James G. Neal

Stop the Madness: The Insanity of ROI and the Need for New Qualitative Measures of Academic Library Success

Return on Investment (ROI) has become the new mantra of academic libraries, a relentless and in many ways foolish effort to quantify impact in the face of budget challenges and the questioning of our continuing relevance to the academy in an all-digital information world. ROI instruments and calculations fundamentally do not work for academic libraries, and present naive and misinterpreted assessments of our roles and impacts at our institutions and across higher education. New and rigorous qualitative measures of success are needed. Academic administrators and government funders are asking for new evidence that libraries still matter and make a significant difference in the quality of academic life and the ability of colleges and universities to advance their missions. Are the dollars being invested producing value in economic terms? Academic libraries, under the impact of decreasing or at best flat budgets, have embraced valuation research as a worthy tool to document and demonstrate measurable financial outcomes. ROI has been applied in the corporate library, and in the public library, where questions on contribution to the bottom line, impact on the local economy, and user cost avoidance have been studied. New work in academic libraries has looked at the relationship between investment in electronic resources and grants revenue in the university, and between student retention and library use, for example. One must question the rigor of some of this research, the ability to track and control for the variables and vagaries of learning and research. One must be concerned about the sponsorship of some of these studies, and the integrity of the process and the outcomes. This paper is not a scientific study or a literature review or a reasoned analysis of the assessment literature on academic libraries. It is a polemic and a call to action. It is an appeal for the academic library to step away from inappropriate, unsophisticated and exploitable ROI research as a miscalculated, defensive and risky strategy. Certainly, academic libraries must embrace and advance rigorous assessment programs. We need effective and honest ways to explore issues like user satisfaction, the usability of systems and services, market penetration, cost-effectiveness, productivity, impact, and success in advancing institutional priorities. A focus on outcomes can link the academic library to more effective qualitative measures which help us to understand library contribution to successful graduates, productive faculty, and institutional advancement. In finance parlance, rate of return or rate of profit or return on investment is the ratio of money gained or lost on an investment relative to the amount of money invested, at least according to Wikipedia. For purposes of measuring ROI, both the initial and final value of an investment must be clearly stated, and the rate of return can be calculated over a single period,

Advancing From Kumbaya to Radical Collaboration: Redefining the Future Research Library

ABSTACT The research library community has developed an effective program of multi-institutional cooperation during the last 50 years. Conditions in technology, economics, and expanding service requirements demand a more radical approach to collaboration. The 2CUL initiative illustrates key opportunities to set aside the traditional models of research library operations and respond to new roles and responsibilities.

What Do Users Want? What Do Users Need? W(h)ither the Academic Research Library?

ABSTRACT What shapes and extends user expectations? How well is the library positioned to meet and exceed those needs? How are library collections, services, technology, space, staffing, and organization influenced by these developments? What new roles and responsibilities are being embraced and advanced? This article outlines the growing desires and requirements of the academic research library user under the impact of digital and network technologies, with a focus on the student, the teacher, and the researcher.

Prospects for Systemic Change across Academic Libraries

Charles J. Henry, in the January/February 2011 column for the E-Content department, challenged readers to focus on a fundamental repositioning, consolidation, and convergence and to steer away from isolation and adhocracy in the future development of the academy and its critical components. I will focus here on the academic library, and argue further that primal innovation, a basic commitment to risk and experimentation, and deconstruction—breaking down the current incoherence and rebuilding according to new axioms—are the essential instruments. Understanding and acting on the critical trends affecting academic library progress is essential. After that, translating those influences into bold and systemic change is imperative.

The Integration of Libraries and Academic Computing at Columbia: New Opportunities for Internal and External Collaboration

ABSTRACT Over the past decade, the libraries and academic computing units at Columbia have been brought together to form a new information services organization. This article will trace the history and current state of IT and library relationships at Columbia University. The expanding collaboration among academic computing services, their deeper partnership and integration with library programs, the working relationship with campus administrative computing, and participation in national and international projects will be described and evaluated.

College sports and library fundraising

Partnerships between academic libraries and college sports on fundraising projects are expanding. Such collaboration supports the interests of both organizations, and provides libraries with an invaluable boost to their development programs. Analyzes this phenomenon and outlines key strategies for promoting new initiatives.

Fair Use is Not Civil Disobedience: Rethinking the Copyright Wars and the Role of the Academic Library

The academic library community has been at the center of the copyright wars, advancing the interests of students and faculty. Digital and network technologies, the licensing of electronic content, and the globalization of copyright have combined to challenge our traditional views of intellectual property. New laws and legislation over the past decade have threatened the sustenance of fair use and key exceptions to copyright. We must re-commit to the education of our campuses, to political advocacy, and to collective risk taking. Copyright is a MEGO topic... my eyes glaze over. Academic librarians understand the central importance of copyright to education and research on their campuses. But few make the commitment to understand the complexities of the law and the implications for library collections and services, leaving advocacy and action to a few knowledgeable exports. Copyright has become a trite topic. It is frequently talked about but rarely presented in the context of academic library relevance and success. Fair use and other exceptions in U.S. copyright law represent hard won victories for the academic library community, but even these limited advantages are at risk. Libraries advance and assert the public interest, but the ability to use content for learning and scholarship is increasingly constrained. This paper will review several recent copyrights developments that impinge on fair use, and outline a call to action, a renewed energy and capacity across academic libraries to assert and advance the principle and practice of fair use. First, a micro-lesson in the basics of copyright. Copyright in the U.S. has its roots in the Constitution, and is based on a fundamental balancing of the interests of copyright owners and users. Copyright assigns to the owner of a work control or exclusive rights to prohibit others from using that work in specific ways without permission, and to profit from the sale or sharing of that work for a fixed period of time. These exclusive rights constitute a monopoly over reproduction, distribution, adaptation, public performance, and public display. However, these rights are restricted to allow limited uses of the copyrighted work, particularly if the uses offer societal benefits. Works may be copyrighted when they are fixed in a tangible medium of expression. An important test of copyright protection is the requirement that the work demonstrate a level of originality, something more than a “merely trivial variation” and more than the product of “sweat of brow.” There is a public domain where works are not protected by copyright, and this includes materials that have reached the term limit of copyright protection and publications issued by the federal government, for example. U.S. copyright law also reflects a series of specific and general exceptions and limitations to copyright. Specific exceptions, like interlibrary loan, preservation and copies for users are captured in Section 108

Chapter 14. Strategies for Funding Preservation and Security

Abstract Library collections preservation and security programs increasingly compete for resources with an expanding array of rigorous collection, service, and technology needs. In a recent survey of Association of Research Libraries members on preservation programs, lack of funding was overwhelmingly identified as the leading preservation challenge. Libraries are developing innovative strategies to build budget support and to attract new external funds through grants, statewide initiatives, fund-raising campaigns, and entrepreneurial activities. This paper focuses on the range of preservation and security strategies now available to libraries, the infrastructure and tools needed to advance a successful program, the various audiences requiring education and advocacy, and the core qualities of a preservation effort-and the way each of these elements intersects with resource development activities.

Symbiosis or Alienation: Advancing the University Press/ Research Library Relationship Through Electronic Scholarly Communication

Summary University presses and research libraries have a long tradition of collaboration. The rapidly expanding electronic scholarly communication environment offers important new opportunities for cooperation and for innovative new models of publishing. The economics of libraries and scholarly publishers have strained the working relationship and promoted debates on important information policy issues. This article explores the context for advancing the partnership, cites examples of joint efforts in electronic publishing, and presents an action plan for working together.

Opportunities for systematic change in the academic research library: elements of the post-digital library

This paper, based on a talk delivered at the University of Leeds on 19 April 2011, seeks to outline a series of important trends that are influencing the roles and responsibilities of the academic research library, and a program of radical collaboration that would enable deeper integration of resources and a more systemic approach to the critical collection and service challenges. The academic research library must sustain its core responsibilities, albeit in an increasingly digitized, networked and mobile condition, enrich fundamental relationships with its user communities, and assume powerful new roles in support of learning and scholarship. New measures of quality, impact, productivity, innovation and leadership must be advanced. The paper suggests that the evolution of the academic library will focus more on an evolving period of polygamy, parabiosis and particularism, as we think beyond the transition to electronic and more about a post-digital context.