Background

The economic pressures on libraries world-wide have perhaps never been greater. The proliferation of information, the migration of print literature to digital formats, the rising costs of branded scholarly publishing, particularly in science, technology, and medicine, and international currency fluctuations are all well documented. Taken in combination, academic librarians currently face difficult choices in selecting scholarly materials and providing access to information needed by their campus constituencies.

At a meeting this fall of the American Association of Universities (AAU) provosts, those in attendance described the role of librarians as changing from "managers of collections" to "managers of access" to information. At the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) meeting this fall, research library directors articulated the need for ARL to acknowledge that archival print collections need to be acknowledged by ARL's Statistics and Measurement Committee as collaborative, not individual, efforts by members. ARL members also expressed a fear that current collecting practices could lead to duplicative collections at similar universities rather than complementary collections. Given the rapid growth in publishing activity, this might lead to large collection gaps in North American research libraries if current collection development trends continue.

There are several promising cooperative efforts currently underway that might combat these trends. JSTOR appears to provide a reliable collective retrospective digital repository for a small segment of scholarly journals; the Center for Research Libraries complements JSTOR's digital repository with print copies of the journals archived in JSTOR. Consortia such as the University of California system and the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) are implementing shared storage facilities that incorporate archival print copies of record, rather than each library maintaining an archival copy of seldom used materials.

BLC has already made significant investments in a virtual catalog and expedited delivery of interlibrary loan materials. Perhaps the next logical initiative to address collections sharing among the membership is either a series of cooperative collections development policies in various disciplines or at least some formal agreements among members regarding archival print copies of record.

Charge

• Prepare a report outlining previous BLC efforts at cooperative collection development, other research libraries’ consortial or cooperative efforts at collection development and/or cooperative storage facilities and/or archival print copies of record. (February, 2005)
  
  
• Identify interested members (February, 2005)
  
  
• Inventory existing BLC members’ collection development policies, storage facilities, and progress toward cooperative archival print copies of record. Explore potential legal and copyright issues. (May, 2005)
  
  
• Propose initial collaborations to begin in FY 2006. (May, 2005)