Redefining Libraries As Multi-Institutional Entities

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Redefining Libraries As Multi-Institutional
Entities

• Carole Moore, University of TorontoWendy Lougee,
  University of MinnesotaAnne R. Kenney, Cornell
  UniversityKevin Guthrie, Ithaka
• May 21, 2009

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Redefining Libraries as Multi-Institutional
EntitiesWendy Pradt LougeeAssociation of
Research LibrariesMay 2009

• Twin Cities Deans CouncilFebruary 2008

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A Parable, Paradigm, modest Proposal

• Parable is sharing enough?
• Paradigm a new framework
• Proposal virtual communities as a model

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THE PARABLE
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The Future of the Library A View from the
Provosts Office (1990)

• Stating the problem is easy and if we set
  aside our traditional prejudices, it takes no
  genius to name cooperation as the only tenable
  solution.
• we ought to envision a time when the
  autonomous individual collections of our nations
  research libraries are in substantial degree
  melded into a large dispersed collection to which
  we all contribute and in which we all share
  equally.
• Billy E. Frye

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Multi-Institutional ModelsDimensions of
Resources, Expertise, Governance

• Coordinated/shared collections Farmington, FDLP,
  RLG Shares
• Coalescing resources consortia licensing,
  cooperative purchases
• Collaborative goals/shared expertise Making of
  America, Hathi
• Collective action SPARC, SCOAP3

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THE PARADIGM
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The Paradigm Diffuse, Engaged

• With the incorporation of distributed
  technologies and more open models, the library
  has the potential to become more involved at all
  stages, and in all contexts, of knowledge
  creation, dissemination, and use. Rather than
  being defined by its collections or the services
  that support them, the library can become a
  diffuse agent within the scholarly community.
• Lougee, Diffuse Libraries, 2002

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Shifts

• Collection-centric
• Expertise

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Shifts

• Collection-centric
• Expertise
• Publication-focused
• Process

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Shifts

• Collection-centric
• Expertise
• Publication-focused
• Process
• Access control
• Sense-making

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Shifts

• Collection-centric
• Expertise
• Publication-focused
• Process
• Access control
• Sense-making
• Service mediation
• Enabling

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Shifts

• Collection-centric
• Expertise
• Publication-focused
• Process
• Access control
• Sense-making
• Service mediation
• Enabling
• Local
• Global

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PARADIGM
A conceptual or methodological model underlying
the theories and practices of a science or
discipline at a particular time (hence) a
generally accepted world view.
Oxford English Dictionary
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Paradigm shift

• whenthe profession can no longer evade
  anomalies that subvert the existing tradition of
  practice - then begin the extraordinary
  investigations that lead the profession at last
  to a new set of commitments, a new basis for the
  practice of science.
• Thomas Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions,
  1962

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THE modest PROPOSAL
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Virtual Communities

• Gravitational pull of network, grid resources
• Collaborative, interdisciplinary scholarship
• Tools for discovery, management, collaboration
• Social contributions (Wisdom of Crowds)
• E-research model multi-institutional, data-rich,
  collaborative

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The time is right for taking a more
cross-cutting, multidisciplinary approach to
understanding the basic organizational
abstractions, communication models, trust
mechanisms, and technology infrastructure
required to form and operate effective VOs
virtual organizations across a broad range of
target domains.
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EthicShare A Virtual Community Model

• Mellon Foundation-funded Scholarly Communication
  Institute (practical ethics)
• Pilot A place for bioethics community
  discovering, managing, analyzing, sharing
• Develop sustainable, multi-institutional,
  interdisciplinary community

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Community Requirements (Defined through focus
groups, surveys)

• High quality (selective) content
• Comprehensive access to all material types (full
  text)
• Domain-sensitive discovery access
• Space for (global) community discussion,
  exchange, commentary
• Group private work space
• Tools for information management, sharing
• Community-governed, developed

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Virtual Research Environment Components
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• Content Harvesting
• Resolution Services
• News Events
• Community defined discovery
• Tags, commentary, sharing
• Editorial policies
• Governance

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Library Role in Virtual Communities?

• Content selection, conversion adding value
• Preservation, curation
• Tool development
• Integration of content, content tools
• Catalyst for collaboration?
• Who hosts the collaborative?
• Who sustains the collaborative?
• Who contributes to the collaborative?
• Exclusive roles? Collaborative roles?

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Redefining Libraries As Multi-Institutional
Entities

• Anne R. Kenney, Cornell University
• May 21, 2009

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Some Bold Assertions

1. There is a collective wealth held hostage by
   redundant operations and collections at ARL
   libraries.
2. Many of the things we compete over dont make our
   institutions more competitive.
3. Our history of collaboration may ironically make
   it more difficult to do radical collaboration.
4. Our staff would rather do more work than give up
   doing some things.

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Collective Wealth of ARL Members

• Total ARL library expenditures 3,914,758,950
• Total materials expenditures 1,219,796,179
• E-resources expenditures 536,033,744
• Monographs 315,757,710
• Total salaries and wages 1,709,969,994
• 10 savings 391M!

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Every state and every region in the country is
stuck with some form of anachronistic and
expensive local government structure that dates
to horse-drawn wagons, family farms and
small-town convenience Tom Brokaw NYT op-ed,
4/20/2009
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Reconsidering Collective Wealth

• Stop measuring success by how much money
  spent/dedicated to libraries
• as of university budgets or ARL investment
  index
• Measure instead success by operational
  efficiencies, institutional effectiveness,
  resource reallocation, consortial work, or
  addressing big challenges at the university
• eliminate backlog and multiple purchases of same
  title through vendor packages press for resource
  sharing in licensing
• ROI
• Reversing attrition rates, supporting
  x-disciplinary work

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Competing ? Institutional Competitiveness

• Success of Borrow Direct
• Failure of IRs
• Wagon wheels rather than webs
• Wanting to be a model for peers
• Think local, act global

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Shift ARL Measures to Promote Collaboration

• Move from volume counts to title counts
• Measure degree of uniqueness
• Quantify collaboration and use in rankings
• Collective purchasing, shared collections
• Number of shared staff
• Combined functions
• Define collective measures to complement
  institutional ones

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Even farmers dont use silos anymore. Alice
Pell Vice Provost, International
Initiatives Cornell University
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But We Already Collaborate

• Valuing process over progress
• Collaborating at the edges
• borrowing over building
• collection responsibilities in esoteric areas
• Sharing cataloging but not catalogers
• Focusing on IT standards not pooled resources
• Assessing collaborative approaches through a new
  lens (e.g., Hathi Trust)
• Connecting the dots

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Id give it to you, but its mine. Michael
Kenney Hickerson at age 4
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Doing More with Less

• A preference for perfection and service
• The national library of the United States is
  giving away the birthright of American scholars
  in exchange for a mess of Internet pottage.
  
• Thomas Mann
• What is Going on at the Library of Congress

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Doing More with Less

• Layering on experiments but maintaining all other
  functions
• Less with less vs. focusing efforts
• ARL should we stop collecting reference
  statistics and focus on documenting
  faculty/library collaborations?

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Potential Areas for Collaboration

• Collective collections
• Backroom functions
• New domains
• The power of many

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A lack of inventiveness isnt the problem. A
lack of will may be. "In a Time of Crisis,
Colleges Ought to Be Making History" Chronicle
of Higher Education May 11, 2009
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Collective Collections

• Collections by the numbers
• Begin with prospective co-ownership and then fold
  in retrospective
• Revisit Janus Conference and RLG Conspectus

Is there any reason beyond local pride to
maintain duplication? Tom Brokaw
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Collective Collection Challenges

• Institutional identity, faculty acceptance
• Better overlap/analysis and use tools
• Zero sum budgeting, financial restrictions,
  accounting systems
• Pre-nups for shared collections
• Delivery, legal issues
• Outreach/research support for faculty and
  students

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Backroom Functions

• Shared technical processing, centers of effort
• Collective negotiation with vendors for content
  and metadata
• Contract potential with leading libraries in
  other countries

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Backroom Functions Challenges

• System of credits for work done on behalf of
  all
• Standard definitions of good enough
• Budgets/funding streams
• Shared end processing systems

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New Domains

• Building local cyberinfrastructures
• Bridging IRs
• Services layered on top
• Re-imagining academic computing
• Difficulties in collaborating in new areas

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The Power of Many

• Exercising collective clout
• Providing cover to do whats needed
• Reaching the tipping point on OA
• Abjuring NDAs with publishers and others
• Negotiating for scholarly media collections
• Collective action demands as much attention as
  institutional action
• Reexamining anti-trust issues in library
  negotiations

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"Faced with the choice between change and proving
there is no need to do so, most people get busy
on the proof."
John Kenneth Galbraith
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Making Multi-Institutional Entities Work
Reflections on Strategy and Governance

• Kevin Guthrie
• Ithaka
• 21 May 2009

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Background
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• Redefining Libraries as Multi-Institutional
  Entities
• CLIRs 2008 report No Brief Candle, and the
  current economy, point to no more business as
  usual for libraries. Our speakers have agreed to
  discuss what they see as opportunities for new
  ways of libraries working together to reduce
  redundancies, align resources, and take
  collective action toward a desired, innovative
  future. We have asked each speaker to illustrate
  their remarks with examples of opportunities and
  to pose questions that the community must address
  to redefine libraries as multi-institutional
  entities.

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What is different about this conversation? Is
this new?

• Libraries do have experience with various forms
  of multi-institutional collaboration and
  organization
• Consortia
• State Systems
• ILL services
• Outsourcing
• Vendors and service providers

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• This time we mean it.

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• This time we mean it.
• Really.

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Smaller college libraries have been here

• Five Colleges of Ohio
• Merged off-site storage and specialized functions
• Tri-College Libraries
• Shared library catalog, some shared staff roles
• Appalachian College Association
• Shared supplemental central library
• Claremont Libraries
• Individual libraries fully merged into one system

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Why and What
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• This is about effective sharing of resources.
• The focus of my reflections will be on strategy
  and governance.
• The greatest challenge to multi-institutional
  entities will be defining success and accepting
  who is in charge. By governance, I just mean
  who makes decisions and who takes responsibility
  for delivering successful outcomes.
• These issues will always come back, eventually,
  no matter how many times they are deferred.

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Why might libraries be thinking about working on
multi-institutional initiatives?

• Networked technology environment favors economies
  of scale big is better
• Challenging economy causes libraries to reduce
  costs
• Changing expectations of library users might
  combinations lead to better services?
• Expose library content to a wider audience
• Aggregate library content with other related
  content

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Why, specifically?

• Need to make sure that the strategic objectives
  lead your choices and remain primary
• When choosing to join up with other libraries,
  what locally held strategic objective is the
  library pursuing?
• Whose strategic objective dominates? How do you
  balance local mission and objectives and
  multi-institutional or even system-wide public
  good benefits? Which locally-held objectives
  will need to be compromised?

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Sample Research Library Mission Statement

• University Library advances teaching, learning,
  research and community service by providing
  outstanding collections, access to the world of
  knowledge, excellence in service and an
  appropriate library environment, all of which are
  client-focused and responsive to the needs of the
  University community.
• This Library
• Facilitates excellence in teaching, learning and
  research
• Creates an appropriate environment to support
  teaching, learning and research
• Anticipates and responds to student and faculty
  needs
• Contributes to positive student and faculty
  outcomes and experiences
• Provides the information resource infrastructure
  necessary for leading edge teaching, learning and
  research activity
• Supports community outreach and community
  partnerships

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Break it down

• The right model for collaborationin other
  words, the best form of governance for that
  activityis likely to depend on the nature of the
  objective being pursued

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How do we define multi-institutional entity?

• What qualifies? Some points on a continuum
• Loosely organized group of institutions that work
  together informally to achieve a common purpose
• Libraries that contribute their labor to pursue a
  common objective
• Libraries that delegate a responsibility to
  another library
• Libraries that establish a separate organization
  to achieve a common objective
• Libraries that pay another entity to perform a
  particular service

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Hypothesis

• The complexity of the objective and the nature of
  the benefits drive the degree of central
  coordination and/or oversight required.
• Is the objective easily defined and measured?
• Is the benefit realized locally or is it a system
  benefit?
• Does the group activity benefit the members of
  the group directly, or is it designed to serve
  third parties?
• Are the benefits gained by the participating
  libraries symmetrical?
• Does the entity most closely associated with the
  activity gain prestige?

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Rough Framework and Examples
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Examples

• A consortium negotiates content licenses for a
  group of libraries
• A group of libraries manage a service for each
  other
• A group of libraries offer a service for each
  other and other libraries
• Individual libraries operate through an enabling
  organization that facilitates networked and
  direct interaction
• A group of libraries offer a coordinated end-user
  service
• Individual libraries pay for an end-user product
  or service
• Commercial organization offers a product
• Not-for-profit offers products or services to
  members or a collaborative

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A consortium negotiates content licenses for a
group of libraries

• Example Northeast Research Libraries (NERL)
  Consortium
• The problem Research libraries wished to jointly
  negotiate license terms and prices for electronic
  resources
• NERL formed in 1996 with Yale as the anchor
  currently has 27 member research libraries
• Representatives from member libraries field
  individual proposals from publishers and forward
  information to the group
• Extremely modest central staffing two employees
  and one coordinating librarian from Yale

lthttp//www.library.yale.edu/NERLpublic/gt
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A group of libraries manage a service for each
other

• Example Borrow Direct
• The problem Three northeast research libraries
  (Columbia, Penn, and Yale) wanted to streamline
  costs associated with existing ILL programs and
  interfaces
• Commercial software modified to allow registered
  library users to directly request items from
  other partner libraries
• Early survey showed staff time and item delivery
  time for ILL requests lowered
• Service expanded to include four other Ivy
  libraries no plans to expand further

Reference lthttp//www.oclc.org/programs/ourwork/p
ast/borrowdirect.htmgt
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A group of libraries offer a service for each
other and other libraries

• Example HathiTrust
• The problem CIC research libraries desired a
  joint repository for storing, preserving, and
  providing services for the books digtiized
  through the Google project
• Each university contributes to the finances
  during the start-up phase
• Business model being considered. As service
  scales and as complexity increases governance
  questions will take on greater importance

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An enabling organization facilitates networked
interaction

• Example OCLC ILLiad software
• The problem Lack of coordination for
  inter-library lending
• Libraries license ILLiad software, which provides
  an interface for library users to request
  materials and another interface for library staff
  to coordinate lending
• Activity between libraries is direct (a volume
  travels from lending institution to borrowing
  institution), but a coordinating tool must be in
  place

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A group of libraries offer a coordinated end-user
service

• Example DigiZeitschriften
• The problem Early journal aggregators like JSTOR
  did not include key German-language scholarly
  journals
• Head library engaged 14 partner research
  libraries across Germany to create German JSTOR
• Partner libraries bear cost of journal selection
  and rights negotiation
• Digitization and decision-making happen at host
  library, Goettingen
• Modest goals, modest budget

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Libraries pay for an end-user product or service

• Example Project MUSE
• The problem In early 1990s, JHU Press wanted to
  move its journals online
• Press partnered with the Milton S. Eisenhower
  Library (MSEL) at JHU to build Project MUSE
• Other publishers added in 2000
• Resource sustained through institutional
  subscriptions
• Today, MUSE is still a not-for-profit
  collaboration between the participating
  publishers and MSEL

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Conclusion

• Consider a broad definition of multi-institutional
  entity when thinking about these collaborations
• Think carefully about governance models as you
  consider multi-institutional collaborations
• Understand and define the level of complexity in
  objectives
• Understand that with increasing complexity will
  come a need for more heavyweight structures to
  ensure success
• Are there existing organizations that can be
  re-oriented to play a role in accomplishing the
  specific objective?

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• Thank you
• Kevin Guthrie
• kg_at_ithaka.org