then acquisitions budgets would represent capital outlay. Books, at least for the purposes of this il- lustration, not only do not wear out, but tend to appreciate over time. If university administrations were persuaded of this analysis of bibliothecal appreciation, then libraries would be seen as carrying im- mense unrealized profits, and balance sheets would be adjusted accordingly . However, libraries are not created as in- vestments, so this perhaps seductive logic does not hold . Some things in life simply are not susceptible to balance-sheet reduc- tionism. Libraries can and should live within budgets, but books and collections cannot be costed out in a "normal" fash- ion . Part of the answer at Harvard has cen- tered on library endowments, which now total more than $50 million. A side benefit to endowment funding, then, is that the entire community has become sensitized to the library's importance. Libraries, even in research universities, are not just homes for research collections. They are also places where information is available. In the research context, though, it is essential to distinguish between re- search collections and information. Infor- mation is data of whose existence a user is aware, and is the object of a closed and cir- cumscribed search. Research, by contrast, is an open-ended process of definition in which the goals may remain unclear until the very end. Information is available in many forms, of which only some are housed within the library. Information is also essential, but it is fundamentally dif- ferent from the library collections that support research. Technology can help make information more accessible; such 218 College & Research Libraries hard-copy compilations as telephone books, statistical abstracts, or encyclope- dias in fact are relics of our past reliance on paper. As information does become more por- table and more accessible, it becomes ever less appropriate for the research library. Information is essentially a "large but in- ert'' body of material, for which the termi- nology of warehousing is entirely appro- priate. Neither the vocabulary nor the underlying concepts of warehousing, however, can apply to research collec- tions, since the research process is so fun- damentally different from information gathering. The retailing and brokerage of information can and must be distin- guished from collection development in a research library. In fact, information data- bases and exchange points might be most appropriately sited in public libraries, where all could benefit. Alternatively, free-market access through commercial ventures like Channel2000 might ensure a more equitable and efficient distribution of this commodity. Whatever the solution, the university research library should not attempt to pro- vide information as well as to maintain re- search collections, even though most aca- demic libraries try to do both. Library facilities geared to instruction:, and to the provision of information, are now quite commonly tied to research libraries. Such arrangements embody a clash of function that inevitably distorts the process of allo- cating resources. Instructional libraries are highly visible, and their needs are pressing. The future-oriented priorities of research collections tend to be relatively invisible and are thus more easily short- changed. Over time, the tension between information and research functions inevi- tably works to the detriment of research · collections. Many scenarios for the future anticipate an era of electronic publishing. However, the process as advocated by its more radi- cal proponents-in which everyone's data, discoveries, and insights would be accessible online-omits any component of peer review. Information disseminated in this manner, without quality control, would only amount to ''static''; and an May 1984 overabundance of static makes any infor- mation, or information system, unusable. If some research finding or bit of informa- tion has value, it will work its way into the literature. Furthermore, even researchers in fields purported to require speedy ac- cess to new findings, for example physics, may not really require the instant access so often assumed. Close analysis may prove both the importance and the convenience of immediate electronic information somewhat fictitious. Electronic technologies, while wonder- ful (and expensive), thus do not address the research process. Unless university li- I braries are confident that they can both ·I maintain their existing and generally ''fee- ~ ble" efforts to create research collections, and assume new functions as well, the re- search function will suffer. Professor Handlin would therefore bless any effort to divorce information services from the li- brary. Herein lies the way to free the aca- demic research library to accomplish what it alone can: that is, to maintain the schol- arly collections of mature, durable re- search products that the research univer- sity requires to survive. HENDRIK EDELMAN Mr. Edelman's presentation reflected his various professional perspectives vis- a-vis the Mellon Project, including those of the project's first director, library ad- ministrator of . Cornell, positions within Rutgers and RLG, and library school pro- fessor. This variety of experience was used to explain some of the historical and insitutional contexts for the Mellon Project at Cornell. Postwar growth in American higher ed- ucation, after several decades of boom, ground to a halt around 1969. Cutbacks in educational funding, to considerable ex- tent mandated by circumstances exoge- nous to the academic world, led to a vir- tual state of depression in the early 1970s. Publishers, who were not well attuned to their market, continued to flood . a shrunken academic sector with new mate- rials even when the books could not be ab- sorbed. These circumstances led to an ex- perience that was new for all concerned~ Libraries, flush with e.ver-larger budgets and acquisitions programs, had been re- garded as successes throughout the 1960s. By the mid-1970s, in a notable irony of in- terpretation, university administrators- and librarians themselves-saw libraries as problems. This perception was aug- mented insofar as academic librarians at the time could neither explain nor control what was happening. University libraries were regarded as bottomless pits, and aca- demic administrators too-often suc- cumbed to the temptation to cut acquisi- tions budgets in order to slow their libraries' incessant demands for ever more books, space, and staff. It was within this depressed context that Cornell proposed to study collection de- velopment. Even as the Mellon Project got underway, though, the environment again changed: the period of acute crisis was fairly short. One of the most signifi- cant shifts involved the quantity of new publications. Publishers adjusted to smaller markets, and there was an overall decline in world publishing output-albeit the reductions have concentrated in re- print, microfilm, and humanities materi- als, while scientific publishing continues to expand and the international market follows any number of diverse local dy- namics. A second major change has been our in- creased bibliographic capability, within which the selection and identification po- tentials of a tool like RUN's acquisitions subsystem are critical. The Library of Con- gress has acknowledged that it cannot and will not catalog everything it receives. The cutback is permanent, and the research li- brary community must cover the loss. On- line bibliographic databases have helped create a de facto distributed operating mode among the nation's libraries which, for full catalog records, has existed for some time. However, as the time between when items are ordered and when they are fully cataloged increases, and as cut- backs within LC make it impossible to rely on MARC tapes or proof cards for selec- tion, interim online records will become ever more important. If acquisitions data comprise the only available bibliographic information, then these records must be Research Library Collections 219 shared for effective collection develop- ment. Both identification and selection functions can thus be enhanced by new electronic technology. A third area of change is that we know much more about our collections than ever before. Studies like those conducted during the Mellon Project, as well as ef- forts at other institutions, have enabled us to define and describe collections with un- precedented precision. In a context like Rutgers, which is highly dispersed and which suffers from a substantial commu- nications problem, collection analysis has permitted a reorganization of selection re- sponsibilities and resources. On the ''macro'; level, this analysis has permitted a careful definition of collecting responsi- bilities throughout the system. At the "micro" level of specific purchases, on- line acquisitions information means that units can immediately determine whether another unit has ordered an item that is of some interest but which does not fall within their primary collecting categories. The combination of better-defined collec- tions, and quick access to order informa- tion, also enables closer library contact with users. Public service functions, as well as selection, acquisitions, and cata- loging, are more efficient and more effec- tive. Increased knowledge of collections has also refined our understanding of the pos- sibilities and the limitations of coopera- tion. It has always been apparent that co- operation will not reduce costs. However, cross-collection comparisons suggest that the overlap between similar collections at different locations may be lower than li- brarians once assumed. Within Rutgers, for instance, two collections of Puerto Ri- 'can literature built in units with similar re- sources and goals show very little overlap. The collection development process at dif- ferent institutions may well not generate essentially duplicate collections. One practical result of this apparently low overlap between ostensibly similar conditions is that Rutgers is not participat- ing in the Research Libraries Group's as- signment of priorities for cooperative col- lection development. Analyses like those cited above, or like Cornell's studies of the 220 College & Research Libraries nationwide availability of Southeast Asian materials, demonstrate that collections are in fact interdependent. The RLG conspec- tus exercise has served to identify some weak areas, which the research library community can strengthen through coop- eration. In the future, particularly, cut- backs in foreign language acquisitions are a real threat. However, neither the history of cooperative efforts, nor the bureaucracy that a national plan is likely to entail, bodes well for a permanent solution. Of greater imm~diate importance, our grow- ing awareness of collecting realities belies the notion that any one library might an- chor the nation's holdings in some field. No single collection can be either suffic- ient or definitive. A fourth and final change, which has af- fected virtually all academic institutions, centers on increased accountability. Greater attention to student concerns, for instance, has added complexity to the li- brary selection process. Users must be kept satisfied as a matter of political sur- vival. On the other hand, just as the over- all growth in American higher education has slowed or stopped, so have specific in- stitutions sought to limit the emergence of new programs: increased accountability is affecting the rise of new academic endeav- ors. Nonetheless, interdisciplinary pro- grams continue to cause problems for both library collection development and ad- ministration. Furthermore, many univer- sity administrations still fail to adjust li- brary book budgets in response to the needs of new academic programs, and re- source allocation is an issue yet to be fully addressed by either library or university administrations. Budgeting models for the distribution of computer time, or for access to electronic databases, may pro- vide insights for library funding structures-though we must beware of only providing information to those who can pay for it. At Rutgers, programmatic accountability vis-a-vis the library is en- sured insofar as Mr. Edelman's signature is required before new academic programs can be implemented. The library has a di- rect voice in the process of allocating for expansion. These four broad areas of change-shifts May 1984 in the overall context of higher education, increased technological capabilities, better knowledge of our collections, and greater accountability within universities-have transformed the environment of the re- search library. The electronic revolution has played a role. However, it has notal- tered the basic parameters within which li- braries operate, and we must be wary of the mythology of total technological trans- formation in some more-or-less immedi- ate future. Electronic technologies, for in- stance, remain extremely expensive: hard-copy pages from one electronic jour- nal cost fifteen dollars apiece. The publishing industry has already adapted to new technology. Electronically assisted editing and composition are com- monplace, but pages are still the end prod- uct: And pages will probably remain the end product, even though high printing costs and small markets make much aca- demic publishing only minimally profit- able. Since peer evaluations remain fun- damental to the review structure for faculty tenure, wholesale shifts toward the unfettered exchange of unscreened in- formation are unlikely. Perhaps more sig- nificant in their immediate impact on li- braries are archival collections, which are experiencing extremely rapid growth. The microform ''disaster'' of the past twenty years, on the other hand, suggests that the value of the text does indeed prevail over the utility of its format. (Thankfully, mi- croform is now generally recognized as only an interim storage medium. New technology, like video disks, should bring a more satisfactory solution to the needs of storage and preservation.) We can and should speculate about the electronic fu- ture, but this should not defer action on immediate and urgent problems. To date, the basic issues of collection development have been only peripherally affected, or addressed, by the electronic revolution. Various Mellon Project methodologies have been applied at Rutgers. One major accomplishment was to describe each col- lection, in a process that allowed the col- lections to be redefined, relocated, and priced. The library has tied its local collec- tions more closely to their immediate aca- demic constituencies, and in so doing has fl ! 1 created user advocates, increased its ac- countability, and reaped political benefits. The political dimension bears particular attention: library budgets simply cannot meet all needs, so special attention must be given to those who care the ·most. Rutgers has found it difficult to justify spe- cial documentation projects within the li- brary system, particularly since many of these were originally funded from outside sources. Some such projects have been re- turned to the academic units from which they originated, though the library has re- tained bibliographic control. In fact, Rutgers now functions ·as a decentralized information network with central biblio- graphic control. Turning to Cornell, the university ad- ministration has, since the 1960s, fallen consistently short in its support of the li- brary. There have been no capital invest- ments in the book budgets, and the library has fought a protracted and losing battle to sustain its purchasing power for acqui- sitions. Neither have adequate capital in- vestments been forthcoming for library space, or retrospective collection develop- ment, or technological improvements, or preservation. Such investments must be made, and they must be made in full knowledge that technology is not a cost saver for research libraries. Private univer- sities have developed convincing cases to attract foundation support for their re- search libraries. These capital infusions are all to the good, but internal funds are needed as well. Discussions between the head librarians of different universities are likewise commendable, but they will not reduce costs. The cooperation that results from these conversations may help make the best of mutual shortages, but it cannot generate savings. On the other hand, some budgetary concepts and mechanisms once thought scandalous are now quite generally ac- cepted. Ronald Reagan, as governor of California, created an uproar by declaring that the state university could solve its budget problems by selling its rare books. Today, in fact, most libraries do sell off materials-including rarities-as a matter of course. At many smaller institutions, out-of-scope collections have been sold Research Library Collections 221 wholesale. Such sales also reflect the pro- cess of tuning collections to meet both li- brary possibilities and user needs. As re- cent shifts at the New York Public Library suggest, the reassessment of collecting ef- forts may have dramatic results. To sum up: the electronic revolution has generated many unrealistic expectations, despite its proven utility for some information-related functions. Technol- ogy simply cannot address all aspects of the library environment. The increasing accountability of both libraries and univer- sities, for instance, is peripheral to techno- logical change. The issue of centralization versus decentralization remains crucial; and overlap and duplication are an inevi- table cost of decentralization. Decentral- ization on a national scale requires the same sensitivity: interlibrary loan pro- grams are no substitute for local acquisi- tions, particularly at an isolated institution like Cornell. We cannot ignore present needs by dreaming of some cheap fix for the future. Change will certainly occur, but in the meantime we must confront pressing needs for traditional materials, and also cope with the past's legacy of crumbling paper. Increased funds are essential. It remains unclear whether the aca- demic library either is, or should become, the hub of a comprehensive information network. In an institution like Cornell, no single individual or unit will ever have control over all information. Moreover, the coordination of information resources is basically a problem of university man- agement. While the appropriate locus for university initiatives to address the coor- dination and/or control of information re- sources will vary between institutions, the basic mandate will have to come from the top. Some universities have designated a vice president for information, though this response encourages bureaucratiza- tion and inflexibility. On the other hand, the library has very little political power: it is responsible to all, and even its authority to select books is challenged every day. Librarians can and should play a role in establishing an information network, but the information brokerage function is not part of the library's current mission, and 222 College & Research Libraries any such new responsibility must be ac- companied by increased funds. Further- more, few academic libraries are prepared to undertake research functions, and few provide rewards to those staff members who engage in such activity. Additional layers of work and responsibility simply cannot be indefinitely superimposed on an already busy staff. The library might very well be an appropriate source of in- novation and leadership in addressing the utilization and control of information, but rewards must be provided. WILLIAM HERBSTER Mr. Herbster opened his presentation by recognizing the importance of research libraries within both the university and our knowledge-based society. Nonetheless, such appreciations must be balanced against the constant calls for Day Hall administrators to reorder their priorities, and thereby increase support for particular Cornell functions.* These often-strident demands come at a time of diminishing real resources, in an era that has been typified as one of ''the manage- ment of decline," or "creative frugality," or ''aggressive withdrawal.'' Conl.ell' s to- tal capital needs for the next decade, un- der all rubrics, could reasonably exceed half a billion dollars. These funds will not be forthcoming, so cuts and compromises are essential. The context is one in which economics are fundamental, and adminis- trators, scholars, and librarians should share the common goal of developing data that will ease the task of finding new re- sources. The Mellon Project's emphasis on inte- grated planning is particularly useful within this context of restraint. As Profes- sor Handlin asserts, the library is building for future research. Collection develop- ment must be adapted to the overall plan- ning process as well as to new patterns of information utilization. More and more knowledge is also being created and stored outside the library. The academic library must explicitly address May 1984 j the trade-off between actually acquiring information, and providing the fullest possible access to all knowledge and infor- mation, whether available locally or some- where else, and whether housed in li- braries or museums or on tape. In other words, the real world of limited resources forces a trade-off between collections per se and bibliographic access to information in its broadest sense. The concept of an in- formation resources network may provide a means to manage this plethora of data and of sources. The ability to track the lo- cations of knowledge and of information resources may well prove more valuable to researchers and the university than the necessarily partial collections that libraries can hope to create on-site. We must beware of assuming linear de- velopment through time when we con- template changing technology and its ef- fect on information. Futurologists like Alvin Toffler assert that the future will be fluid, and will involve multidimensional changes in context that will necessarily preclude straight-line extrapolations and forecasts. The long-term probability of substantjally different approaches to in- formation may render many of our current assumptions invalid. "Biotechnology" is but one new field in which there are simul- taneous needs to define, create, and create access to, the relevant bibliography; and in which new information technologies will do much to shape the nature of infor- mation itself. As knowledge becomes ever more fragile, and as its velocity increases, then the costs of accumulating and pub- lishing it may become prohibitive. Data may eventually be freely stored and ex- changed between computers, with hard- copy publications relegated to only a few fields of very particular characteristics. This trend may in fact have begun already, which could explain the decline in pub- lishing output mentioned earlier in the session. The point is not necessarily that the research community will move from print publications to new forms and for- mats for information, but rather that our planning should allow for nonlinear prog- l *Day Hall is Cornell's administrative headquarters. ress. We may need to ask different ques- tions when we anticipate our needs. In other words, long-term planning hould not rest on assumptions of either a static world or one of linear change. On the other hand, and for the near term in which expectations of linear change will conform reasonably well to reality, we need to develop a more sophisticated un- derstanding of the economics of libraries than we now possess. We must therefore address both the allocation problem and the information it requires. This need can be addressed in at least two ways. The first focuses on the costs of creating and maintaining usable library collections. One can posit that there is an incremental cost attached to every library acquisition. This cost includes the direct purchase price, but must also account for processing, storage, building mainte- nance, use, and all other relatively invisi- ble elements of overhead. · The result would be a more accurate picture than that now available of the how and why of li- brary expenses. And this type of break- down would allow a more enlightened al- location process within the university administration. Alternatively, one could cost out the "recovery characteristics" of library ac- quisitions. Different publications benefit different users, and support different types of use . The delineation of such use characteristics might allow the central ad- ministration to justify new, and hopefully more productive, funding mechanisms for the library. For instance, librarians might determine that part of the acquisi- tions budget is used to build research- oriented collections, that other funds con- stitute "capital expenditures" for enduring collections, that some money is used to purchase high-turnover books or materials for reserve; and so forth. Differ- ent user groups, or beneficiaries, could then be associated with each of these func- tions. Then, and in contrast to the present practice in which virtually all increases in library budgets are viewed as being paid for through higher tuition bills, the costs of proposed acquisitions could be divided among the real beneficiaries. We may not be able to predict the use that an indivicl- Research Library Collections 223 ual volume will receive, but we must strive to develop large-scale measures that can be integrated within our overall plan- ning and budget mechanisms. University administrators are indeed tempted to curtail acquisitions budgets in order to limit overall library costs. Some of the blame, though, belongs to librarians who have neither analyzed nor communi- cated all the costs of their activities. Simi- larly, and for some of the same reasons, the administration has been conditioned to a mode of dealing with the library that is short-term, response-oriented, and often most aptly characterized as crisis manage- ment. A longer-term perspective is essen- tial. Another element in the university dy- namic, to which libraries must adjust, in- volves changes in programs that in turn imply, or require, changes in acquisitions policies. Not all these changes result in ad- ditional expenditures. Cornell's nursing school, for instance, was closed on its hundredth anniversary, and the School of Business and Public Administration is now deciding whether to suspend or elim- inate its programs in public and hospital administration. Most cutbacks are not so visible. Rather, adjustments tend to occur as specific fields receive reduced funding and emphasis within departments or colleges. These shifts are not usually announced, since some degree of subtlety is essential to pre- vent demoralization or uproar. And these surreptitious shifts may be hard for the li- brary to detect, though informal networks and rumors seem to work reasonably well. In any event, shifts are occurring, and the library must track them and adjust accord- ingly. The library should take the lead in de- veloping an information resources net- work within the university. Librarians possess t~e skills needed to relate and me- diate information while, on the other hand, neither the president nor the pro- vost is likely to command the time and ex- pertise necessary to the task. The library cannot dominate an information re- sources network, but it can provide lead- ership both to those managmg separate information sources or centers and to the 224 College & Research Libraries information resources network as a whole. For the moment, we need not worry about where money will be found, nor concern ourselves with who ulti- mately takes charge of a network. We do need to know how the panorama of infor- mation is changing. In a longer term, the library should become the ''central switching point" in an information re- sources network. Thus conclude the viewpoints ex- press~d at this final seminar on the Cor- May 1984 nell University Libraries' Project for Col- lection Development and Management. The session was intended as a start as well as a finish: now Cornell's librarians and administrators will begin an open-ended, and not always structured or formal, pro- cess of assessing both the broad issues raised in this seminar, and the more spe- cific recommendations of the Concluding Report. The result we all expect is a library system better able to define and to meet its responsibilities in an environment of chal- lenge and change. fr--; ~ I A . ·t· L.b . ~ ~ cqutst ton 1 rartans . . . .. I I I I : I 'I~ I i t I ' i Now is the time to try the best source for: • :\l\ Y UOOK It\ PIU:\T • accurate im·oicing • meaningful reports e rush order service • competitiw discounts t • plus many other sen·ices I ! CALL TOLL-FREE TODAY f - l -800-248-1146 1 I ln Canada & Michigan I i CALL COLLECT (517) 849-2ll7 Al\Y nOOK 11\ PRI:\T ... .. nwans de- livery to ~· our library of ''any book in print" from any publi~h<'r or distribu- tor in the U.S. or Canada. 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