ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


694/C&RL News

M arketp lace ch allen g es 
for research  lib ra rie sConference 

Circuit

B y  G a ry  B y rd

The economics o f knowledge 
management and resource sharing

F unding the national research informationinfrastructure in a political climate calling
for greater privatization and marketplace solu­
tions was the theme o f the two-day “Challeng­
ing Marketplace Solutions to Problems in the
Economics o f Information” conference held in
Washington, D.C., September 18– 19, 1995. The
conference was sponsored by the Council on
Library Resources; the University at Albany, State
University o f New  York (SUNY); the University
Center Libraries o f SUNY-Binghamton, Buffalo,
and Stony Brook; the Association o f Research
Libraries; the Coalition for Networked Informa­
tion; and the National Association o f State Uni­
versities and Land-Grant Colleges. Over 200 at­
tendees, including university presidents and
other academic officers, librarians, computing
professionals, economists, association and com­
mercial publishers, and other interested faculty
participated in eleven sessions featuring nearly

Citing Arthur Miller's Death 
a Salesman‚ Morino w arne
that research libraries coul
become the “W illy Lomans 
the Information A ge.”

thirty presentations by an impressive array o f
speakers and expert panelists.

Meredith Butler, dean and director o f librar­
ies, SUNY-Albany, led the conference planning
advisory committee, which included represen­
tatives from the other SUNY University Center
Libraries, the Council on Library Resources, the

 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 

 

 

 

 

o
d 
d 
of

Association o f Research Libraries (ARL), the Coa­
lition for Networked Information, and the Na­
tional Association o f State Universities and Land- 
Grant Colleges. The conferen ce sessions 
focused on the challenges o f managing univer­
sity investments in information technology, the 
economics o f information resource sharing via 
the Internet, the costs and benefits o f electronic 
journals and digital libraries, and knowledge 
management in a networked electronic envi­
ronment.

Integrating electronic resources into 
cam pus life
Keynote speaker David P. Roselle, president 
o f the University o f Delaware, described that 
university’s strategies for “weaving electronic 
resources into the fabric o f campus life.” These 
have included over 700 miles o f campus net­
work wiring, client-server computing, ubiqui­
tous e-mail, and a variety o f campus informa­
tion systems designed to reduce paperwork and 
make life easier for all students, faculty, and 
staff. Roselle pointed to a combination o f fund­
ing sources for these accomplishments: predict­

able state support, significant increases in 
f research grants and private support, and 

the use o f technologies to “do the same, 
or more, with less staff.”

Mario Morino, president o f the Morino 

 
Institute in Cleveland, challenged the at­
tendees to “step out o f the cocoon of 
higher education” and realize that the 
“unimaginable not only can but will hap­

pen.” He described a future in which high­
speed, high-bandwidth network communica­
tions have dramatically shifted the locus o f 
information control from organizations (includ­
ing libraries and publishers) to individual us­
ers, and where competition from the corporate 
sector may challenge the very survival o f many

Gary Byrd is director o f  the Health Sciences Library at the State University o f  New York at Buffalo; e-mai
gbyrd@hs2. buffalo.edu

l: 



November 1995/695

research universities and their libraries. Cit­
ing Arthur Miller’s Death o f  a Salesman, 
Morino warned that research libraries could 
become the “Willy Lomans o f the Informa­
tion Age.”

The econom ics of inform ation
The speakers and panelists throughout the 
conference included a large number o f dis­
tinguished academic economists whose re­
search is focused on the economics o f informa­
tion. Roger Noll from Stanford University 
discussed the economic role o f basic research 
in U.S. universities, the high fixed costs of schol­
arly publications, and the difficulty o f spread­
ing those costs over a relatively small number 
o f readers. Hal Varian, University o f California 
at Berkeley, described the economic history of 
the Internet and various potential models for 
cost recovery by electronic publishers. Michael 
McPherson, Williams College, pointed out the 
many ironies and inefficiencies o f the current 
marketplace for scholarly information: for ex­
ample, university libraries buy fewer books, aca­
demic presses at the same institutions sell fewer 
books, while academic provosts struggle to al­
locate budget resources to these units and to 
the academic departments where faculty are 
encouraged to write and read increasing num­
bers o f these books! Bruce Kingma, SUNY at 
Albany, reported on a recently completed SUNY 
study o f interlibrary loan costs which suggests 
that, in the short term at least, providing access 
to materials in remote collections can provide 
research libraries with savings over local own­
ership. Finally, Malcolm Getz, Vanderbilt Uni­
versity, urged research libraries to look for ways 
to set prices for their information resources and 
services, since prices “empower users to vote 
with their dollars” and give libraries the mar­
ketplace signals needed to make more rational 
budget decisions.

A  n e w  model for scientific 
comm unication
One o f the most widely discussed presenta­
tions during the conference was Richard Lucier’s 
talk about the University o f California-San 
Francisco’s “knowledge management” model 
for scientific communication being developed 
as an alternative to the traditional system o f 
acquiring biomedical books and journals or 
other information resources published else­
where. This new model also includes a transi­
tion to the digital library with high-quality elec-

Jam es O ’Donnell compared 
the advent of the Internet to 
deregulation of the airlines 
in the 19 70s; both transi
tions have been disruptive 
to old patterns. . . .
tronic resources; personal communication tools 
to create, share, manipulate, store, and use in­
formation; and “effortless interfaces” for access 
to these resources. The UCSF library has 
launched an Internet publishing division called 
GalenDOTPub to leverage the university’s own 
intellectual property (such as the Tobacco Con­
trol Archives) for the benefit o f the scientific 
community at large.

The conference included a host o f other fas­
cinating insights into the economic forces shap­
ing higher education, research libraries, and 
scholarly communication. For example, Rich­
ard Rockwell from the Inter-university Consor­
tium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) 
at the University o f Michigan described the pric­
ing dilemmas facing member institutions when 
the Consortium can now distribute very large 
datasets like the American National Election 
Study (the oldest continuously running survey 
in the social sciences) on CD-ROM at very low 
marginal costs. The ICPSR faces a “serious free 
rider problem,” said Rockwell, since institutions 
may not be willing to pay relatively high Con­
sortium membership fees when its datasets can 
be readily copied and transmitted at little or no 
cost for researchers at nonmember institutions.

No turning b ack
James O ’Donnell, editor o f Bryn Mawr Classi­
cal Reviews, a highly subsidized electronic jour­
nal for humanities scholars published by the 
University o f Pennsylvania, compared the ad­
vent o f the Internet to deregulation o f the air­
lines in the 1970s; both transitions have been 
disruptive to old patterns, both offer the possi­
bility (but not a guarantee) o f better service at 
lower cost, and, in both cases, there can be no 
turning back from the change momentum.

This review leaves out many other useful 
and important insights offered by the speakers 
and panelists. Fortunately, ARL will publish the 
complete proceedings, including many useful 
suggestions for additional research from the con­
ference panelists.



696/C&RL News