94 Learned Publishing

LEARNED PUBLISHING Vol.7 No.3 July 1994 pp159-162 © ALPSP 1994

The Role of academic libraries in the scientific information system

Derek Law, Director of Information Services and Systems, King’s College, University of London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS

ABSTRACT: Considers the recommendations in the SIS report regarding libraries’ possible co-operative acquisition of materials; the increased use of free point-of-use services and of bulletin boards; payment for information received electronically; responsibility for training in information access; and national electronic archives.

AIthough I write primarily as an academic librarian, I was also a member of the Follett Review Group and am a member of the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), so I may bring some of those perspectives to this brief paper.

Perhaps the first point to be made is the large degree of overlap both in analysis and conclusions between the Follett report and the published review of the STM Information chain. This also gives both reports an encouraging degree of indepen- dent self-validation which is worth noting. Only one recommendation is addressed specifically at libraries—on the need for user training: an interesting one to which I shall return.

While I wish to express general admiration for the SIS report, there are a number of detailed points of criticism which may be worth noting for the record, and one point of substance.

Firstly, the notion that the converging of library and computer services in the UK is somehow lagging behind the United States seems odd. Perhaps one third of British universities have converged services, a figure well ahead of the US. The more important point which is quite rightly highlighted is the impact that such convergence will have on services and service delivery.

Secondly, co-operative acquisition is highlighted as one possible way of eking out resource. This is a perfectly proper and rational suggestion but I have to say that 25 years’ experience convinces me that this is a most implausible route. The consent of users has hitherto proved impossible to secure. However, it does seem to me very likely that a sort of superleague of research libraries will appear, and indeed Follett funding will encourage this. Whether this is desirable as opposed to likely is another matter. These libraries will then be in a position to share resources through electronic access to catalogues and databases of abstracts and indexes with new electronic document delivery systems built on top. There is a clear wish to squeeze maximum benefit for the Higher Education Community from the tens of millions which we spend on journals at present. I expect a substantial mushrooming of this document delivery activity over the next few years, and since academic libraries can quite reasonably do this at marginal cost, we may expect some interesting tussles and turf-wars to emerge between libraries, publishers, subscription agents and existing document delivery services, all of which will wish to exploit this market.

Thirdly, one area of the present situation which is perhaps under-represented in the report is the likely impact of the Research Assessment Exercise. Libraries have historically allocated funds with some notion of equity. Increasingly the trend is to inequity. To them that hath shall be given, and collections will begin to be skewed by these policies. In my view this will lead to a form of natural selection in collections and attempts to preserve strengths. This is more likely, I suspect, to create strong specialized collections than co-operative acquisition.

One might also ponder briefly on the decline of the mediated search and the growth of free at-the-point-of-use services such as BIDS (Bath Information and Data Services). A further report has been published by Harry East showing yet further decline in mediated services and yet further growth in BIDS-type activity. This activity has clearly been a huge success, and is and will continue to be supported by the Funding Councils. The fact that such datasets are available cheaply seems to me a good, not a bad, reason for using them, as the report suggests.

The report clearly exposes the present state of affairs and the dangers we face. I would take issue with only one point, and even that wearing a JISC and not a library hat, since the funding of JANET seems to be widely misunderstood. JANET is neither free nor subsidized. It represents the discount benefits of co-operative purchasing, and no more. The notion that publishers are disadvantaged is a nonsense; they or their trade association are free to make arrangements with JANET or other network suppliers in exactly the same way as higher education. The notion that the end-user will be charged seems to me neither desirable nor likely, is not ‘only a matter of time’ and will be strongly resisted by JISC members.

As computing has become no more than a common tool it is no more plausible to charge them to use JANET than it is to charge them for switching on the light in their office. Other financial models may operate within the institution but I cannot imagine them coming down to the individual. Much more plausible is the notion of a free core and charged value-added. As we advance, I would expect more and more to be added to the core and the infrastructure, including JANET and many of its services to remain free at the point of use. Nor is this simply a personal view; it is an article of faith for at least one research council.

The picture painted of and for libraries is fairly bleak and depressing, but a timely report such as this allows us to reconsider goals and objectives and to reconsider roles. There are substantial issues which fall within the traditional purview of librarians on cataloguing and listing knowl- edge, on quality control of data and on user instruction which must be firmly grasped by us and taken forward. Some significant rethinking of our role and function may be needed. But I think I am most struck by the changing perceptions of different age groups, and suspect we may wish to tackle this in libraries, concentrating on the 25-35 year olds who have been shown to make little use of current-awareness services.

The issue of journals remains an impenetrable maze and both Follett and the SIS report resort in the end to piety and exhortation. I think I become more and more convinced that we shall have to break the mould even if this leads to short-term casualties. The electronic journal, as one conclusion in the report shows, will be no cheaper and so is a pointless exercise. Either it has to be cheaper or to be different in order to attract users. However, we know that new technologies typically begin by mimicking their predecessor, then find a new methodology. The first television mimicked radio by showing only talking heads, for example. I therefore suggest that we have to move the debate about the electronic journal away from a product which mimics its predecessor and look from first principles at the use of electronic media for reporting research results.

I have become increasingly interested in the role of bulletin boards as a way of breaking down old structures. There are some 5,000 or so academic bulletin boards on the Internet and the number is expanding rapidly. Since there is no huge burgeoning of new academic staff, where has activity been displaced from? It may be that by setting up validating structures for the informal boards we can create a new environment. For example, the major bulletin board which I use exchanges everything from gossip to conference reports and early research results. Every quarter the mediator, an accepted and trusted figure, and his small editorial board decide what to keep and archive—that is, publish. It is, I would argue, a valid peer- reviewed and citable process which by- passes conventional publication altogether. The difference is that refereeing takes place after ‘publication’ rather than before.

Coming then to the conclusions of the report, I should perhaps begin by saying that I am in broad agreement with most of them, but wish to differ with several in detail.

Conclusions 10 and 11 discuss the transfer of information purchase to the user. There is a very different view in the Follett Report on the question of charging out services and on the creation of internal markets within universities. It sees little advantage in such a step and the creation of extra bureaucracy. We shall undoubt- edly move in the direction of giving users more power, but I have reservations about how far. There is ample evidence that individuals will tend to behave selfishly, and that if an adequate infrastructure is to be maintained there is a need for top- slicing and central direction to ensure that the community as a whole benefits. Certainly, costs, both direct and indirect, should be much more clearly identifiable, but I have spent half my career clearing up the mess when a department gets tired of its departmental library, and don’t really aim to spend the second half clearing up the mess when departments tire of their departmental resource centre. To me it seems likely that we shall move to some variant of a top-sliced core and charged value-added services.

Conclusion 12 looks at resource discovery tools. I am happy to say that good progress is being made in the United States in this area and that the JISC is about to fund a programme of work to ensure that UK needs are supported. This is a very exciting topic and it may be that at least some of the STM information chain will be reinvented in electronic form on the network. There is huge potential for the UK to be involved in pioneering work in this and we have begun to explore co-operation with CNI—the Coalition for Networked Information.

Conclusion 13, on the cost of network connection, seems to some extent flawed to me. There is a well developed market in electronic products and well understood charging and pricing mechanisms. The higher-education sector wishes to continue to see a move towards either blanket licensing or subscription-based services, and has no interest in the transaction- based systems espoused by print-on-paper publishers. Nor is it clear to me why traditional print-on-paper publishers should expect to drive the emerging electronic market any more than farriers dictated the development of the motor industry. If paper-based publishers wish to redefine their role in a new environment that is much to be welcomed, but by sitting back smugly on areas such as electro-copying they run the very real risk of quite simply being bypassed.

The same is true of Conclusion 14, which assumes that electronic publishing needs all the superstructure of conventional publishing. While it is quite true in the terms expressed, it assumes a structure for electronic publishing which I find unlikely. More likely, surely, is that there will be a growth in the trend of electronic publishing which operates quite differently and with different players. I can buy— have indeed bought—Microsoft Encarta, a complete encyclopaedia for $99 in a computer store in the US. Once software publishers or indeed people like AT&T buy into this market, I do not expect to see the economics stay as they are—or all the present players to survive. Conclusion 15, on enhancing nationally important collections, is to be applauded, and indeed the Follett report has recommended a series of steps to ensure that strategic and important collections are supported in all the regions of the UK. There is also to be funding for archival copying, preservation and distribution of materials within the research community.

Training in information access

Recommendation 2 is aimed specifically at libraries, and while most librarians would leap at the chance to become involved in all of this training in information access, it actually implies a significant change for universities and should perhaps be better aimed at them. When I was a member of the Computer Board we used to visit universities and consider their IT strategies. I only ever saw one—from Aberdeen—which talked about training, and it defined the personal skills which they wished students to have on graduation. I believe strongly that all institutions should consider this issue and that information management skills should be central to any outcome. But if they are to be central they have to be built into courses. Are they my responsibility or are they an academic responsibility? Will I be given an examinable course module? Will all students (and indeed staff) be required rather than permitted to attend? Either way, to train perhaps 5000 people a year implies a huge shift of resource towards whoever undertakes the training. I do believe that that change is needed, but it will require painful adjustments which few if any institutions have yet acknowledged. The Report is therefore quite correct to identify libraries as stakeholders in this major area of need, but I question whether we alone can be owners of the problem.

National archives

Recommendation 9 raises interesting issues of a national electronic archive. These are perhaps less straightforward than the very welcome support for such a notion allows. We already have a national data archive at Essex, a proposed electronic data archive for the humanities and a national archive repository at ULCC. This is quite apart from the major data spinning centres which we have at Manchester and Bath. Since we already as a community invest seven-figure sums annually in national data archiving, it does not seem to me self-evident that the natural and obvious solution is to add yet another player, however distinguished. On the other hand, the authority of the British Library as a copyright centre is second to none, and some new mechanism which takes advantage of the strengths of all parties may be a better solution. This proposal seems to require rather more thinking through than the very welcome but narrow recommendation allows.

So: a timely and welcome report which highlights many issues to be addressed. If it does not provide solutions we should not be surprised, for if easy solutions were there we would have taken them long since. There is a clear need for libraries to rethink their role and service functions, but perhaps the most important message of all is the implied need for publicity and marketing. The report is very much to be welcomed and should stimulate widespread debate.

Note: Paper presented at the Royal Society/British Library/ALPSP seminar, ‘The scientific information system in the UK’ London,