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A silver lining—shared infrastructuresBudget reductions create both challenges and opportunities. The need to reduce staff costs, the need to lower materials costs while at the same time preserving these assets, the need to address the unfunded liability of capital renewal, and the increasing expectations of the technology-empowered user will have significant impacts on library services. Some librarians interviewed for this report indicated that budget constraints could have a positive, liberating impact on libraries as it would force decisions avoided in more comfortable times. “It will allow us to make the shifts we know we have needed to make for some time” was a common way of expressing this. “Libraries are in the business of saving the [parent] institution money by providing rational management of vital information resources on which the institution depends.” —Associate University Librarian Libraries of all types find there is increasing scrutiny of the return on investment (ROI) of library services and collections—and not just from the funding agency. An increased interest among the general population in how scarce tax dollars are spent has brought attention to what libraries and publicly-funded museums spend tax dollars on. As one public library director told the OCLC interviewer: a good library board insists that the library pass muster in the court of public opinion and this means a lot of public scrutiny and involvement. One of the most interesting patterns emerging on the horizon is a renewed look at the power (and ROI) of shared library systems and infrastructures. In the United States, consortia are (re)forming and states are coming together to look anew at the feasibility of utilizing shared technology infrastructures. Slow or negative economic growth compels publicly-funded institutions to be very, very clear in articulating the economic value to the community at large. The higher education sector and the government have done this for years by tracking the ROI of a college education to society at large. The value of a college degree can be expressed as value returned to society in economic terms. The library and its sister organizations—museums, archives and historical societies—have not, in any organized fashion, used similar tactics in documenting the economic good of their continued healthy existence. Most people believe libraries represent a fundamental public good in a democracy; however, without a clearly articulated demonstration of value, taxpayers may choose not to fund this particular public good. “Sherrill Wilson would rather see Buncombe County close its libraries than raise property taxes.”19 “Libraries may have to stop thinking about their collections as their primary asset.” —Industry Pundit “Information is free.” The commodity that forms the basis of a library’s commerce is often thought by its constituents to be without cost when it is delivered across the network. Jim Gray, a Microsoft researcher, articulated the issues clearly in a March 2003 report.20 The “cost of providing computing” is absolutely not free. Here are some highlights from that report:
“Operations costs far exceed capital costs. Hardware and software are minor parts of the total cost of ownership.” —Microsoft Technology Report, March 200321
“Universities are increasingly called to demonstrate their ROI, and libraries will be increasingly held accountable. They need to be better at showing the value of long-term investment in the information infrastructure. When a road is built, the ROI isn’t in the transportation department—it’s in the community at large.” —Director, National Licensing Project
An 80-percent variable cost structure in a technology-intensive field, where common procedures and practices are shared across institutions, provides opportunity for cost reduction. JSTOR, a nonprofit organization founded in 1995 to help the scholarly community take advantage of advances in information technologies, has built a model that demonstrates the operating cost advantages of leveraging shared technology infrastructures to store electronic journals. In a 2001 Educause Review article, JSTOR reported an estimated annual cost of access advantage of more than 60 percent by moving from a traditional, open-stack journal management system to a centrally-administered electronic content system.23 “We’ve had incredible cuts—40 percent of staff and funding. We need to convince the administration and the public that if they want this stuff around we need more support.” —Director, State Historical Society A 1999 study by AT&T Labs suggests that for every dollar libraries spend to purchase an article, they spend twice as much on ordering, cataloging, shelving, circulating and providing reference assistance.24 The economic return possible by reducing these shared operating costs across just a fraction of the world’s million libraries is substantial. Driving efficiencies and looking for innovative ways to share technical infrastructures is certainly not new for libraries. WorldCat, a shared infrastructure application, jointly created by libraries, was launched in 1971. Since 1978, the Dutch shared cataloguing system, Gemeenschappelijk Geautomatiseerd Catalogiseersysteem (GGC), has helped libraries across The Netherlands leverage shared solutions. Many other shared applications are providing libraries worldwide with substantial cost savings. But increasing financial constraints and the growing array of nonlibrary information services are driving libraries to come together to collaborate in new ways. Working together to create common efficiencies and improved ROI for stakeholders will change libraries’ economics. It is required. For what’s at stake is the adequate funding of the public good. |
