2. Who we are
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Membership organisation of 34 libraries
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29 university libraries
3 national libraries
Wellcome and V&A
Vision:
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The UK should have the best research library support
in the world
3. Vicious Circle
•The information space is growing
• More content - journals getting bigger, more books published
• Multiple formats - not just print, but electronic editions, digitised
material
•Budget constraints - as universities grow, library budgets do not necessarily
keep pace - especially true in the US (the largest monograph market)
•Even where budgets do keep pace, smaller percentage of budget goes to
monographs
• Monograph spending in UK fallen from over 10% of acquisitions budgets
to 8%
•An individual monograph is a ‘discretionary’ purchase
•So, market shrinks, sales decline, prices increase, leading to fewer sales, price
increases, etc., etc.
•Is there a core market for monographs? Is that market large enough to support
current publishing models
4. Just in case, Just in time
•Traditionally, libraries built collections and were (relatively) sanguine about
resources not being used immediately
• Google mass-digitisation of Oxford’s 19th Century collections - 20% of
items were uncut
• Many large US universities purchase on approval plans from trusted
publishers - ‘collection by default’
•For some institutions, the ‘just in case’ model is no longer viable - they are
looking to provide ‘just in time’ resources.
•The move to digital (especially in journals) has shifted thinking from ownership
of materials to leasing - the library no longer needs copies on shelves to meet
researcher needs.
•The move to digital also liberates space - allowing prime campus estate to be
reused as student study spaces made easier by a move to electronic provision
5. Collective ownership
•University of California high-density, off-campus shared storage facilities
•Many new purchases are placed directly into the stores - never seeing one of
the campus libraries.
•For low-use items, this makes more sense than purchasing multiple copies for
individual libraries.
•Potentially reduces the number of copies purchased overall by the University of
California system
•Would this model work for coalitions of independent institutions? Perhaps in
regional consortia?
•Further reduction in the overall market?
6. A Broken Model? Solutions?
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Do we need to review the use of the monograph
as the gold standard for academic prestige?
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Can we reduce the costs of monograph publishing?
Greater move towards online first and print-ondemand
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Can we reduce the risk of publishing - take
advantage of collective purchasing?
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Move from collecting to dissemination? (Open
Access?)
7. Jisc National Monograph Strategy
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A project working with researchers, libraries,
funders, publishers to begin to outline a National
Monographs Strategy
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Developed a series of eight broad ideas to address
issues around monographs
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Report to be published shortly
8. Jisc National Monograph Strategy
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A shared monograph publishing infrastructure enabling innovative
approaches to monograph publishing.
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A comprehensive and open bibliographic and holdings database enabling the
development of new applications and services for libraries, systems vendors,
publishers and users. A shared service with shared infrastructure.
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A set of services and applications build using the monograph knowledgebase
- e.g. services around preservation, cataloguing, etc
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A high-level, ‘think tank’ providing a systematic view across the
disparate parts of the scholarly comms/monograph landscape. (Tiein with HEFCE and AHRC work?)
9. Jisc National Monograph Strategy
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Establishing the criteria and potential for new monograph
publishing business models.
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Building on the monograph knowledge-base this application enables
researchers, libraries and publishers to track and manage the impact of their
monograph to provide new insights, track influence and inform purchasing.
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A national Digitisation Strategy that: Creates an infrastructure/services;
Sources and secures funding; Has a national collection management
approach; Undertakes analysis and prioritises collections.
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A nationally negotiated agreement for digital monographs.
10. Inexorable Forces
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The financial pressures on traditional monograph
publishing are not going away
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Collective purchasing, shared print and just-in-time
provision may further limit the monograph market
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Institutions and funders are becoming more
interested in the dissemination of research outputs
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Open access gives us an opportunity to think more
imaginatively about solutions to the long term
viability of monographs - OA not just ideology!
11. “Invest in the general uniquely, the
unique generally”
Dan Greenstein, Vice Provost, Academic Planning and Programs, University of
California
“Academic libs will increasingly focus
on distinctive & unique collections.
Rely on coop coll dev for gen
material”
Jim Neal, Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian,
Columbia University (via Twiter)
