Research Libraries Shouldn't Fear Open Access
Ross Atkinson, Introduction for the Break-Out Sessions: Six Key Challenges for the Future of Collection Development. A talk at the Janus Conference on Research Library Collections, Cornell University, October 10, 2005. Atkinson is the Associate University Librarian at Cornell. (Thanks to William Walsh.) Excerpt by Peter Suber (Open Access News Blog):
Collections attract scholars, graduate students, government support, donor funding --and add prestige to the institution. This rationale for collection building --the collection as institutional capital-- is a primary motivation, even though it is seldom specifically discussed. One point we must bear in mind with respect to this rationale, however, is that it entails or implies the existence of a separate collection at each institution which can in effect compete with all others. The new environment into which we are now moving, on the other hand, is likely to be increasingly characterized by a much more unified collection to which all users would have access. Indeed, what perhaps so fascinates us and unnerves us about open access, I think, is that it might serve as a first, decisive step in the direction of a more unified, less institutionally based collection. While there is no question whatsoever that open access represents a supremely valuable trend ideologically --perhaps the ultimate aim of all collection services-- libraries continue to wrestle with its implementation and implications, including its effect on institutional identity. However, such a concern about identity, if I am correct in sensing it, is a red herring --because of what we might call the “axiom of non-equivalence.” By this I mean the trivially simple fact that individual libraries are not the same, nor will they ever be. Each has vastly different resources --not only financial, but also human and creative resources, including different visions and values. The fact is, therefore, that all scholarly publishing could convert to open access tomorrow --every scholarly publication could be made openly accessible-- and still, the accessibility, the collection service, the ability of the user to find, understand, use and apply the individual object, would vary enormously from one institution to the other. Any morbid fear we might harbor, therefore, of becoming mirror images of each other as we move toward a more unified collection is unfounded, and we cannot allow it to deter us from moving in that direction, if we decide that direction is in the best interest of our user communities...
We speak often and rightly of a crisis in scholarly communication. That crisis is not a matter of egregiously priced science journals; as disastrous as such excessive pricing is, it is really only a symptom of the so-called crisis. Nor is the crisis simply a result of the fact that each player on the horizontal line is trying to use the information object for a different purpose - for that has always been the case, probably back to antiquity. No, the crisis is rather a result of the fact that there is now a level of technology available to each player on the line, such that each player can assert its will and compete with other players much more effectively. What any player on the horizontal line can do is therefore now heavily contingent upon what other players can and want to do... [P]ublishers are... obviously competing among themselves - as are libraries. What is perhaps most different about libraries, however, is that they have some difficulty acknowledging and dealing with that competition. They may even pretend sometimes that no such competition takes place. They focus instead with intensity on the horizontal line - publishers, the Evil Empire, vendor effectiveness-- perhaps in order to avoid taking the vertical line into account... Speaking personally, what scares me about the brilliant, trail-blazing, revolutionary arrangement the Google 5, and especially Michigan, have made with Google, is not the effect of that arrangement on the horizontal line. Such a service, if it can be effected, can indeed only benefit the movement of scholarly information from writer to reader. What scares me is rather the effect of the arrangement on the vertical line - on research libraries’ relationships with each other. I am frankly frightened that I will not be able to provide users at Cornell with a level of collection service that will be competitive with the collection service that Michigan will be able to provide its users, once its entire print collection is in digital form. And I think many research libraries are concerned about this --although, again, we are loath to discuss it.
Collections attract scholars, graduate students, government support, donor funding --and add prestige to the institution. This rationale for collection building --the collection as institutional capital-- is a primary motivation, even though it is seldom specifically discussed. One point we must bear in mind with respect to this rationale, however, is that it entails or implies the existence of a separate collection at each institution which can in effect compete with all others. The new environment into which we are now moving, on the other hand, is likely to be increasingly characterized by a much more unified collection to which all users would have access. Indeed, what perhaps so fascinates us and unnerves us about open access, I think, is that it might serve as a first, decisive step in the direction of a more unified, less institutionally based collection. While there is no question whatsoever that open access represents a supremely valuable trend ideologically --perhaps the ultimate aim of all collection services-- libraries continue to wrestle with its implementation and implications, including its effect on institutional identity. However, such a concern about identity, if I am correct in sensing it, is a red herring --because of what we might call the “axiom of non-equivalence.” By this I mean the trivially simple fact that individual libraries are not the same, nor will they ever be. Each has vastly different resources --not only financial, but also human and creative resources, including different visions and values. The fact is, therefore, that all scholarly publishing could convert to open access tomorrow --every scholarly publication could be made openly accessible-- and still, the accessibility, the collection service, the ability of the user to find, understand, use and apply the individual object, would vary enormously from one institution to the other. Any morbid fear we might harbor, therefore, of becoming mirror images of each other as we move toward a more unified collection is unfounded, and we cannot allow it to deter us from moving in that direction, if we decide that direction is in the best interest of our user communities...
We speak often and rightly of a crisis in scholarly communication. That crisis is not a matter of egregiously priced science journals; as disastrous as such excessive pricing is, it is really only a symptom of the so-called crisis. Nor is the crisis simply a result of the fact that each player on the horizontal line is trying to use the information object for a different purpose - for that has always been the case, probably back to antiquity. No, the crisis is rather a result of the fact that there is now a level of technology available to each player on the line, such that each player can assert its will and compete with other players much more effectively. What any player on the horizontal line can do is therefore now heavily contingent upon what other players can and want to do... [P]ublishers are... obviously competing among themselves - as are libraries. What is perhaps most different about libraries, however, is that they have some difficulty acknowledging and dealing with that competition. They may even pretend sometimes that no such competition takes place. They focus instead with intensity on the horizontal line - publishers, the Evil Empire, vendor effectiveness-- perhaps in order to avoid taking the vertical line into account... Speaking personally, what scares me about the brilliant, trail-blazing, revolutionary arrangement the Google 5, and especially Michigan, have made with Google, is not the effect of that arrangement on the horizontal line. Such a service, if it can be effected, can indeed only benefit the movement of scholarly information from writer to reader. What scares me is rather the effect of the arrangement on the vertical line - on research libraries’ relationships with each other. I am frankly frightened that I will not be able to provide users at Cornell with a level of collection service that will be competitive with the collection service that Michigan will be able to provide its users, once its entire print collection is in digital form. And I think many research libraries are concerned about this --although, again, we are loath to discuss it.
posted by Israel Scholar | 12.2.06
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