OCLC Think Piece:Managing print books: A mega-problem?

This is a very interesting OCLC thought piece about how print collection management could change in a hybrid digital/print world:

Managing print books: A mega-problem?

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This research note was co-authored by Brian Lavoie  and Constance Malpas.

“Opportunity cost seems to be the watchword for print book collections these days. The staff, physical space, and other resources consumed by print-centric collections and services are badly needed to support new priorities in library services, such as deeper user engagement and closer alignment with changing research and learning practices. In the face of evidence of declining print book usage, combined with an ever-expanding array of digital alternatives, it is not difficult to imagine a future where “bookless” libraries are the norm.

But this may be premature. Few libraries are prepared to pack up their print books and send them to off-site high-density storage. On several highly-publicized occasions, plans to reduce local print book inventory have met vigorous opposition – witness the recent firestorm at the New York Public Library. In short, print collections pose a dilemma for libraries: they are assets too valuable to dispose of, yet sinking in priority vis-à-vis other aspects of the library service portfolio. The phrase “managing down print”, increasingly common in print management discussions, neatly captures the dueling imperatives: the need to allocate resources away from managing print book collections, but to do so in a gradual, orderly way. So the search is on for the golden mean: a viable print management strategy that can at once leverage more value out of the legacy print investment, and lower maintenance costs. This question is far from settled, but the contours of the solution are becoming apparent. First, future print management strategies are likely to be collaborative, with print books increasingly viewed as a shared asset to be managed cooperatively. Second, the scale of cooperation receiving the most attention, in terms of both planned and implemented solutions, is at the regional level.

This is not to suggest that the rest is a mere matter of detail: for example, the policy and technical infrastructures needed to support a regional strategy for cooperative print management are still in early stages of development. In the meantime, we can speculate on what a network of cooperatively-managed regional print book collections might look like. The OCLC Research report Print Management at “Mega-scale”: A Regional Perspective on Print Book Collections in North America explores a new geography of print book collections based on the concept of mega-regions. Mega-regions are geographical areas defined on the basis of economic integration and other forms of interdependence. The mega-regions framework has the benefit of basing regional boundaries on a substantive underpinning of shared traditions, mutual interests, and the needs of a common constituency.

In the report, we combine WorldCat data with an operationalization of the mega-region concept by urbanist Richard Florida to produce a network of twelve mega-regional print book collections – i.e., the collective print book holdings of all libraries in each region – corresponding to the twelve North American mega-regions identified by Florida (see figure below; click on image to view full size). We explore the salient characteristics of the mega-regional collections individually and as a group, and synthesize these characteristics into a set of stylized facts. The stylized facts are then used to explore the implications of a regionally-based, cooperative print strategy across a wide spectrum of issues, including access, management, and preservation.”

Check it out and read the piece and associated documents.

Stephen