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The View from the Mountain: 2005 AcquisitionsInstitute at Timberline LodgeSue Andersona

a Anderson is Acquisitions and Electronic Resources Librarian, Eastern WashingtonUniversity Libraries, Cheney, WA 99004-2394, USAPublished online: 06 Dec 2013.

To cite this article: Sue Anderson (2005) The View from the Mountain: 2005 Acquisitions Institute at Timberline Lodge,Serials Review, 31:4, 313-317

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00987913.2005.10765010

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to attend a conference they might not otherwise havebeen able to. Thank you North American SerialsInterest Group; you have made my first professionallibrary conference a wonderful experience, and I lookforward to being present and active while you broarinto your 20s.Q

doi:10.1016/j.serrev.2005.08.009

The View from the Mountain: 2005Acquisitions Institute at Timberline Lodge

Sue Anderson

The sixth annual Acquisitions Institute at TimberlineLodge was held onMay 14–17, 2005. Located onMountHood, Timberline Lodge is a historic building set in abeautiful area of Oregon. Between sessions, attendeeshave time to read in front of the massive fireplace, walkoutdoors, ride the ski lift to the top of the mountain, orsocialize with friends in the bar. Planning committeemembers Richard Brumley (Oregon State University),Emily McElroy (New York University), Nancy Slight-Gibney (University of Oregon), and Scott Alan Smith(Blackwell’s Book Services) organized another eclecticprogram titled bThe View from the Mountain.Q

Keynote Address

Lewis Miller (Butler University) discussed bWines ofFear, Wines of ConvictionQ with the analogy thatcorporations are to wine what publishers are tojournals. He sees two trends today: convergence andblogging. In the first, telecom convergence, communica-tion has moved from mail to telephone, Internet mail,instant messaging, three-way conferencing to smartphones and calendars. The latest are voice-over-Internetprotocol (VoIP), streaming audio and video. Thesevarious communication methods converge when sepa-rate areas are ready to merge.Blogging is the second trend. It is the year of the blog,

an undeveloped tool that can be useful or full of drivelwith plenty of options. On March 21, 2005, there were8,000,000 online diaries, as opposed to 100,000 twoyears ago. Can or should we include blogs in ourcollections? Have we established criteria for blogs?Today’s blogs can be compared to the early days ofthe printing press; it is a new, creative idea. Open Accessjournals are another creative scheme and many librariesalready catalog these journals.In a survey on student access within a library, Miller

found that students go to the library for individual orgroup study, to read and send e-mail, to check the Webfor class or project information, to relax and browse,and for socialization and fun. In the library, thesestudent activities converge with learning and informa-tion centers.With electronic journal management, librarians dil-

igently maintain high quality customer service. In acustomer-driven model, we bgive them what theywant,Q a model Barnes and Noble follows, but not

Powell’s Books (a well-known bookstore in Portland,Oregon). At the University of California MercedLibrary, students can access remote and digital collec-tions plus 250,000 tangible items (books, DVDs, CDs,and videos) all together on shelves—which is anotherkind of convergence.

The Internet isolates people while a library is thecenter of an intellectual community. However, theInternet can transform a library to be a livelier centerof the community. Libraries must be adaptable tochange; they have been and should continue to be thefocus for teaching and scholarly activity on a campus.Many libraries have portions of their physical spaceopen with twenty-four-hour service. Libraries mustrespond to student needs and provide appropriateservices.

A correlation exists between the use of a libraryand successful student learning, but not necessarilybetween library use and information literacy. We cancorrelate services with student learning but library usedoes not cause student learning. Libraries shouldpromote public recognition of scholarly publishingonce a year and think about collections of convictionto help users and honor scholars. It is time forlibraries to not just question authority; librarians mustspeak with authority.

Session 2

Phil Wikelund (Great Northwest Bookstore) presentedbRetail Bookselling and Libraries.Q In the early daysof retail bookselling in a physical bookstore, theworld was ordered and hierarchical and contained aprinted catalog of in-store titles. Wikelund boughtbooks at sales and received donations, sold tolibraries, and conversed with customers by telephoneand in person.

In the world of Internet bookselling, the booksellerdoes not pay rent or utilities for a physical building inwhich to store books. Internet bookselling is anunregulated world, sometimes with no ISBNs for anEstonian political pamphlet or an Indonesian book ofwild tales. Price and condition are important becausehundreds of copies of the same title are available from aplethora of sellers. With fewer booksellers and morebooks sold internationally, jobbers can offer moreservices to customers.

However, online sales are not without problems,such as appraisals, rare books, and unconditionaltwo-week book returns. Judgment calls on the con-dition or edition of a book that is available onlinemakes book buying difficult. Many booksellers do nothave the experience or expertise to accurately describematerial. Appraisal per se is impossible without seeingan item. Knowledge of rare books comes fromfamiliarity with the physical book, reading aboutand seeing the actual bibliographic text, and compar-ing that with a bibliographic source. Many noviceonline booksellers do not have the time or experiencewith the material to make a correct analysis of theircopy of an item. For returned items, the issue of thebunseenQ book that is ordered and returned because of

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poor condition or wrong edition is always anexpensive issue. Postage is not cheap and time linescan be important to the ultimate customer. In thiscase, clearly, bseeingQ is believing.

The online bookstore is an early warning system forlibraries. Customers are in and out of a physical building;walk-in trade decreases as online trade increases. InWicklund’s physical bookstore, he experienced a drop inactual walk-in sales as the sales in the online bookstoreincreased. Fewer people purchased books from thebookstore, while the online department grew gradually.This growth was due in part to the used and out-of-printmarket where a customer, looking for a specific book,quickly discovered that he could successfully locate anitem more quickly online than by shopping in actualstores. Forays into bookstores became more recreational,and impulse buying became the mode that furtherreduced total walk-in sales. Librarians should be awareof the change in the new generation of patrons (if we arenot already). In ten years, online bookstore operationswill stabilize, yet Wikelund believes there will still beroom for libraries and bookstores.

During the discussion after the program, one librariannoted that weeded and donated items from the collec-tion go to a local bookseller. When items are sold, 40percent of the sale returns to the library and thebookseller keeps the remainder. Other libraries areselling their weeded and donated items on the Internetto take advantage of online sales.

Session 3

Bonnie Allen (Oregon State University), Ellen Endres(representing both Brill Academic (Dutch) and Walter deGruyter (German)), and Mark Rothenbuhler (Wiley)held a panel discussion on bPublishers and Publishing.QAllen talked about the decade-long crisis in informationdissemination in which researchers and faculty work onresearch projects and write papers that are published injournals that libraries then purchase in print or accesselectronically. On her campus, librarians have discussedthe Open Access model, retention of copyright byresearchers, and cost rationale with faculty. She sug-gested working with and talking to editorial boards ofsocieties about this issue. She mentioned Public Libraryof Science (PLoS), BioMed Central, and the NationalInstitutes of Health (NIH) as potential ways to accesspublications with archived issues twelve months afterpublication. At her university, access is acceptable overownership and interlibrary loan requests are availablewithin forty-eight hours, posted and retrievable viadesktop delivery. Oregon State University also offers apay-per-view option to purchase additional articles.

Endres responded as the sales representative for twopublishers with different modes of operation. DeGruyter tries to balance electronic resources and openaccess with authors’ demand for an affordable price.Journals are available online with print; online only isnot yet an option. Cambridge Scientific Abstracts andBrill offer an online only option. This exclusive agree-ment to host/sell Index Islamicus expired in June 2005.

Libraries will be able to order this product throughvendors. Brill also has a contract with Springer foronline journal package sales to consortia; this agreementwas also no longer in effect in June.Brill is experiencing challenges with licenses and

invoices because of offering/hosting their online versionof Encyclopaedia of Islam. Brill was not prepared forthe intricacies that went along with license agreements.Each institution or state wanted certain clauses to beadded or omitted. Invoicing was a problem because ofunclear instructions between Brill and the company thatgenerated invoices. Brill made changes to clarify theorder and access processes.For Brill and De Gruyter, other challenges include

making large reference works available online, handlingU.S. dollar conversion for these foreign-based publish-ers, and working with book and serial vendors. As asmall publisher, Brill has not addressed the Open Accessissue. Print-on-demand is an alternative to expensivesmall print runs even though there is already a smallmarket for their product. De Gruyter is not involved inprint-on-demand at this time.Rothenbuhler spoke about Wiley’s various access

methods and models for journal content and electronicbooks. In terms of Open Access, Wiley is in compliancewith NIH policy. Wiley will deposit a final article in theNIH archive, although authors may opt out of thispolicy.During discussion, Rothenbuhler indicated customers

can pick and choose single electronic book titles fromWiley’s list. Since Brill’s contract with Springer expiredin June, libraries now contract with other vendors tonegotiate access to Brill’s electronic journals. Bothpublisher representatives noted that negotiations willbe more direct in the future.

Session 4

Ellen Safley and Carolyn Henebry (both at the Universityof Texas at Dallas) began their session on bLiving with E-booksQ by discussing the demand on their campus for allthings electronic, the history of consortial purchasing,and their high-tech commuter campus. The library begancollecting NetLibrary e-books through their consortiumin 1999; today they have over 35,000 e-titles fromNetLibrary in their catalog. They also purchased elec-tronic books from ebraryR, the American Council ofLearned Societies, and Safari Tech Books. As of the dateof this conference, they have over 300,000 electronicbooks, making a search in their integrated library systemalmost certain to retrieve an electronic book.Electronic book usage statistics vary among these

electronic databases. Some measure usage by accessesand number of titles; others by sessions, titles, and pagesviewed; while others generate time of an average sessionor searches and pages viewed. To gain informationabout e-book usage on their campus, the librarydistributed a questionnaire about e-book use to faculty,staff, and students through various channels. Theyasked about knowledge and usage of e-books, howpatrons found titles (library catalog, Web page, or

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Internet), how patrons used e-books, the type of bookused, and overall reaction to e-books. For the library, e-book problems included duplicates among databases,lack of series links, variation in publication dates amongtitles, superseded titles, journal issues treated as books,and authority problems.Safley and Henebry concluded that purchasing e-

books has been wonderful for faculty and students.Their library will continue to purchase e-books in thefuture. Monthly usage for January through April 2005was about 40 percent of the usage of books in thestacks. Faculty who thought they would not use e-books a year ago are using them now, and the libraryis purchasing as many print books today as they weretwo years ago.

Session 5

Kit Wilson, Maryon McClary, and Kathy Carter (allfrom the University of Alberta) spoke on bNew Oppor-tunities for Technical Services: Reconsidering Priorities,Reshaping Processes.Q A few years ago, the libraryrealized it was purchasing fewer print titles, acquiringmore digital content and dealing with a reduced budget.The library decided they needed to reduce staff andreassign remaining staff members to other jobs. This wasan opportunity to review current operations in technicalservices. A task force was organized with a four-monthtimeline and a mandate to review resources related toacquisition of materials. The process was designed tocommunicate the importance of the changes to staff,establish priorities in monograph and serials ordering,make recommendations to streamline processes, increaseefficiencies in workload and work processes, and stressthe severity of the new budget.The task force developed two questionnaires to aid in

their discussion with staff, met with staff members toprioritize current activities and complete open-endedquestions. The task force analyzed and compiledinformation and reported results to a senior adminis-trative team. Activities were grouped by priority, fromhighest to lowest; reports and recommendations weremade for electronic resources, monograph orders andvendors, serials, donations, cataloging, collection devel-opment, collection management, and staffing. In eachcategory, the recommendations resulted in changes,efficiencies, and a reduction or reassignment of staff.Wilson, McClary, and Carter concluded with these

general comments: prioritizing requires persistence; highand low priorities were common among units; electronicmaterials were important to everyone; and somemonitoring and duplicate record keeping were discov-ered. The units gave up performing some tasks ratherthan moving them around. They raised awareness ofchanges and issues in technical services and providedrationale for making changes and reassigning staff.Communication is the key!

Session 6

Cynthia Coulter (University of Northern Iowa) spokeon bProblem Analysis and Appreciative Inquiry for

Acquisitions Management.Q Coulter first defined someterminology. In problem analysis, one will identify,analyze, and fix problems. Appreciative inquiry (AI) isa constructionist principle whereby one looks atorganizations as living organisms. In the poetic princi-ple, past, present, and future are learning arenas andpeople have a choice of how to examine everything.The anticipatory principle is a way to make changes;and the key factor in AI is the positive principle,response to positive thought.

Coulter emphasized the power of positive imagery.For example, the placebo effect is a measurable,observable, or felt improvement in health that is notattributable to treatment. Or the Pygmalion effect is theeffect when teachers are told that students are bhighachievers,Q those students are treated differently andshow significant gains over a certain time period.

To make changes in the acquisitions unit in herlibrary, Coulter used problem analysis and appreciativeinquiry. When using these concepts to motivate employ-ees, four cycles occur. One begins by selecting a topic forconversation and stating it in a positive manner. In theappreciative interview, the first cycle is discovery: findthe best thing about the topic. The goal is to findcommon stories among staff with themes identified forthe group. In the second cycle, dream; determine a visionof the best imaginable future. Staff members weredivided into two groups to look at the top themes andwrite a statement of the best of the past to envision afuture. In the third cycle, design determines a statementof intent. Groups reviewed the dream and set goals andobjectives. In the fourth cycle, destiny shares thecommon vision of the future. Groups looked atorganization strengths and shared values held incommon. In the end, they implement changes.

Everyone in the acquisitions unit was involved in theanalysis of the problem, engaged in the process toidentify common stories and themes, discussed positiveoptions and changes, decided on ways to determineoutcomes, and designed the best way to make a change.At the end of the entire process, staff knew they had allshared in the process.

Session 7

Bill Fisher (San Jose State University) began his pre-sentation on bThe Impact of Technology on LearningQby discussing four broad principles of learning. First,learning occurs in context. What you learn has to makesense and new information has to be relevant to theframework of what we already know; the new reinforcesthe old. Next, learning is active. Tell, show, or involveme, or in the Web context, think of hyperlinks, whichexpand the breadth and depth of topics. We follow linksto obtain additional information, or links offer adiversion from what we want to know. We know wherelinks go and we need to keep them active. Dead linksequal pages ripped out of books or journals, or an itemthat is not on the shelf. Then, learning is social: weassociate it with groups. In our early school lives, welearn in groups and we solve problems with a diverse

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range of knowledge. Technology lets diverse groupsgather. We have e-mail, groupware, cell phones, andinstant messaging plus collaboration with friends. Ingroup work, however, not all people do the same level ofwork; we have to develop our own level of learning.Finally, learning is reflective: we reflect on what we hearand figure out what we’ve learned. We may reflect onnew information or look at familiar information from anew perspective. We may give feedback on what we’velearned through projects, papers, or exams. Usingtechnology offers the opportunity for online collabora-tion and looking at hyperlinks. As we multitask, do wehave time to reflect on what we learn or hear? Is theretoo much exposure to too much media for too long atime? Do we have time to reflect?

Researchers learned from several studies that studentshave better retention of information when using a printmedium rather than the online medium. Fisher suggestedthat we read education, psychology, and advancedtechnology literature to stay current with changes inthose fields. Librarians should be as concerned withonline content as we are with print. Is the online sourcefactual, indexed, and what is the format—interactive,HTML, or PDF? In student group work, is thepresentation controllable and do students have time toreflect on what they’ve learned?

Fisher concluded that we need to incorporate activelearning behaviors. Academics should not be dominatedby information resources and delivery. Faculty andstudents should have input into the physical educationalspace built for teaching and learning. Technology doesnot guarantee learning. We should utilize currenttechnology while adapting to the new and understandthe new as it exists with the current technology.

Session 8

bMaking Serials Purchasing Decisions Using Pay-Per-View Usage StatisticsQ was Beth Bernhardt’s topic(University of North Carolina at Greensboro). UNC atGreensboro provides pay-per-view article access as oneoption for students and faculty for several reasons.More journal titles and backfiles are available, access toarticles is faster, and it is a good collection developmenttool. Currently, 3454 titles are available via pay-per-view in six packages. Titles are selected for this optionbased on the following criteria: library has no activejournal subscription; a print journal is available butthere is no electronic access; and access is availablethrough an aggregator with an embargo that preventsaccess to recent material.

UNC at Greensboro added titles through theirelectronic journal management system and authenti-cated patrons to these pay-per-view databases. Thismechanism alerts students and staff that the library hasto pay for the article they choose to download.Librarians wanted patrons to think before downloadingor e-mailing articles and to realize that these articles arenot free.

Bernhardt discussed various package options andfeatures; many include monthly usage statistics. She

showed information on the number of available journaltitles, the number of ordered articles, total number ofjournal titles used, the average cost of an article, andthe number of journals accessed through their journalfinder. The pay-per-view costs rose over a three-yearperiod but were significantly less than the cost forsubscriptions to the journals. Interlibrary loan requestsdecreased by 18 percent over a two-year period.Bernhardt pointed out some interesting ramifications

for collection development. Eighty-four percent ofunique titles had four or less articles purchased; 9percent of unique titles had five to nine articlespurchased; and 7 percent of unique titles had ten ormore articles purchased. Nineteen articles wererequested from one title at a cost of $21 per article,and a total cost of $399; the library decided to add anelectronic subscription for $280 per year. Eleven articlesat $20.50 each were requested from a journal they onlyown in print, totaling $225.50. The journal has anadded charge of $200 for electronic access, so the libraryadded electronic access for that particular title.They plan to continue to monitor pay-per-view

statistics, encourage vendors and publishers to offerseamless, user-friendly pay-per-view options, add accessto more pay-per-view titles, and monitor pay-per-viewuse versus costs for consortia purchases.

Session 9

Faye Chadwell and Cara List (both from the University ofOregon) presented bThe Contours of CollectionDevelop-ment in a Consortial Setting,Q where they looked atduplicate holdings and unique titles of the University ofOregon (UO) and Oregon State University (OSU) inSummit, which is the Orbis Cascade Alliance unioncatalog.Orbis, a consortium of Oregon libraries, was founded

in 1993, and the Summit catalog began in 1995 withseven members. At that time, 82 percent of the titles inthe catalog were unique. OSU joined Orbis in 1999, andseven Washington Cascade systems joined in 2003 toform the Orbis Cascade Alliance. Today, thirty-threeinstitutions belong to the Alliance, and thirty-one ofthose currently have holdings in Summit. As membersjoined the consortium, the percentage of unique titlessteadily decreased, dropping to 65 percent in 2005.The Oregon study looked at the OSU and UO titles

held in Summit to determine the number of duplicateholdings and unique titles. Their thesis stated thatduplication of titles between OSU and the UO woulddecline after OSU joined the Orbis consortium. Theyhypothesized that the two libraries would not order atitle already in Summit and that further duplicationwould occur as new libraries added holdings to thecatalog.They found that the number of titles published

increased from 1997 to 2002 based on data from Booksin Print. As more books were published, more titles wereadded to Summit. Unique titles held by OSU and/or UOdeclined from 65 percent in 1997 to 58 percent in 2002.The financial power of both universities had weakened.

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Duplicate titles held by OSU and UO libraries are on thedecline, and materials in both are smaller in Summit.Unique titles held byOSU andUO libraries decreased dueto budget cuts and inflation, and approval plans deliveredmany of the same titles to both libraries that contributedto fewer unique titles at either library. Thus, their thesisthat duplication of titles between OSU and UO librarieswould decline after OSU joined Orbis was disproved.In their anecdotal notes, selectors and subject special-

ists indicated that most did not search Summit beforeordering a title. Local needs were critical in the selectors’minds; the issue of local pride in maintaining a college’sreputation is important, as well as the need to purchaseitems to support the curriculum. There is no unnecessaryduplication of peripheral items. They trust in sharedcollections and have confidence in the delivery mecha-nism for resource sharing. Selectors recognize the needfor some duplication in holdings; subject specialistsunderstand that students do research in different ways,such as browsing shelves for subject specialties.Chadwell and List discussed future considerations for

duplicate and unique titles. Is there an adequate balancebetween unique titles and duplicate holdings? Will costsavings and a shared collection plan maximize benefitsbeyond what is held in Summit and obtainable throughinterlibrary loan? Are the users concerned that howlibraries build collections is changing? How do we makea distribution model and then implement it? Do we usedifferent vendors? How can we maximize our benefits?In the discussion after the program, someone stated

that faculty demand trumps everything when purchasedecisions are made; we order what they need. Otherimportant motivators to order titles already held bySummit libraries include accreditation concerns andsupport of the institution’s curriculum.l

Wrap-Up Session

On Tuesday after breakfast, Timberline organizers werein charge of the wrap-up session. Attendees gavegenerally favorable reviews of the 2005 institute andoffered some general ideas for program content for nextyear.The call for papers for Timberline 2006 was issued in

September 2005 for new innovations and ideas for apresentation at the 2007 exciting, wonderful, andinformal institute to share with colleagues. Every yearis just a bit different from the previous, and it’s alwaysworthwhile to see old friends and meet new people.

doi:10.1016/j.serrev.2005.08.010

Here Today; Here Tomorrow?:Journal Archiving in the ElectronicEnvironment

Carrie S. Eastman

On June 2, 2005, the Serials Librarians Interest Groupand Information Technology Interest Group of theAssociation of College and Research Libraries (ACRL)

New England Chapter held a joint program in theGutman Conference Center at Harvard University inCambridge, Massachusetts. The title of the program wasbHere Today; Here Tomorrow?: Journal Archiving in theElectronic Environment.QOver one hundred people fromacademic institutions throughout New England, someBoston-based companies, and representatives from inter-ested vendors were in attendance. EBSCO SubscriptionServices provided refreshments for the event, so we werewell fed before we even began. ACRL New EnglandChapter members suggested the following worthwhilespeakers for the topic: Vicky Reich (director and co-founder of LOCKSS or the LotsOfCopies Keep Stuff SafeProgram), David Bretthauer (network services librarianat the University of Connecticut Libraries), DonnaBerryman (outreach coordinator for the New EnglandRegion of the National Network of Libraries ofMedicineat the University of Massachusetts Medical School inWorcester, MA), Michael Spinella (executive director ofJSTOR), and Eileen Fenton (executive director of theElectronic-Archiving Initiative launched by JSTOR).

First, Vicky Reich explained what LOCKSS is andhow it can work in libraries. The LOCKSS system isopen source Java software that allows libraries tocollect, store, and maintain electronic copies of journalsthey purchase. If a library eventually cancels anelectronic subscription, it will not lose access to theback issues of the journal because the issues are storedon the local LOCKSS box. This storage prevents thepublisher from revoking access and rights to that backcontent. No, the LOCKSS box is not some kind of fancypiece of equipment. To run LOCKSS a library onlyneeds to allocate one desktop computer as its box andinstall the software. The software accepts all file formatsand stores the collected data on the allocated computer.To counteract the degrading of electronic copies, all theLOCKSS boxes are connected together in a secure androbust peer-to-peer network. Each box uses the networkto check data and perform any restorations or fixesnecessary to maintain the integrity of the files. Of coursethe question of how to provide access to users came up.Each library first links its users to the publisher’s site toretrieve data. In the event that access to the publisher’sdata is disconnected, users are linked instead to theLOCKSS box. Users retrieve the same information withalmost the same look and feel that they would have atthe publisher site. The system is not perfect. Forexample, the LOCKSS team is still working on how tocollect ads, and the search boxes do not work yet. Thissystem is designed to be a kind of safety net, ensuringthat the library’s users always have access to informa-tion and do not experience interruptions in electronicservices.

Some roadblocks still exist. Publishers need to givepermission for their journals to be included in theLOCKSS system by completing a manifest page allow-ing permission to archive. Without that permission,users of LOCKSS boxes will not be able to archive thatpublisher’s electronic journals. Once a library has paidfor access to a journal and sets up a LOCKSS box, itcan be part of the system. But publisher participation is

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