Library in Transition

Drexel University's W. W. Hagerty Library received funding [1] in the Fall of 2000 from the U.S. Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to study the impact of a library's shift to electronic journals on staff and costs. The goals were to perform a comparative analysis for Drexel's library (a case study) and to develop a model for use by other libraries. The results suggest that, when all costs are considered, electronic journals are more cost effective on a per use basis. Storage space for low use bound journals is a major expense. A readership survey shows that the library's electronic collection is widely accepted and extensively used. Since there are methodological difficulties with the data available to make the analyses, this study should be viewed as a single first step to address an issue of critical importance to academic libraries.

Digital Books and the Impact on Libraries Peter Brantley, Editor

In an information world in which Google apparently offers us everything, what place is there for the traditional, and even the digital, library? In a library environment which is increasingly moving to the delivery of online rather than print resources, what of the academic library's traditional place at the heart of campus life?

The Bookless Future: What the Internet is Doing to Scholarship

As digital libraries move from demonstration projects to the real world of working libraries, it is critical to assess and to document the impact of the shift. This paper reports the methodology and initial results of an Institute for Library and Information Studies (IMLS) funded research study of the operational and economic impact of an academic library's migration to an all-electronic journal collection. Drexel Library's entire print and electronic journal collections and associated staff are the test bed to study three key research questions: (1) What is the impact on library staffing needs? (2) How have library costs been reduced, increased and/or re-allocated? (3) What other library resources have been affected? We are using quantitative and qualitative methods to answer the research questions operationalized in the following tasks: (1) Measure the staff time, subscriptions costs and other costs related to each activity required to acquire and maintain print and electronic journals. (2) Compute the per-volume, per-title, and per-use costs of acquiring and maintaining print and electronic subscriptions. (3) Study all impacted library services, including changes in reference service, document delivery, and instructional programs. Initial results of measuring staff time indicate Information Services and Systems Operation departments constitute the majority of personnel costs for electronic journals. Technical Services and Circulation account for the majority of staff costs for print journals. Per title subscription costs appear to be substantially lower for electronic titles obtained through aggregator collections.

Digital Content: Analyzing Demand in the Postsecondary Education Market Image of Noah Carp Author: Noah Carp, Affiliate Analyst A tectonic shift in content use is underway in postsecondary education. Both content adopters and suppliers are in the early phase of the continuum from 100% print content to a significant role for digital content. As postsecondary instructors and other content decisionmakers are increasingly interested in employing new digital formats to enhance teaching and learning, digital content providers, technology vendors, and other companies involved in bringing digital content to colleges and universities are simultaneously shaping a new higher education environment. The most pressing challenges for companies participating in this market are to assess the market opportunities, understand customer requirements, modify existing business strategies, and bring compelling offerings to the market. This report focuses on the demand-side of the market - faculty use and planned use of digital content. It uses primary research of faculty content adopters to identify perceptions and trends that will help shape supplier strategies for digital content. The report analyzes:

The national e-books observatory project is about exploring impacts, observing behaviours and developing new models to stimulate the e-books market, and to do all this in a managed environment.