Reflections on the Publishing Scene

The Library Collection Crisis: What Is To Be Done?

Richard Abel

O ne of the major players in the world of books and journals is in critical straits, and its condition becomes more desperate with every passing

year. Careful observers detected the first symptoms in the last half of the 1960s, nearly thirty years ago. Those of a sanguine nature were persuaded that they were looking at several unrelated, minor problems---temporary aberra- tions that would be corrected or would correct themselves in the ordinary course of affairs. But those of a more skeptical disposition believed we were looking at a set of related problems symptomatic of a more basic systematic difficulty. The problems deepened, so by the mid-1970s it was clear the condition was, in fact, the consequence of a dislocation of a fundamental kind. Yet curi- ously, the other players in the world of books and journals, with a few notable exceptions, were but peripherally interested.

This apparent absence of substantial concern is particularly baffling, for the ailing player--the library sector--was, and remains, an enormously important factor in the serious book and journal market. For that matter, but to a lesser degree, it is important in the entertainment book and magazine market as well, for public and school libraries have historically been a large and dependable consumer of these publications. But the primary concern here is the world of serious books and journals in which the scholarly libraries are the major con- sumers, often, in terms of total numbers of copies purchased, the largest single market sector for such publications. It seems almost incomprehensible that authors, publishers, book/journal dealers supplying academic, research, and special libraries, etc. have stood so nonchalantly by as the financial plight of these libraries has deepened.

Libraries virtually the world around have been for the last two decades wrestling with increasingly severe financial problems. The financial resources allocated to libraries have, in most cases, not only failed to maintain the annual requirements of libraries adjusted to inflation and publications volume but have in a distressingly large number of cases actually been cut. (The most pronounced annual increase in volume of publication--sheer number of printed pages published--has occurred in the journal publishing sector.) In short, most scholarly libraries have been unable to maintain their collecting activities at a

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steady annual rate relative to the total volume of publication appearing in any given year. The yearly routine of most library administrators these days in- cludes an extended exercise in what elements of the total library budget can most reasonably be reduced or eliminated with the least harmful consequences.

While observers have for some twenty years been predicting an erosion of the holdings of serious publications in the collections of scholarly libraries in the United States and elsewhere in the developed world attributable to finan- cial strictures, only anecdotal information has been available in support of this argument. Now in a quite massive study which comprehensively analyzes and compares the holdings of the major research libraries (Association of Research Libraries) in the United States and Canada for the period from 1985 to 1989, Anna Perrault has documented the long-term erosion of the wealth of serious books held in scholarly collections in these two countries. 1 In the meantime, the exercise aimed at canceling some fraction of its journal subscription has be- come an annual ritual in virtually all scholarly and research libraries around the world. In short, we have witnessed the relative and increasing erosion in the holdings of the world's wealth of information and knowledge in scholarly and research libraries, attributable to the continuing relative reduction and mounting cumulative deficit in library purchasing power, that was postulated by those who two decades ago were viewed as irritating naysayers. (I can remember being so derided by faculty and administrative staff in a number of meetings my then library bookselling company had organized to explore this issue two decades ago that we quietly scuttled plans to organize further such meetings across the country.)

Through these years of library financial decay the matter has been a regular topic of conversation among authors, publishers, dealers, and others. All nod their heads knowledgeably and with appropriately long faces agree on the broad facts of the case; acknowledge the baneful impact this decline will have upon their affairs and those of their successors; and then move on to less troublesome and more cheerful, and indeed often more socially rewarding undertakings involving the taking of high moral positions on a variety of passing, minor issues of much less consequence. The library problem in this view, shared by much of the book world, is largely someone else's. But who other than those whose living and wellbeing derive from the book/journal trade, and more importantly, who have chosen to make their careers in this field, has the principal responsibility for rallying to the aid of distressed col- leagues in the information/knowledge transfer sector?

At this point some with long memories will huffily respond that at least the publishing community joined in the formation of a commission to investigate and make recommendations on the future of scholarly and research libraries in the context of the information/knowledge transfer process about twenty years ago. They will add that they helped obtain some grants from foundations interested in such matters to fund the commission, lent some top management people to the effort, and helped publicize the recommendations after they

42 Publishing Research Quarterly / Summer 1994

were issued. And further, some of those long in the tooth will recall the orga- nized lobbying and support in the Congress for several library funding pro- grams administered by the U.S. Department of Education in the 1970s and early 1980s.

The grave misfortune associated with these well-meaning undertakings was that they failed to properly identify and hence address the fundamental prob- lem which then and now drives the growing library financial crises. Both the commission noted above and succeeding national studies, as well as the argu- ments advanced in support of the federal library funding programs, simply pointed to the fact of the growing financial distress of libraries rather than the principal root cause. At every time of federal budgetary stringency the library funding initiatives and measures had, therefore, to compete for support against much more compelling national priorities such as defense (including its research component), non-DOD research (including NSF, NIH, NASA, DOE, DOA, etc.), welfare, and other pressing problems. And in fact, libraries over the years lost first part and at last virtually all this federal funding in the face of such daunt- ing and strongly positioned competition.

What then is the root of the problem? It can be traced back in the following way:

. The aggregate price of the corpus of journal literature to which schol- arly and research libraries have been expected by their faculties/re- search staffs to subscribe has by virtue of both geometrically increas- ing volumes of publication and the fact of significant annual decades- long inflation been rising at a faster rate than have the materials bud- gets of these libraries for some years. This is, in brief, the root cause of the declining percentages of the world's intellectual information/ knowledge wealth stored in libraries described earlier.

. The annual geometric increases in the volume of journal literature of the last thirty plus years are the direct consequence of the geometric increase in the numbers of people who have since World War II en- tered the research professions. It has been estimated, as is widely known, that between 80 and 90 percent of all the people who have ever been involved in research are alive and still largely active today. The principal way in which the work output of most of these re- searchers is measured is the number of papers published in recognized journals. And, of course, those producing larger numbers of papers are typically rewarded with larger salaries, grants, laboratories, per- quisites, etc. So the production of a large volume of papers is positively reinforced.

. The enormous research undertaking characterizing the developed economies is largely driven by funding provided by governmental agencies requiring cutting-edge scientific/technical information in

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.

.

pursuit of official mandates (DOD, DOE, NASA, etc.) or agencies es- tablished to advance more general national goals (NSF, NIH, etc.). It can, therefore, be said that the vast bulk of the geometrically expand- ing volume of journal publication is the direct consequence of na- tional funding.

The fact of the distorting impact of such enormous sums upon aca- demic and research institute infrastructure, including libraries, has long been explicitly recognized by granting agencies. (It should here be noted that in virtually all cases the infrastructure--the buildings, facilities, libraries, etc.--upon which research personnel depend to conduct their undertakings are provided and maintained by local agencies pursuing quite different mandates than the central govern- ment agencies supporting the research work.) This recognition is overtly expressed in the addition of some sum of money in excess of the underlying sum directly supporting a research worker or lab and designated to support so-called "indirect costs" to distinguish this cost element from the "direct costs" of the research grant.

The problem for the libraries lies in the fact that the full amounts of indirect-costs moneys purportedly designed for library support seldom reach the library. Only a few, cognizant of the arcane conventions governing both government and institutional accounting and transac- tion practices, have paid any significant heed to this aspect of library funding. One of the principal issues and points of debate of those who pursue such esoteric matters is the question of why most libraries see but a fraction of the amounts actually needed to maintain healthy library collections entering their budgets out of indirect cost reim- bursements. Some argue that the granting agencies' methods of calcu- lating indirect cost percentages are flawed, resulting in inadequate reimbursements to the parent institution. Others argue that the indirect cost reimbursement amounts are not only correct but more than ample. The villains in this scenario are the individual institutional bureaucra- cies which funnel disproportionate amounts to other infrastructure domains, thus shorting library materials budgets. Whatever the case, or possibly cases if multiple problems are discovered, this is an av- enue of inquiry which cries for investigation.

So what is to be done? An urgent priority of the interested parties, and particularly representatives of the journal publishers and dealers but not to the exclusion of the book players, is to join hands with a group of academic and research librarians to trace the flow of indirect costs monies from granting agency to library budget.

Only a small party of investigators is, in my judgment, either needed or desirable. The members of such a working party should be carefully selected.

44 Publishing Research Quarterly/Summer 1994

Within the ranks of librarians only a handful have given serious, sustained, critical attention to the problem of the erosion of library collections resulting from the widening breach between resources needed for adequate collection maintenance and resources available. Some from among this group should be approached to learn whether they possess the stomach to go around the course one or two more times---and to face the possibility of incurring the displeasure of their institutional administrators. Within the ranks of several of the leading book and joumal publishers and dealers there are a handful of individuals who have, presumably with management consent, sought to build bridges to and find common ground with the academic and research library community. Some of these people would undoubtedly volunteer to spend considerable time and effort in such an undertaking as time so spent would almost certainly redound to the long-term benefit of their firms.

And because publishers and dealers are the most readily organized of the various players who stand to immediately gain from such an undertaking, it seems reasonable to suggest that they take the initiative in organizing such a joint working party.

Such an undertaking, if done carefully and thoroughly, would unquestion- ably profit all the present players--authors, publishers, dealers, teaching fac- ulty, research personnel, students and other library users, general readers-- but, more importantly, would profit those yet to come who have every reason to expect that we of this generation will prove to be faithful and vigilant stewards of the world's culture, as concerned and attentive as those who went before us and on whose shoulders we stand.

Note

1. Anna H. Perrault, "The Shrinking National Collection" A Study of the Effects of the Diversion of Funds from Monographs to Serials on the Monograph Collections of Research Libraries" (Ph.D. dissertation, 1994).