Abstract
We are all aware of that the rise of e-books and demand-driven acquisitions (DDA) models are affecting print collections by moving funding away from print, not to mention the squeezing effect serials inflation continues to have on print acquisitions. This is as true at Temple University as elsewhere. However, at Temple we also have the extraordinary reality of a brand new library building on the horizon. This will be a library, but our recently inaugurated president has made it clear it is not to be a $190 million warehouse for books. We know some large portion of our existing collection will have to be housed in an on-site Automated Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS), leaving a much smaller footprint for the traditional open stacks, browsable collection. It is within this context that Fred Rowland and Brian Schoolar undertook two independent but complementary projects to look at our current print monograph collection, with the hope of teasing out patterns of usage that might provide valuable insights for charting an intelligent path forward.
Transforming a Print Collection
We are all aware of that the rise of e-books and demand-driven acquisitions (DDA) models are affecting print collections by moving funding away from print, not to mention the squeezing effect serials inflation continues to have on print acquisitions. This is as true at Temple University as elsewhere. However, at Temple we also have the extraordinary reality of a brand new library building on the horizon. This will be a library, but our recently inaugurated president has made it clear it is not to be a $190 million warehouse for books. We know some large portion of our existing collection will have to be housed in an on-site Automated Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS), leaving a much smaller footprint for the traditional open stacks, browsable collection. It is within this context that Fred Rowland and Brian Schoolar undertook two independent but complementary projects to look at our current print monograph collection, with the hope of teasing out patterns of usage that might provide valuable insights for charting an intelligent path forward.