Choosing between print or digital collection building in times of financial constraint

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore whether university librarians should spend limited financial resources on library building programmes to house expanding print collections, or give priority to supporting digital collections and services – even if this forces them to dispose of little used print stock in consequence.

Design/methodology/approach

An exploration of opposed concepts by an analytic comparison of two books which take different sides of this argument.

Findings

The impact of digital information culture on librarians should be to free them from concerns about disposing of stock in order to release library space to be used for better digital communication facilities, and to avoid diverting resources into expensive building programmes designed to retain all the print items purchased by libraries over the last 50 years. Resources that in the past would have been spent on warehousing expanding collections should nowadays be spent on buying more intensively used digital content and redesigning libraries as open spaces with digital technologies which can facilitate the new learning activities associated with the electronic campus.

Research limitations/implications

The underlying concepts examined in this paper are complex and could be subject to further examination and challenge through rigorous research.

Practical implications

This paper offers a realistic way of dealing with everyday problems in contemporary library management.

Originality/value

A practical solution to a common dilemma of contemporary librarianship is examined against a background of scholarly investigation and abstract thought.

Citation

Joint, N. (2009), "Choosing between print or digital collection building in times of financial constraint", Library Review, Vol. 58 No. 4, pp. 264-271. https://doi.org/10.1108/00242530910952819