"What to Keep and What to Toss"

Here is the handout text and outline notes for the MLA session that took place on 11/4/99. Other members of this panel were Mary Cary (Escanaba Public Library), Richard Vettese (Grand Rapids Public Library), and Sharon Campbell (Rochester Hills Public Library), presider.

Resources related to electronic access issues:

Carol Tenopir, "Should we cancel print?" Library Journal (Sept. 1, 1999) pp. 138-142.

AccessMichigan home page: http://accessmichigan.org/

Michigan Library Consortium home page: http://www.mlc.lib.mi.us/

Project Muse home page: http://muse.jhu.edu/

California State University, "Principles for CSU Acquisition of Electronic Information Resources": http://www.co.calstate.edu/irt/seir/EIR.prin.html

SPARC home page (Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition): http://www.arl.org/sparc/index.html

Some print indexing and abstracting tools replaced with online access at MSU:

Print publication	Last year in paper	Electronic access or equivalent
Titles for which the same title is accessible online.
Dissertation Abstracts	1994	Access via FirstSearch
PAIS	1995	Access via FirstSearch
Science Citation Index	1996	Access via ISI web site
Social Sciences Citation Index	1995	Access via ISI web site
Historical Abstracts	1993	Access via ABC-Clio Web site
Biological Abstracts	1995	Access via ERL (WinSPIRS)
Sociological Abstracts	1996	Access via ERL (WinSPIRS)
LLBA	1996	Access via ERL (WinSPIRS)
MLA International Bibliography	1995	Access via ERL (WinSPIRS)
Titles for which a comparable but different resource is available online.
TV News Index and Abstracts	1995	Lexis-Nexis Universe
Index Veterinarius	1995	Medline via FS or ERL
Education Index	1996	ERIC via FirstSearch or ERL
Political Science Abstracts	1996	IPSA via ERL (WinSPIRS)
Information Science Abstracts	1996	Library Literature via FS

Outline of remarks

The members of the panel cannot tell you what to keep and toss at your library, because each library is unique: collection, mission, users.

This is obvious comparing Escanaba Public Library and the MSU Libraries.

• MSU has more students than Delta County has residents.

• MSU's collection budget is far larger, in the millions of dollars.

• MSU's mission emphasizes research support, and (as a land-grant institution) includes a support role for all Michigan citizens, through programs like ILL.

Yet, the same issues and factors are at work. My comments on this are based on a recent merger of several service points (leading to duplication) and on our experience with indexing and abstracting tools.

What should you be doing/how should you be thinking about what to keep and toss?

First, make yourself aware of the available electronic options.  Resources for this:

• AccessMichigan

• Michigan Library Consortium

• Material in the literature, such as Carol Tenopir's article in LJ about categories of electronic journals.

Second, know your own users and the role the library plays for them.

• What is desirable?

• What is required?

• What is possible?

After comparing options with users' needs, ask yourself some questions to evaluate the relative advantages and disadvantages of moving from paper to digital materials.

In terms of risks:

• Are you losing access? This can mean:

  • Loss of some parts of the text (online "equivalents" may not be complete).

  • Licensing limits that conflict with the rights of libraries and readers.

  • Loss of ability to perform your mission (for example, MSU must retain the capacity to provide ILL service).

• Are there archiving risks?

  • These can be technical in origin: obsolescence of formats.

  • These can be legal or grounded in licensing issues: Project Muse is a model vendor because it's contracts address matters such as long-term access. The California State University system principles are another useful resource for thinking about these matters.

• Are there too many new costs?

  • Space for PCs.

  • Costs of PCs, networking, installation, maintenance, support, and replacement.

  • Costs of training and the learning curve for both users and staff.

  • Political costs when the paper-to-digital decision is unpopular.

In terms of benefits:

• Are there savings?

  • Savings in space.

  • Savings in dollars (including the possibility of dropping duplicate access to text: for example, a major newspaper may not be coming to you in paper, in microform, via AccessMichigan, via Lexis-Nexis, etc.).

• Is there better access?

  • Online access offers 24 X 7 service.

  • Online access is independent of place: users who cannot visit the library are no longer excluded. For MSU, this is also a matter of support for distance education and the Virtual University.

  • Online access amounts to multiple copies: very helpful, when 43,000 users at MSU must share a single print subscription.

• Is there better functionality?

  • Databases can be updated more rapidly, so that indexes are current.

  • Keyword searching over multiple years is faster than searching volume after volume in paper, and less prone to error.

  • Online access is the preference of many users.

Third, think about how weeding decisions take place, including the role of print-to-digital issues in those decisions.

Some pragmatic observations about print-to-digital decision-making:

• Librarians are more likely to stop acquiring additional volumes of printed indexes, than to actually discard print volumes already in their collections.

• As is true for all weeding, we do a lot more talking about moving from print to digital access, than acting on what we say.

• When we do act, most of those episodes are initiated by other factors (a reorganization, construction, crises of space or budget). Print-to-digital issues are raised but are not the trigger. For example, typical print-to-digital changes involving MSU indexes typically follow this path:

  • Initially, a title is held in paper only (and published in paper only).

  • Then a publisher initiates experimental access to a digital equivalent, leading to duplicate access.

  • Later, something triggers a need to trim the budget for indexes: at this point, the availability of online access becomes one factor among many being considered (cost, use, quality).

  • When indexes are cancelled, in some cases a print-to-digital shift results. In other cases, paper indexes may simple be dropped.

When print-to-digital changes are being considered, some practical steps can improve the quality of the decision.

• Make sure everyone who has a stake in the decision knows what is being considered and get their input: reference desk staff, systems staff, collection managers, spokespersons for users.

• Be as specific as possible about what is happening: a written Collection Development Statement can help. Set a date by which the decision will be made.

• While everyone needs to have input, some individual needs to have the responsibility and authority to act on the basis of that input. Individuals should not be able to opt out of the process or stall.

URL=http://www.lib.msu.edu/sowards/staff/professional/keeptoss.html
Page editor: Steven Sowards
Email: sowards@msu.edu
Created 7 November 1999; last modified 28 August 2003.