Janus Challenges : A statewide initiative among the 11 state universities in Florida

Janus Challenges : A statewide initiative among the 11 state universities in Florida

Michael A. Arthur

Head of Acquisitions & Collection Services

University of Central Florida Libraries

Collection Development and Resource

Sharing Conference - 2009

• What was the intent of the original Janus Conference?

• What happened to Janus?• Why did Florida revive Janus?• How is Florida addressing the Janus

Challenges?• What have we learned?• Where do we go from here?• Questions and discussion

Today’s Agenda

What was the intent of the original Janus Conference?

• Janus Conference was held at Cornell University October 9-11, 2005.

• Janus- god of gates, doors and new beginnings

• A discussion of the CCDO, including Univ. of Florida

• The structure for the discussion was presented by the late Ross Atkinson -AUL for Collections at Cornell

• Six Key Challenges for the Future of Collection Development – Ross Atkinson, LRTS 50(4)

• Ross asked everyone to consider the evolving nature of collections

What was the intent of the original Janus Conference?

• Technology has not evolved as quickly as hoped

• We no longer have the material on shelves – it is held by publishers and vendors

• Providing more access to information rather than trying to own it

• Dividing responsibilities, establishing core collections- defined collectively

• We spend too much time at each library selecting the same materials

• Create the library market and stipulate the conditions

Six Key Challenges Facing Collection Development by Ross Atkinson

• Recon - convert to digital objects currently only available in print

• Procon - Ensure objects published in the future are available in digital form

• Core Definition- Define collectively the materials that compose a core collection in each discipline

• Publisher Relations - Negotiate collectively with publishers on the best possible access

• Archiving - Ensure the coordinated, long-term maintenance of traditional and digital holdings

• Alternative Channels- Create a network of publishing structures – alternatives to standard publishing channels

What happened to Janus?

• Janus Conference included breakout sessions for each challenge

• Identified obtainable goals

• Considerable interest and steering committee

• Agreed to regular meetings

• 2006 ALA Annual Conference – Major topic for the CCDO

• Six working groups to develop action items for each challenge

• By 2007 ALA Midwinter – no progress

• Great idea – too much work on the national level

Why did Florida revive Janus?

• February 2007, Florida’s statewide Collection Planning Committee (CPC) meets to discuss various issues

• Discussed death of Janus

• We felt that Janus represented a basic structure to build on collaborative CD that was already in place

• A strategic plan that could quickly be adopted and benefits realized

• Working group was appointed to explore Janus

• May 2007, CPC meets to recast the six challenges and make them work for Florida’s universities

History of resource sharing among Florida’s universities

• Council of State University Libraries (CSUL) includes Director from each of Florida’s universities and

• Florida Center for Library Automation (FCLA) over 25 years of automation support and services

• $5 million + for electronic databases, automation

• FTE of Florida’s universities - 191,619 in 2007-2008

• FCLA databases received 23,632,556 hits in 2007-08

• FCLA provides an average of 50% cost reduction on shared statewide licenses

• FCLA provides 185 shared databases

• Cooperation among the libraries must increase

Issues to consider for future cooperation

• Space issues are critical in our academic libraries

• Flat or declining budgets combined with inflation are eliminating ability to meet needs of patrons

• Demand for unmediated borrowing and seamless delivery of content

• Reductions in staffing are a real problem

• Preservation of print materials and ownership rights to online content must be considered

• Technology is expensive and needs to be shared

• Focus selection time on collections that make libraries unique

How is Florida addressing the Janus Challenges?

• Original Janus challenges were too provocative

• Goal was to bring collection managers together and think strategically

• Consequences of not acting were a bigger fear than struggling through the process

• Focus on a plan to collaborate more

• Other statewide consortia have sustainable models and FL can do more

• The CPC adopted the plan in the Fall of 2007

• The directors accepted recommendation to form six task forces

How is Florida addressing the Janus Challenges?

• “It was Ross’ goal that [the challenges] would also result in significant action,” said Sarah Thomas. “Ross was insistent to me that it was important to move from local solutions to collective action. We plan to continue in that spirit.” from Chronicle Online, March 14, 2006, Sarah Thomas was University Librarian at Cornell from 1996-2006

• To this end six task forces were given charges by the Janus coordinators and asked to provide ideas for how the six challenges could be met and to recommend specific action items.

How is Florida addressing the Janus Challenges? -Recon recommendations

• Mission is to convert to digital format holdings of the state university libraries in order to enhance access

• Enhanced communication between special collections, metadata/cataloging, CD and digital services

• Move from single institution vision to state wide vision

• Sharing of resources, dynamic use of university owned resources, maximum exposure to hidden collections, building aggregated virtual collections

• Protect materials, increase visibility of uniqueness

How is Florida addressing the Janus Challenges? – Recon recommendations

• CSUL directors should agree to devote 1% of each library’s materials budget to recon projects, or $400,000.00 per year

• Establish Recon teams locally and one statewide

• Hire a full-time director for recon (reporting to FCLA)

• Develop priority list for recon projects, priority to special collections, rare, unique, then pre-1923

• Establish a central scanning center

• Take advantage of existing statewide cooperatives to provide access and archival storage

• Provides detailed five year implementation plan

How is Florida addressing the Janus Challenges? – Procon recommendations

• Plan for future shared e-book collections

• Establish model for collective spending

• Set benchmark for amount each institution will repurpose toward acquiring shared e-books

• Appoint standing E-book Working Group

• Focus on buying perpetual rights

• Develop our preferred purchase model

• Explore shared reference collection first

How is Florida addressing the Janus Challenges? – Core Collections

• Define what materials compose a core monographic collection by discipline (core collections diagram)

• Greater distribution of unique content will be achieved if shared CD is established

• Establish a preferred statewide vendor for approval plans and firm order

• Take advantage of approval plan profile to help guide each institution in purchasing decisions

• Reduce duplication of core purchases in the state

• Assign responsibility for collecting level by discipline to each institution.

How is Florida addressing the Janus Challenges? – Licensing Principles

• Ross challenged us to “create a library market and stipulate the conditions under which selling to that market will be acceptable.”

• Improve effectiveness of cooperation to build on previous success for statewide licenses

• Approve standard guidelines for review and negotiation of licenses

• Approve best practices document for e-resources

• Develop approved purchasing models, consider not purchasing where conditions are not met

• Expand cooperative licensing with other consortia

How is Florida addressing the Janus Challenges? – Archiving

• Shared storage facility to be built in Gainesville

• Task force should continue to monitor progress

• Create a separate Aleph Instance for the facility

• Digitization

• Interlibrary Loan

• Delivery and circulation policies

• Funding

• Best copy

• Separate OCLC symbol

• Preservation

How is Florida addressing the Janus Challenges? – Alternative Channels

• Provide increased access to materials for all SULs

• Support scholarly communication initiatives

• Support state-wide education on the key issues

• Examine IR and alternate pathway services

• Complete an environmental scan-IR, open access

• Deal with operating, technical and communication issues across the SULs

• Build a collection of online resources on scholarly communication and open access issues

Bringing it all together

• Article in Florida Libraries

• Presentation at the Charleston Conference, 2008

• Janus Working Group met in Gainesville on November 13, 2008, to blend the final reports of each task force into an action plan.

• Plan requires approval of CPC and the directors.

• Report was reviewed by CPC at F2F in January 2009

• Final report sent to CSUL for March 2009 meeting

• CSUL provided feedback and the steering committee continues to work toward an acceptable action plan

• Fundamental agreement among the directors

What we learned from the process

• Only task force chairs were appointed, members volunteered – all members should be appointed

• Janus working group should have been more clear with directives to ensure members were in agreement of the goals

• Our goal to have approval from the directors gave the project much needed support

• Identifying attainable goals and a sustainable infrastructure to support a state wide initiative is difficult – will the Janus working group be in charge?

• Tough decisions (policy) are best made by a small number of people

Where do we go from here?

• Will we expand the role of current state wide committees to coordinate the directives or continue to rely on volunteer committees?

• Leadership structure will have to be more cohesive and focused than it was with the task forces

• Meet directors’ desire to “explore challenges and opportunities for building library collections in the digital age”

• Continue to rethink some of the traditional ways we develop and share collections, build on current success with shared e-journal packages

• Economies of scale, capitalize on infrastructure

Where do we go from here?

• Centralize core collections regardless of format

• Focus on building unique institutional collections

• Less focus on collection size and more focus on uniqueness

• This will only be done if we work together to centralize functions that are currently spread out

• Proposing a two phase program to implement the various recommendations that were selected from the task force reports

• We must have approval and support from the Directors in order to ensure buy-in with each organization

Where do we go from here? Phase 1

• Centralize electronic resource negotiations

• Shared e-book reference collection

• Analyze areas of high overlap

• Comprehensive study of subject strengths at institutional level

• Draft RFP for a single vendor

• Identify grant sources for digitization

• Institute a CSUL recon team, harmonized policies

• Statewide education about scholarly communication

Where do we go from here? Phase 2

• Expand cooperative licensing to include CCLA, ICUF and the State Library

• Ensure that licensing principles and best practices for e-book and e-journals are implemented uniformly

• Expand shared e-books beyond reference

• Complete usage/cost analysis of consortial e-journal packages, focus on high use titles not bundles

• Complete RFP process with e-book vendors to supply common core titles

• Utilize OCLC WorldCat Collection Analysis to further identify unique subject area collections

Questions?

• Links of interest:

• http://www.lib.fsu.edu/events/resourcesharing

• http://csul.net/cmc/janus/janus.shtml

• http://ecommons.library.cornell.edu/handle/1813/5426

• Atkinson, Ross. “Six Key Challenges for the Future of Collection Development.” Library Resources & Technical Services; Oct2006, Vol. 50 Issue 4, p244-251

• Ziegler, R. (Fall 2008) "Janus in the Sunshine." Florida Libraries, >51(2), 10-12.

Questions?

• Michael Arthur, University of Central Florida

• [email protected]