ACQNET: The Future of Book Buying

Date:  Sat, 13 Oct 2007 01:13:24 -0400
From: Mike Bell (Univ. of TN-Chattanooga)  <Mike-Bell_at_utc.edu>
Subject: The Future of Book Buying

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga has received approval and 
funding from the state
of Tennessee for a new library.  As part of the planning for the new 
building the Dean has asked
me to provide book-buying projections for the next thirty years.  I have 
had a good laugh with
this (30 years??) but the question is pertinent for more than this 
exercise.

I know there have been formulas used in previous decades to project 
anticipated growth.  I can provide
figures for number of books purchased over the past decade and report on 
expenditures for the same period
and of course project into the future based on this history, but is this 
really appropriate?  This might be
good for the next decade, but three decades on seems a stretch of the 
imagination.

UTC is a medium-sized, primarily undergraduate institution with numerous 
graduate programs and a traditionally
under-funded library.  We are not now and will not in the near future be 
considered a research library.  So I
put this to you at similar institutions: Will we still be buying books 
in thirty years?  Will we still be able to afford to
buy books, assuming they are still commercially available given that 
database and journal publishers seem
determined to consume every new dollar that becomes available?  Given 
the reluctance or inability of current
college students to read books, will books continue to be relevant in 
the future, especially once our current
students become the next generation of university professors?

What do you think?  If you were designing a new library what would you 
be looking at in terms of growth projections? 
I know there has been lots of discussion on the future of the book, and 
all previous predictions of its demise have
been premature.  But what do you think we will see in 2027?  2037?  What 
are your plans?

Feel free to respond to me if you have any concrete suggestions or just 
want to exchange views.

Thanks.

Michael

 
W. Michael Bell
Assistant Dean and Head of Acquisitions, Collection Development, and Serials
Lupton Library
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
423-425-2670
mike-bell_at_utc.edu

This correspondence should be considered a public record and subject to 
public inspection pursuant to the Tennessee Public Records Act.

 





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