BiblioFile
| LIBRARY ISSUES: FALL 2000 |
As the academic year 2000/2001 progresses, the Library
is in the midst of many changes related to facilities and services.
For example, this issue of BiblioFile offers you an overview of improvements
to Library spaces: the renovation of the Rockefeller Library Circulation
area and the creation of a multimedia laboratory in the Sciences Library.
One of our most exciting initiatives is the Virtual Catalog/Direct Distance
Borrowing project, which Brown is developing with the other members
of the Boston Library Consortium (BLC). As Bart Hollingsworth writes,
this new catalog, which will become available in pilot mode this year,
will allow you to search the holdings of BLC member libraries in one
large database and to request a book from another library with the click
of a mouse. When complete (within the next 18 months), the BLC Virtual
Catalog will put at your fingertips the holdings of a 25-million-volume
"virtual library."
Although we work hard every day
to improve collections and services, we must also acknowledge that the
last decade been especially challenging for the Library, and that collection
building has been affected accordingly. In a recent report prepared
for the faculty, I cited Association of Research Libraries (ARL) statistics
that showed serials costs in ARL institutions rising 207% since 1986,
while monograph costs increased by 65%. Despite the efforts of libraries
to maintain their collections Ð serials expenditures rose 170% during
the same time period--collectively, ARL members are today purchasing
6% fewer serial titles and 26% fewer monographs. Since 1990, the Brown
University Libraryâs acquisitions budget, counting one-time allocations
from the President or Provost, has increased annually by an average
of 5.5%. Coupled with the obvious shortfall between budget increases
and actual costs was the growing demand for resources in digital form,
and the need to support new academic programs for which no new base
budget funding had been provided.
Beset on many fronts, the Library employed a number of strategies to
stretch available dollars further. Peripheral or low-use journal titles
were cancelled in an effort to protect the monograph budget, to transfer
freed-up funds to electronic resources, and to subsidize document delivery
and Interlibrary Loan services. Consortial agreements created effective
partnerships, both for the licensing of databases and for access to
other library collections. Despite the limitations of tight budgets,
competing priorities, and high prices, in the Î90âs, the Library contrived
to add critical titles to the collection, build an impressive array
of scholarly materials in digital form, and acquire some significant
special collections.
As we enter the 21st century, however, we know that our collections
require strengthening in several key areas. Our collection of journals,
never substantial in ARL terms, has deteriorated and requires rebuilding
to meet the needs of a University/College. Additional funds must be
secured not only to meet the needs of new academic programs, but also
to address emerging deficiencies in our historically strong collections,
for which purchasing in the Î90âs was inevitably affected. Finally,
we must secure base budget funding for "digital content," which represents
an important, and steadily growing, means for scholarly communication.
We are very much encouraged by the support the Library has received
this year from the faculty, from Provost Kathryn T. Spoehr, and from
Interim President Sheila Blumstein. This yearâs increase in the acquisitions
budget exceeds 8%, the largest the Library has received in some years.
Current University financial planning identifies both the Library and
CIS as areas of high priority, and both departments have submitted "case
statements" to the Provost identifying the dollars needed to address
our most critical funding needs. We hope that in the next several years
the Library will be more appropriately funded to support the needs of
the University/College, through priority allocation of institution funds,
as well as from increased fundraising.
-Merrily E. Taylor, Joukowsky Family University Librarian
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