Past President Professor Peter Styles introduces the Library Acquisitions Review.
Geoscientist 20.03 March 2010
I know that there must be many Fellows who, like me, believe that if there is a Heaven (and they get chosen to go there) it will be a lot like the Geological Society Library in Burlington House. However, I also understand that there many other Fellows who simply want a pdf of an urgent journal article delivered electronically at any time of day or night to wherever they are in the World and I confess to sometimes being in this camp as well. Libraries today, in Learned Societies, organisations like BGS and Universities are required to span the technology spectrum from Gutenberg to Google and this increased functionality poses problems of cost, custodianship, best technology provision as well as archival storage (digital and print). Geoscience is also widening its horizons to include topics such as environmental and climate change, amongst many others, and new journals are needed to sit alongside and occupy shelf or cyber-space alongside the old friends we know and love.
The weakness of the pound against the Euro (and to a lesser extent against the dollar) and the avarice of the monolithic commercial publishing houses is causing major headaches for Librarians worldwide. Council, while generously allotting a budgetary increase of 13% for 2010 to cover the enormous increase in journal subscriptions, has recognised this and has asked me and a number of other Fellows and staff to form an ad-hoc committee to prepare an initial but wide-ranging report as to how we can best respond to these external factors and the changing needs of our membership within a budgetary framework which we can afford. The fortunate few, representing both Gutenberg and Google, are:
Chair: Peter Styles
- Members: Richard Hughes (Chair, Information Management Committee)
- Tom Sharpe (Chair, Library Advisory Committee)
- Andy Fleet (Treasurer)
- Jonathan Turner (Publications Secretary)
- Peter Dolan
- Hugh Torrens
- Alex Whittaker
Staff:
- Nic Bilham (Secretary to the working group)
- Edmund Nickless (Executive Secretary)
- Kholilur Rahman (Secretary to IMC)
- Sheila Meredith (Chief Librarian, Secretary to LAC)
I fear, from my time spent attending and chairing Library Committees at several Universities, that there no are no easy solutions and that we may need to investigate a range of options including the adequacy/appropriateness of current holdings and usage, strategic alliances, offsite storage and I am under no illusion that we can solve the whole problem before the Council meeting this June when we are due to report, but we should be able to at least sketch out the landscape in which we must exist.
We are seeking views from the Fellowship on a number of issues, initially through a questionnaire (available at www.geolsoc.org.uk/libraryreview), and visitors to the library are being asked to complete a slip telling us what books and journals they have used. We would welcome any other comments you may have – please email them to
[email protected].
Although the publication schedule of Geoscientist means it was not possible to announce the review before it started, I did want to let you all know that it is in progress as I know that like me you would wish us to retain both baby and as much of the bathwater as possible!
Professor Peter Styles
Past President