November 19, 2021
Sustainable Scholarship: Libraries Collection as a Service
Authors: This is a collaborative post by Simon Neame, Dean of University Libraries; Denise Pan, Associate Dean for Collections & Content; and Corey Murata, Director, Collection Analysis & Strategy
Collections as a service in academic libraries represents the “shift to the incorporation and integration of more continuous, ongoing, flexible, and sustainable review of collections, and an increasing need to align collection development with institutional research and curricular requirements.” Through this Sustainable Scholarship blog series, we will share how the collection as a service model provides the framework for decision-making around all aspects of the collection. This includes planning for space, size, and locations for our physical materials, plans for our upcoming journal package negotiations, strategies for alternative access paths to resources, and our thinking around expanding open access to scholarship. All of this is built around the UW Libraries mission to advance discovery and enrich the quality of life by connecting people with knowledge.
The library is not just a building, it is a gateway. It is a gateway for discovery and access to knowledge preserved over time and available to scholars around the world. It is a gateway to resources that we hold close and resources in our vast reach. It is also a gateway for us to share the knowledge created at the University of Washington with the rest of the world through our Digital Collections, Open Educational Resources, and Open Access initiatives.
The Mission of the University of Washington Libraries is to “advance discovery and enrich the quality of life by connecting people with knowledge.” The Libraries has fulfilled this mission of connecting people with knowledge for over a hundred years by providing user-centered services and collections to support researchers in our UW communities, and researchers around the world. We do this through purchasing and licensing of resources for our researchers, and, critically, by being part of a network of shared collections in research libraries worldwide. This cooperation enables the UW Libraries to provide discovery and access to resources more vast and more diverse than any single library could possibly provide on its own. By doing so, the UW Libraries can maximize constrained budgets and existing staffing, and reaffirm our commitment to providing the UW community with timely access to the information they need. Our physical collection, our electronic collection, our network of libraries regionally and beyond are a purpose-built service “to accelerate inquiry, creativity, and learning for global impact and the public good.”
This cooperation (with the network) enables UW Libraries to provide discovery and access to resources more vast and more diverse than any single library could possibly provide on its own…and by doing so, maximize constrained budgets, staffing, and reaffirm our commitment to providing the UW community with timely access to the information they need.
Among libraries this idea of the network of shared collections is referred to as the “Collective Collection.” The Collective Collection guides us to define our “collection” not by what is contained in our walls, but by the reach of our partnerships in this network. The UW collection is more than the books on shelves at UW Libraries buildings, it is a service, built to provide our researchers access to what they need from anywhere across this network. We use this service model to help us make difficult decisions about allocation of our most scarce resources: time, space, and budget. These constraints demand we continually balance what we acquire for the most time-sensitive needs and where we locate materials to ensure the best access and preservation. This service model guides us in determining how we provide access to resources whether that is online, on the shelf, retrieved from another location on campus or across the three campuses, or from one of our partners in the Collective Collection around the country and the world.
The UW Libraries Strategic Plan lays as a foundation our values: User Centered, Collaboration, Equity, Creativity, and Sustainability. The “collection as a service” model grows out of these values of being user-centered and collaborative in our participation in the Collective Collection. It is based on equity in attention to researcher needs and creativity in meeting those needs.
Our goal in highlighting our approach for the collection is to increase understanding of the guiding principles for decision making, especially as we work collaboratively with faculty and leadership to navigate the challenges of budget and space constraints that all academic libraries contend with.
Collections as service provides a mindset that is critical in this process because it reinforces that our collections are not limited solely by the physical spaces at the University alone, and the importance of the network and our partnerships. Most of all collections as a service is grounded in sustainability and our responsibility to be good stewards of the cultural and scholarly record that we are committed to preserving, as well as the budgets and spaces that have been entrusted to us by the University.
For more information or questions about UW Libraries collection management, contact SustainableScholarship@uw.edu
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