Category: Libraries

On ALA, CLA, and Open Access

The Canadian Library Association recently issued a new, strongly worded open access statement ("Position Statement on Open Access for Canadian Libraries"). Peter Suber commented on this statement, saying "Many organizations have called on their governments to mandate OA for publicly-funded research, but the CLA is first I've seen to regard embargo periods as a temporary compromise, justified only to help publishers adapt during a transition period."

The American Library Association is a member of the Alliance for Taxpayer Access and the Open Access Working Group, and. as such, has signed a variety of targeted statements about free access to government-funded research. The most active ALA Division in terms of open access support is the Association of College and Research Libraries, which has a number of activities geared towards promoting it.

Such statements and activities are praiseworthy, but the question remains: What kind of open access to these associations provide to their own journals?

CLA appears to embargo the current issue of Feliciter. If so, CLA cannot be said to be providing full free access to the journal; however, as embargoes go, it is a generous one.

Since it publishes more journals, the situation for ALA is more complex, and it is summarized below in a discussion of its major journals.

ALA Journal Free Access?
Children and Libraries: The Journal of the Association for Library Service to Children No
College & Research Libraries Embargo (current volume?), with e-prints that are removed on issue publication leaving a free access gap
Information Technology and Libraries Six month embargo
Library Administration and Management No
Library Resources & Technical Services Embargo? (last complete issue listed on site is from 2006 and last free volume is from 2006)
Public Libraries Embargo? (last listed issue on site is from 2007)
RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage Embargo? (last listed issue on site is from 2006)
School Library Media Research Embargo? (last listed issue on site is from 2007)
Reference & User Services Quarterly No (there are no issues listed on site)
Young Adult Library Services No

Given that several journals are far behind in listing back issues, some have no listed 2008 issues, and one has no back issues whatsoever, it is difficult to make definitive statements about their open access policies. It is possible that this confusion arises from difficulties in the timely maintenance of ALA journal Websites. What can be said is that, as of today, those missing digital issues are not accessible to anyone from the ALA site.

One thing is clear: it would be very helpful if ALA journals would clearly and prominently state their open access policies. Although it will not be discussed here in any detail, several journals have conflicting or unclear copyright agreement policies. It is assumed that ALA offers its two copyright agreements (Copyright Assignment Agreement and Copyright License Agreement.) for all journals, but this cannot be verified from all journal Websites.

While it is not uniform, ALA is making progress towards providing more free journal content; however, it cannot be said that ALA fully supports free access to all of its major journals. Moreover, to my knowledge, ALA itself has never made an open access position statement that is similar to CLA's and those of other library organizations, such as IFLA's (this excludes any statements by ALA divisions or joint statements). As the open access movement nears the decade point, it would seem desirable for it to unambiguously do so.

ALA is a major voice in the library community, and, if its open access efforts are to be taken seriously by publishers and scholars, it should state whether it supports green access (self-archiving), gold access (open access journals), or both. If it wants to support gold access, it should first reform its own journal publishing business model. If not, it would be helpful for it to clarify and make consistent the terms of its embargo access at an organizational vs. a divisional level.

Two JISC Debates: E-Textbooks and the Library of the Future

A series of postings on the JISC Libraries of the Future Weblog document two debates: Revolution or Evolution: The JISC National E Textbook Debate and From eLib to the Library of the Future.

Here are the postings in chronological order:

Anne Kenney Named Cornell University’s Carl A. Kroch University Librarian

Anne Kenney, Cornell University's interim university librarian since February 2007, has been named the Carl A. Kroch University Librarian of that institution, subject to the approval of the Executive Committee of the Cornell Board of Trustees. Kenney has been an administrator at the Cornell University Library for over 20 years.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

"During the course of our search for this pivotal position, it became clear that Anne Kenney's innovative leadership, breadth of knowledge, and national and international reputation make her a superb choice for university librarian," said Cornell Provost Carolyn Martin. "I am pleased that we can continue to benefit from Anne's vision and proven ability to engage the university community as she guides our library system into the future, a future toward which Cornell will continue to lead."

As Cornell university librarian—the chief academic and administrative officer of the university's extensive library system—Kenney will be leading one of the world's largest research libraries, with a total budget of over $50 million, a staff of more than 450 and over 7.5 million volumes. Cornell has 20 constituent libraries located in Ithaca, Geneva (N.Y.), New York City and Doha (Qatar), and it also actively serves scholars around the globe.

"I am honored to be selected as Cornell's 11th university librarian," Kenney said. "Cornell University Library combines international leadership in digital library development with an abiding commitment to traditional scholarly resources. It consistently tops user surveys for the excellence of its services and holdings, ranking as the key campus service by graduating seniors and among the top criteria contributing to faculty work satisfaction. Based on our strengths—first-rate collections, outstanding staff, central campus locations, constituent support—the library is well positioned to address key challenges of the next decade and maintain its preeminent academic place. I can't think of an institution that I would more enjoy leading in this work."

Kenney came to Cornell Library in 1987 and served as associate director for the Department of Preservation and Conservation until 2001. During that time, and from 2002 to 2006 as associate university librarian for instruction, research and information services, she helped spearhead a period of change and growth that has made Cornell Library the envy of its peers for pioneering work in digitization, network access and scholarly publishing. Active in the archival and preservation communities, Kenney is a fellow and past president of the Society of American Archivists. She currently serves on the Social Science Research Council's Committee on Libraries and Archives of Cuba and is a member of Advisory Committee of Portico, a nonprofit digital preservation service. She has served as a commissioner of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (National Archives), the National Science Foundation/European Union Working Group on a Digital Preservation Research Agenda, and was a member of the Clinton/Gore presidential transition team.

Kenney is known internationally for her ground-breaking work in developing standards for digitizing library materials that have been adopted by organizations around the world, including important scholarly archives such as JSTOR. She is the co-author of three award-winning monographs and more than 50 articles and reports. She was the recipient of: Yahoo! en español's award for online "Tutorial de Digitalización de Imágenes" as the best of the year 2002 in the category "Internet y computadoras"; the Society of American Archivists' Best Book Award (Leland Prize) in 1997 and 2000 for books on digital imaging for libraries and archives, and the SAA Preservation Publication Award in 1995 and 2004; and she was the recipient of the 2001 LITA/Library Hi Tech Award for Outstanding Communication in Library and Information Technology from the American Library Association. More recently, her research in organizational aspects of digital preservation has resulted in publication of influential reports of e-journal archiving and a training program that has had an international impact.

She received her bachelor's degree from Duke University in 1972, a master's degree in history from the University of Missouri-St. Louis in 1975 and a master's degree in library services in 1979 from the University of Missouri-Columbia. An avid hiker, Kenney scaled Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania this past February.

ARL Statistics 2005-06 PDF Published

The Association of Research Libraries has published a freely available PDF version of the ARL Statistics 2005-06.

The "Monograph and Serial Expenditures in ARL Libraries, 1986-2006" graph on page 13 shows that serial expenditures continue their sharp upward climb: there has been a 321% 1986-2006 increase. Serial unit cost, which peaked in 2000, has begun to climb again after a multi-year drop to a 180% increase. Monograph expenditures dropped slightly to a 82% increase, while monograph unit cost rose to a 78% increase.

2008 Library Journal Movers and Shakers Awards Announced

Library Journal has published its 2008 Movers & Shakers awards (see the March 15th issue table of contents).

It has also released a complete list of all Movers & Shakers award winners by state.

Special congratulations to current and former Texas winners (institutional affiliation listed at the time of the award):

Essays from the Core Functions of the Research Library in the 21st Century Meeting

The Council on Library and Information Resources has released essays from its recent Core Functions of the Research Library in the 21st Century meeting.

Here's an excerpt from the meeting home page that lists the essays:

"The Future of the Library in the Research University," by Paul Courant

"Accelerating Learning and Discovery: Refining the Role of Academic Librarians," by Andrew Dillon

"A New Value Equation Challenge: The Emergence of eResearch and Roles for Research Libraries," by Richard E. Luce

"Co-teaching: The Library and Me," by Stephen G. Nichols

"Groundskeepers to Gatekeepers: How to Change Faculty Perceptions of Librarians and Ensure the Future of the Research Library," by Daphnee Rentfrow

"The Research Library in the 21st Century: Collecting, Preserving, and Making Accessible Resources for Scholarship," by Abby Smith

"The Role of the Library in 21st Century Scholarly Publishing," by Kate Wittenberg

"Leveraging Digital Technologies in Service to Culture and Society: The Role of Libraries as Collaborators," by Lee Zia

InterConnections: The IMLS National Study on the Use of Libraries, Museums and the Internet Published

The Institute of Museum and Library Services has published InterConnections: The IMLS National Study on the Use of Libraries, Museums and the Internet. The full conclusions gives you the major findings.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

IMLS sponsored this national study through a cooperative agreement with a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill research team led by José-Marie Griffiths and Donald W. King, recognized leaders in information research. Their findings are based on five surveys of 1,000 to 1,600 adults each that were conducted during 2006. The study found that:

  • Libraries and museums are the most trusted sources of online information among adults of all ages, education levels, races, and ethnicities. Libraries and museums rank higher in trustworthiness than all other information sources including government, commercial, and private Web sites. The study shows that the public trust of museums and libraries migrates to the online environment.
  • The explosive growth of information available in the “Information Age” actually whets Americans’ appetite for more information. People search for information in many places and since the use of one source leads to others, museums, public libraries, and the Internet complement each other in this information-rich environment.
  • The Internet is not replacing in-person visits to libraries and museums and may actually increase onsite use of libraries and museums. There is a positive relationship between Internet use and in-person visits to museums and public libraries.

University of Michigan Libraries Make over 100,000 Records for Digitized Books Available for Harvesting

The University of Michigan Libraries have made over 100,000 metadata records from its MBooks collection available for OAI-PMH harvesting. The records are for digitized books in the public domain.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The University of Michigan Library is pleased to announce that records from our MBooks collection are available for OAI harvesting. The MBooks collection consists of materials digitized by Google in partnership with the University of Michigan.

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/o/oai/oai?verb=Identify

Only records for MBooks available in the public domain are exposed. We have split these into sets containing public domain items according to U.S. copyright law, and public domain items worldwide. There are currently over 100,000 records available for harvesting. We anticipate having 1 million records available when the entire U-M collection has been digitized by Google.

ALA Urgent Call for Action about the Presidential Veto of the Labor-HHS Bill

The American Library Association has issued an urgent call for action about the presidential veto of the FY 2008 Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies appropriations bill, which includes the NIH Public Access Policy mandate and essential funding for library programs.

You can easily contact your senators using the ALA Action Alert Web form.

I've created a cut-and-paste version of prior ALA/Alliance for Taxpayer Access text about the NIH open access mandate and added brief information about key library programs funded by the bill. You can use this text to simplify the process of sending an e-mail via the ALA Action Alert Web form, but personalizing this text with an added sentence or two is recommended.

Creative Commons Seeks Feedback from Librarians about LiveDVD

Timothy Vollmer has announced on Lita-L (10/28/07 message) that the Creative Commons is looking for feedback about its LiveDVD for libraries, which is part of its LiveContent project.

Here's an excerpt from the message:

Creative Commons is working with Fedora on creating a LiveDVD for libraries that contains free, open source software (like OpenOffice, The Gimp, Inkscape, Firefox) and open content, including CC-licensed media such as audio, video, photographs, text and open educational resources. . . .

The next iteration we're working on is a LiveDVD for libraries, providing an informational resource and creative tool that would allow library patrons to test open source software, view (and rip, remix, reuse) open content, and even create new content with the software contained on the disc. . . .

We want to get some more feedback/comments/suggestions on the project and are also looking to identify librarians and interested groups to test out the LiveDVD!

ARL Annual Salary Survey 2006–07 Published

The ARL Annual Salary Survey 2006–07 has been published, and it can be purchased from ARL.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The 2006–07 data show that ARL librarians’ salaries outperformed inflation. The combined median professional salary in US and Canadian ARL university libraries was $59,648—a 4.5% increase from the previous year. Over the same period, the Consumer Price Index rose 4.1% in the US and 2.4% in Canada. . . .

Gender-based salary differentials persist in ARL libraries in 2006–07. The overall salary for women in the 113 ARL university libraries is 95.7% of that paid to men; this figure compares to 95.5% in 2005–06. While the data show a marked closure of the gender gap in ARL libraries over the long term—in 1980–81, women in ARL libraries were paid roughly 87% of what men were paid—the data also raise the possibility that the closure has peaked, and that a 5% gap between men’s and women’s salaries may persist.

New Leadership at New Zealand’s National Digital Library

John Truesdale has been named the Director of the National Digital Library, Paul Reynolds has been named the Adjunct Director, and Steve Knight has been named Associate Director.

For details, see the press releases: "National Library of New Zealand appoints Director, National Digital Library" and "Trio of Top Thinkers to Lead National Digital Library."

Patricia Steele to Continue as Interim Dean of Indiana University Libraries

Indiana University President Michael McRobbie has announced that Patricia A. Steele, who has been the Interim Dean of the Indiana University Libraries since 2005, will continue in that role for up to two years.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

"The recent search for the Dean of the Libraries did not result in the identification of a successor who is better positioned than Pat to move forward with new library initiatives," said McRobbie. "Hence, I asked Pat to continue her appointment, effective immediately.

"I appreciate the leadership and hard work that have characterized Pat's tenure as interim dean, and Provost Karen Hanson and I look forward to working with her in the months ahead," McRobbie added.

McRobbie, who said that a new search would begin later this academic year, noted that Steele had moved the libraries forward since 2005 in advancing scholarly communications initiatives, planning for facilities and engaging an assessment of technical services operations. He expects that she will continue to build upon library planning and initiatives already in place and continue to advance IUB Libraries with the extension of her appointment, he said.

Back from the Certificate in Digital Information Management Meeting

I'm back from the University of Arizona School of Information Resources and Library Science's Advisory Group meeting for its Certificate in Digital Information Management program.

This online post-bachelor's certificate program is shaping up nicely, building on its unusual synthesis of archival, digital technology, and library perspectives. As intended, its attracting a student body from diverse work and educational backgrounds. Peter Botticelli has been hired to lead the certificate program. Recruitment for the next cohort of students is gearing up, and some IMLS-funded scholarships will be available for U.S. citizens.

The certificate program is composed of six three-credit graduate courses.

  • IRLS 671 Introduction to Digital Collections
  • IRLS 672 Introduction to Applied Technology
  • IRLS 673 Managing the Digital Information Environment
  • IRLS 674 Preservation of Digital Collections
  • IRLS 675 Advanced Digital Collections
  • IRLS 676 Capstone

More detailed information can be found on the Course Information & Schedules: Digital Information Management Certificate page.

ARL Changes Public Ranking Methodology

Beginning with the 2005–06 report, ARL is using an Expenditures-Focused Index instead of its traditional Membership Criteria Index in public ranking reports. The Chronicle of Higher Education has published the "Index of Expenditures at University Research Libraries, 2005-6" (requires subscription).

Here's an excerpt from the ARL Index page:

Starting with 2005–06 data, ARL is calculating an Expenditures-Focused Index as an alternative to the ARL Membership Criteria Index. The Expenditures-Focused Index replaces the public availability of the ARL Membership Criteria Index. The Expenditures-Focused Index is highly correlated with the Membership Criteria Index and less affected by changes in the collections variables. The methodology behind this new index is described by Bruce Thompson in his October 2006 paper, "Some Alternative Quantitative Library Activity Descriptions/Statistics that Supplement the ARL Logarithmic Index."

What's in Your Wallet? Three Librarian Salary Surveys

Three surveys of librarian salaries have been recently published.

The Association of Research Libraries has published the ARL Annual Salary Survey 2006-07. PDF and Excel versions are freely available.

ALA has published the 2007 editions of the ALA-APA Salary Survey: Librarian—Public and Academic and the ALA-APA Salary Survey: Non-MLS—Public and Academic. Various priced access options are available.

Here's an excerpt from the ALA press release:

Analysis of data from more than 800 public and academic libraries showed the mean salary for librarians with ALA-accredited Master’s Degrees increased 2.8 percent from 2006, up $1,550 to $57,809. The median ALA MLS salary was $53,000. Salaries ranged from $22,048 to $225,000.

For the first time the non-MLS salary survey data, including 62 non-MLS positions, reported salaries for staff employed as librarians but who do not have ALA-accredited Master’s Degrees in Library Science. Non-MLS salaries ranged $10,712 to $143,700.

Crawford's Public Library Blogs: 252 Examples Published

Walt Crawford has published Public Library Blogs: 252 Examples.

Here's an excerpt from his posting about the book:

Public Library Blogs: 252 Examples

Public Library Blogs: 252 Examples is now available at Cites & Insights Books. Price: $29.50 plus shipping and handling.
The 299-page 6×9 trade paperback (x+289 pages) features descriptions and sample posts for a wide range of blogs from 196 public libraries of all sizes, in the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand.

If your library is considering a blog, this book should help you find blogs from comparable libraries to consider as examples. If your library has a blog and is considering more (or revising the ones you have), this book should help you find interesting examples–the public library blogging community is remarkably diverse!

For now, Public Library Blogs is only available from the Cites & Insights Books store at Lulu.com, printed on 60lb. cream book stock. In a few days, a version on bright white paper and with an ISBN will be available from CreateSpace–and, a couple of weeks after that, from Amazon.com

ALA Weblogs and Creative Commons Licenses

The American Library Association and its divisions have launched a number of Weblogs in the last few years. What copyright provisions are these digital publications under? Do they use Creative Commons licenses?

As the list below shows, the vast majority of ALA Weblogs have no explicit copyright statement on their homepage. The absence of such a statement does not mean that under U.S. law the Weblogs are not under standard copyright provisions. They are copyrighted, but by who? Unless ALA has a copyright transfer or work-for-hire agreement with Weblog authors, it appears that the author of each posting holds the copyright to that posting, and copyright permissions for uses of postings that exceed fair use would need to be obtained from their authors. (Some Weblogs have a single author.)

One ALA Weblog uses the standard ALA copyright statement (ALA Techsource), one is copyrighted under the name of the Weblog (ACRLog), one is under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States license (YALSA), and three others are under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 licenses (District Dispatch, LITA Blog, and Office for Intellectual Freedom).

Thus, the vast majority of ALA Weblogs are under standard copyright provisions, one is under ALA’s more liberal copyright provisions, and a few are under Creative Commons Licenses that permit noncommercial use without further permission as long as it does not include the creation of derivative works.

Crazy Bosses

Queen of Hearts

Let’s hope that you never have a crazy boss. But—take my word for it—they’re out there. If you feel that you’ve gone down the rabbit hole and are faced each day with a cross between the Mad Hatter and the Queen of Hearts, then, if you can’t just quit, you might want to pick up a copy of Stanley Bing’s Crazy Bosses.

You’ll meet a variety of crazy bosses, including the disaster hunter, the narcissist, the paranoid, the wimp, and, my personal favorite, the bully.

Bing offers humorous, but sage, advice for how to deal with these crazies.

Here’s a Chance to Hire Walt Crawford

Here’s a rare opportunity to hire a leading thinker in the library profession.

Walt Crawford is looking for work. For those of you who are not librarians and may not have heard of Walt, he is one of the most influential and important figures in the library world, and he was ranked among the most cited authors for the period 1994–2004 in a March 2007 College & Research Libraries article titled "Analysis of a Decade in Library Literature: 1994–2004" (unfortunately this article is not out of the C&RL embargo period yet and is not freely available).

Here’s a reproduction of Walt’s blog posting about this matter:

A special message:

Ever thought you or one of the groups you work for or with could use a Walt Crawford? Here’s your chance.

The RLG-OCLC transition will be complete in September. I’ve received a termination notice from OCLC, effective September 30, 2007.

I’m interested in exploring new possibilities. For now I’m trying not to narrow the options too much.

The basics: A new position could start any time after October 15, 2007 (possibly earlier). January to April 2008 might be ideal as a starting date, but earlier or later is quite possible.

I’m looking for a mutually-beneficial situation, which could be part time, could be full time, could be based on sponsorship of current writing and possible expansion to new areas, could be contract or consulting. I’m open to an exclusive working relationship—but also to more piecemeal possibilities.

Writing is important to me—but so is sensemaking, at the heart of what I’ve done at work and professionally for a few decades. I find numbers interesting (particularly exposing weaknesses in statistical assertions and finding the numbers that make most sense for an organization) and understand them well. I’ve been analyzing, synthesizing, designing (sometimes programming) and communicating throughout my career. I’m interested in the whole range of issues surrounding the intersections of libraries, policy, media and technology, and have demonstrated my effectiveness as a writer and speaker in those areas.

You can get a good sense of what I’ve published here, including my 15 (to date) books and many of the 400+ articles and columns.

I would certainly consider a short-term (say two to four years) situation—but if you have something that makes sense for both of us for a longer term, I have no set retirement date. If I had to name an ideal, it would probably be roughly two-thirds time with benefits (or full time if Cites & Insights was considered part of the job).

Clear limitation: There are very few places we’d be willing to relocate, most of them in temperate parts of the Pacific Rim—that is, California, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, or maybe Australia or New Zealand. Otherwise, for most possibilities outside of Silicon Valley (or the Tri-Valley area around Livermore), I’d be looking to telecommute—and perfectly willing to travel on a reasonable basis.

If you have acquaintances who are unlikely to see this blog, within "groups that work for/with libraries"—publishers, vendors, search-engine makers, consortia, what have you—where you think I might be a good fit, I’d be delighted if you told them about this. If you’d like to blog about it, please do, saying whatever you like. (Schadenfreude?Be my guest.)

I don’t have a proper resume. I suspect I’m more likely to be hired by someone who knows who I am or is more interested in a full vita, available here. (OK, I’ll be 62 in September and I have an international reputation that is only slightly related to my daytime job: Maybe not the ideal combination for a classic "hit ’em with the keywords" resume.)

Offers, inquiries, questions, comments should go to me at my gmail address: waltcrawford. If you’d like to meet during ALA Annual, let me know.

For those of you who care about Cites & Insights: I have every intention of continuing and, with luck, improving C&I. I have every intention of keeping it free to the reader. I’ve been thinking about a spinoff in an area that I find increasingly important and that requires more room and time than I’ve been giving it—and that spinoff might or might not be free, depending on arrangements that come to light. Naturally, finding the right position will help ensure the future of C&I.

Here’s the brief bio:

Walt Crawford is an internationally recognized writer and speaker on libraries, technology, policy and media.Crawford was for many years Senior Analyst at RLG, focusing on user interface design and actual usage patterns for end-user bibliographic search systems. Through September 30, 2007, he works on RLG-OCLC transition and integration issues.

Crawford is the creator, writer and publisher of Cites & Insights: Crawford at Large, an ejournal on the intersections of libraries, policy, technology and media published monthly since 2001. He also maintains a blog on these and other issues, Walt at Random.

Crawford’s books include Balanced Libraries: Thoughts on Continuity and Change (2007), First Have Something to Say: Writing for the Library Profession (2003), Being Analog: Creating Tomorrow’s Libraries (1999), Future Libraries: Dreams, Madness & Reality (with Michael Gorman, 1995), and eleven others going back to MARC for Library Use: Understanding the USMARC Formats(1984).

Crawford writes the “disContent” column in EContent Magazine and has written columns for American Libraries, Online and Library Hi Tech. In all, he has written more than 400 library-related articles and columns appearing in a range of library publications.

Crawford was recently cited as one of the 31 most frequently cited authors in library literature 1994-2004 (the only American writer on that list outside academic libraries). In 1995, he received the American Library Association’s LITA/Library Hi Tech Award for Excellence in Communication for Continuing Education, followed by the ALCTS/Blackwell Scholarship Award in 1997. He was president of the Library and Information Technology Association in 1992/93.

More information is available at Crawford’s home page.

Researchers’ Use of Academic Libraries and Their Services

The Research Information Network (RIN) and the The Consortium of Research Libraries in the British Isles (CURL) have published a new report titled Researchers’ Use of Academic Libraries and Their Services.

Here’s an excerpt from the report’s Web page:

This study was designed to provide an up-to-date and forward-looking view of how researchers interact with academic libraries in the UK. Harnessing empirical data and qualitative insights from over 2250 researchers and 300 librarians, the RIN and CURL hope that the results will be useful in informing the debate about the future development of academic libraries and the services they provide to researchers.

This is an important moment in the relationship between researchers and research libraries in the UK. The foundations of the relationship are beginning to be tested by shifts in the way that researchers work. The rise of e-research, interdisciplinary work, cross-institution collaborations, and the expectation of massive increases in the quantity of research output in digital form all pose new challenges. These challenges are about how libraries should serve the needs of researchers as users of information sources of many different kinds, but also about how to deal with the information outputs that researchers are creating.

Currently, the majority of researchers think that their institutions’ libraries are doing an effective job in providing the information they need to do their work, but it is time to consider the future roles and responsibilities of all those involved in the research cycle—researchers, research institutions and national bodies, as well as libraries—in meeting the challenges that are coming.

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