Despite my email address (which is my alumni address), I'm at a US
research university, and was previously at a primarily undergrad with
some grad programs college. At both institutions, our stacks and
print resources were reduced substantially.
We just finished our first ever weed (at an institution that's been
around almost 150 years - don't ask), and cut holdings by about 10%.
Largely the reductions are replacement of print bound periodicals with
purchased digital copies (ones that are purchased, we-own-it digital
backfiles, not just subscriptions that could be lost if we have a
budget cut, or if the content of bundles changes), transfer of
microfilms of some things to our state library, and weeding that got
rid of excessive duplicates (i.e. 9 copies of what was a hot title in
1974 and hasn't circulated since, which we generally cut down to 1),
resources that supported programs we no longer offer, and badly
outdated material (example - a directory of all the public libraries
in a nearby state, current as of 1972, and in spiral-bound
mimeographed format). Our print reference holdings have been halved
and will likely be halved again due to lack of use and replacement
with digital versions.
In 30 years - heck, in 5 years - I expect we will have cut our print
holdings again, substantially - my guess is in 5 years, by another
10%. We are technically a liberal arts university, but in reality,
the vast bulk of our offerings are STEM subjects - we lost 1/2 our
English faculty in the last 5 years, 2/3 of our Anthropology faculty,
several folks in History and Philosophy, etc. So I anticipate further
reductions in print collections. At our Law and Medical libraries,
there are now less than 1/3 of the holdings they used to have in print
- the vast bulk of materials are digital. I think it'd be different
if we were a school that specialized in disciplines like History,
English, Classics, Philosophy, Religion, etc. - in those areas, we
weeded very few titles, mostly just duplicates or things that were
physically falling apart or so damaged they were unreadable.
I also expect e-book technology to improve - it has since it began,
and should go further.
Stephanie Walker
> From: colldv-request_at_lists.ala.org <colldv-request_at_lists.ala.org> On
> Behalf Of Michael Hohner
> Sent: Friday, January 25, 2019 9:03 AM
> To: colldv_at_lists.ala.org
> Subject: [ALCTS-colldv] 30 year predictions for general collection
>
>
> Greetings Colleagues,
>
> As part of a library redesign project, I've been asked to check my
> assumptions about what our Main stacks collection would look like in
> 30 years.
>
> What do others, especially at a primarily undergraduate with some
> Masters level degree programs, think their Main stacks/General
> collection will look like in a 30 year time horizon?
>
> Will it stay the same or increase or decrease, and by how much?
>
> What does 30 years look like for academic book stacks when it you
> look at current purchasing trends, donations, but also consider
> weeding, and other factors like ebook availability, digitization
> projects, and content available open access or falling into the
> public domain?
>
> I don't want to anchor people by providing by figure off the hop, so
> will provide my thoughts later.
>
> Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
>
> Also, let me know if you have any good articles to share that would
> be relevant to this.
>
> Best,
>
> Michael
>
> ---
> Michael Hohner, MLIS
> Head of Collections
> Library
>
> P 204.786.9812
>
> 515 Portage Avenue
> Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
> R3B 2E9
>
> uwinnipeg.ca<http://uwinnipeg.ca/>
>
> [http://uwinnipeg.ca/branding/images/uw-esig-logo.png]
>
>
Received on Mon Jan 28 2019 - 17:07:26 EST
