on 11 Dec 2002 Andrew Odlyzko <[email protected]> wrote:
> There is also data showing that publication expenses have gone
> down as a fraction of total R&D expenditures. (One can look
> at the ARL statistics, for example, and compare them to the
> figures compiled by NSF for total federal research funding, say,
> both easily available online.) The issue is how to interpret
> that. Here is a quote from "Tragic loss or good riddance ...":
>
> University libraries have already lost some of their importance.
> Spending on libraries has been increasing rapidly, much faster than
> inflation. Still, Albert Henderson has pointed out that over the last
> 25 years, the fraction of budgets of research universities in the US
> that are devoted to libraries has declined from 6% to 3%. One could
> therefore argue that everything would be fine with scholarly
> publishing if only libraries regained their "rightful share" of
> university budgets. My opinion is that this is unrealistic, and that
> the decline in the relative share of resources devoted to libraries
> resulted from their decreasing importance.
In contrast, the data offered by Tenopir and King
indicates libraries have increased their importance
(if not in the eyes of the bureaucracy then) in terms
of actual usage. Discussing scientists' information-
seeking and reading patterns, they wrote: "The
source of articles read has migrated from
predominantly personal subscriptions to library-
provided articles. For example, in 1977 60 percent of
readings by university scientists were from personal
subscriptions and 25 percent from libraries, but the
1990 and 1993 surveys showed a reversal to 36 percent
from personal subscriptions and 54 percent from
libraries. For scientists in other organizations,
readings from personal subscriptions declined from 72
percent in 1977 to 24 percent in the studies
performed from 1994 to 1998; at the same time,
library readings increased from 10 percent to 56
percent." [TOWARD ELECTRONIC JOURNALS. SLA
2000. p. 30]
Readings of library-provided articles very likely
includes desktop access of electronic copies. However,
in spite of all the talk about more desktop access to
electronic files, ARL reports interlibrary borrowing
(i.e. photocopy) activity continued to rise unabated
through 2001 by the newer options often favored in this
forum:
<www.arl.org/stats/arlstat/graphs/2001/2001t3.html>
Best wishes,
Albert Henderson
Former Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY 1994-2000
<[email protected]>
.
.
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