Shared Services:Preserving Library Collections

Roger C. SchonfeldManager of Research

Ithaka S+R

July 1, 2010JISC-CNI Edinburgh

ITHAKA is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to helping the academic community take full advantage of rapidly advancing information and networking technologies.  We serve scholars, researchers, and students by providing the content, tools, and services needed to preserve the scholarly record and to advance research and teaching in sustainable ways.  We are committed to working in collaboration with other organizations to maximize benefits to our stakeholders.

Our Mission

• Ithaka S+R works with initiatives and organizations to develop sustainable business models and conducts research and analysis on the impact of digital media on the academic community as a whole.

• JSTOR helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive of over 1,000 academic journals and other content. JSTOR uses information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.

• Portico preserves scholarly literature published in electronic form—more than 10,000 e-journals and 28,000 e-books—and ensures that these materials remains accessible to future scholars, researchers, and students.

Our Services

Organizational Commitment to Preservation

• JSTOR – actively preserving over one thousand academic journals in both digital and print formats

• Portico – digital preservation service providing a permanent archive of electronic journals, books, and other scholarly content

• Ithaka S+R – Print collections management during a format transition– Much work on scholarly journals, also US federal government

documents and beginning to look into monograph issues– Emphasis on developing policy framework to help libraries

negotiate a format transition without sacrificing preservation

Faculty Survey 2009

Faculty Survey 2009: Key Strategic Insights for Libraries, Publishers, and Societies

(April 2010) http://www.ithaka.org/ithaka-s-r/research/faculty-surveys-2000-2009/faculty-survey-2009

Faculty Survey 2009: Background & Methodology

• Findings come from Ithaka S+R’s 2009 survey of U.S. faculty members, building on previous studies in 2000, 2003, and 2006.

• In September of 2009, 35,184 surveys were mailed to academics at U.S. colleges and universities. We received 3,025 completed responses, for an 8.6% response rate, and respondents appear to be representative of the underlying faculty population

• Findings have consistency over time and can be used to build hypotheses but should not be interpreted conclusively

• The respondents are faculty at U.S. higher education institutions– No graduate or undergraduate students– No international institutions or community colleges– Arts & sciences fields, education, law, engineering,

and business, but no health sciences

About the faculty study

• Faculty Survey 2009: Key Strategic Insights for Libraries, Publishers, and Societies

• Chapter 1: Discovery and the Evolving Role of the Library– Basic scholarly information use practices have shifted rapidly in recent years and,

as a result, the academic library is increasingly being disintermediated from the discovery process, presenting libraries with some key challenges but also the opportunity to reallocate resources to other priorities

• Chapter 2: The Format Transition for Scholarly Works– Faculty members’ growing comfort relying exclusively on digital versions of

scholarly materials opens new opportunities for libraries, new business models for publishers, and new challenges for preservation

• Chapter 3: Scholarly Communications – Publishers, scholarly societies, libraries, faculty members, and others have laid

significant groundwork for reforming various aspects of the scholarly communications system, but faculty attitudes are driven by incentives and suggest the need for continued leadership.

Current issues of scholarly journals

2003 2006 20090%

10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

“If my library cancelled the current issues of a print version of a journal but con-tinued to make them available electronically, that would be fine with me.”

Support for cancelling print versions grows further

Support has grown across disciplines

Humanities Social Sciences Sciences0%

10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

2003 2006 2009

Strong agreement with statement: “If my library cancelled the current issues of a print version of a journal but

continued to make them available electronically, that would be fine with me.”

But winding down print publishing is seen as a different issue

Humanities Social Sciences Sciences0%

10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

Very Well Somewhat Not Well

Strong agreement with statement: “I am completely comfortable with journals I use regularly ceasing print versions

and publishing in electronic-only form”

Scholarly Journal Backfiles

Attitudes on historical print collections are starting to shift

2003 2006 20090%

10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%Chart Title

Strong agreement with the statement: “Assuming that electronic collections of journals are proven to work well and are readily accessible, I would be happy to see hard-copy collections discarded and

replaced entirely by electronic collections.”

Support for discarding print backfiles nearly doubles

Humanities Social Sciences Sciences0%

10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

Strong agreement with the statement: “Assuming that electronic collections of journals are proven to work well and

are readily accessible, I would be happy to see hard-copy collections discarded and replaced entirely by electronic collections.”

2003 2006 2009

Declining interest in local print preservation

2003 2006 20090%

10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

Strong agreement with the statements: “Regardless of how reliable and safe electronic collections of journals are,

it will always be crucial for my college or university library to maintain hard-copy collections of journals.”

Declining interest in print preservation, both local and remote

2003 2006 20090%

10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

Strong agreement with the statements: “Regardless of how reliable and safe electronic collections of journals are, it will

always be crucial for _______ to maintain hard-copy collections of journals.”

My college or university library Some college or university library

Developing Print Repositories

Emerging Shared Print Repository Infrastructure

Other Assets

• Willingness to begin validating holdings to identify and ameliorate lacunae

• Numerous off-site high-density shelving facilities controlled by a single university

• Robust interlibrary borrowing/lending infrastructure

Challenges

• Some materials are not being securely retained and preserved

• Other materials are being securely retained and preserved by numerous print repositories and libraries

• Formal arrangements across repository communities are typically absent

• Decisions about sufficiency of preservation are being made via emotion and instinct

Two approaches

• Centralize– Create a business model to connect the individual pre-

existing print preservation efforts and provide guaranteed long term access to preserved print materials to participating libraries

• Information sharing– Provide information about preservation status to the

individual pre-existing print preservation efforts and enable them to self-organize into a robust infrastructure driven by space-savings and cost-avoidance

What to Withdraw Framework andDecision-Support Tool

What to Withdraw: Print Collections Management in the Wake of Digitization

(September 2009) http://www.ithaka.org/ithaka-s-r/research/what-to-withdraw

The approach

1. Identify community preservation needs, ie, How many copies need to be retained at minimum across the library community?

2. Disclose community preservation activities, ie, How many copies are being securely retained across the library community?

3. Analyze what can be withdrawn without preservation risk, ie, “Can my library confidently withdraw our copy?”

4. For other materials, determine how many more copies need to be preserved in order to provide libraries with that confidence.

NOTE: We are not advising any individual library that it should, or should not, retain or withdraw, any of its holdings

What to Withdraw: Examples of Categories

Ideal Scenario Inadequate Digital Preservation Image Intensive Inadequate

Digitization

High digitization quality standards? Yes Yes Yes No

Active error-correction? Yes Yes Yes Yes

Reliable digital preservation? Yes No Yes Yes

Image intensive? No No Yes No

Reliable terms? Yes Yes Yes Yes

Minimum time horizon for retention of some copies system-wide

20 years; and a candidate for local

withdrawaln/a n/a

100 years; and may not be a candidate for withdrawal at research libraries

What to Withdraw: Model

• Ithaka S+R commissioned Candace Yano, operations researcher at UC Berkeley, to develop a model for how many copies are needed to meet these preservation goals

• Assumption that dark archives have an annual “loss rate” of 0.1%

Scenario Time Horizon Probability of Success

Number of “Perfect,” Uncirculating Copies Required

Ideal Scenario 20 >99% 2

What to Withdraw: First step

• JSTOR-digitized titles offer an easy opportunity to apply this model in the short term:– Widely agreed to be of high quality and reliability– Two page-validated dim to dark archives (at Harvard and UC)– Widely held at libraries– Easy access to relevant data– Approximately 9,000 linear feet of holdings

• We have developed a tool to provide libraries with information about preservation status of JSTOR-digitized titles by identifying titles which:– Have relatively few images– Are relatively completely held in both Harvard and UC

archives

“Actionable” Titles Count

Titles Listing

How This Tool Should Be Used (And How It Should Not)

• A library can use this tool to identify a set of titles that are, according to criteria it sets itself, well-preserved elsewhere.

• Copies of these titles held locally are therefore not needed for community preservation objectives, although there may be other reasons for retaining them.

• The title list is not a picklist for a withdrawal project; any library may appropriately choose to locally maintain any or all of the items this tool identified because of other needs or priorities.

• This list provides one source of information to guide a decision-making process; it cannot substitute for that process.

What to Withdraw:Next Steps

and Broader Considerations

Some next steps

• Refine the What to Withdraw framework to:– support volume validation, so more print repositories can participate– incorporate more quality paradigms beyond the “ideal scenario”

• Incorporate more data into the tool:– holdings and condition data from additional print repositories– digitization and digital preservation information of many more titles

• Redesign the tool to:– support consortial and print repository management needs– interact more readily with local systems

• Offer advisory and implementation support services to libraries, consortia, and repositories

Benefits and considerations

• Coverage expanded to the 8,000-10,000 already-digitized titles, or more than10 linear miles of shelving, including many STEM journals

• Libraries achieve significant space-saving opportunities

• Preservation of these materials would be assured

• Print repositories could be develop with greater efficiency and effectiveness – rather than today’s “lumpiness”

• Build on existing models driven by local / regional incentives and relationships

Other content types, including electronic books

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Percent of faculty indicating that each item is very important to their research and teaching

2006 2009 2009 (in 5 years)

Humanities Social Sciences Sciences0%

10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

Strong agreement with “Within the next five years, the use of e-books will be so prevalent among faculty and students that it will not be necessary to maintain

library collections of hard-copy book.”

2006 2009

Faculty Survey 2009 report and What to Withdraw report and decision-support tool are

freely available at http://www.ithaka.org/

Roger C. Schonfeld

rcs@ithaka.org