1. STORIES TOLD IN NUMBERS:
AN ANALYSIS OF THE SERIALS CRISIS
Sean R. O‟Brien

2. Accountability
 Increased accountability in higher education has led to an increased
need to demonstrate evidence of achievement.
 Library value = perceived benefits
perceived costs
 “Librarians are increasingly called upon to document and articulate
the value of academic and research libraries and their contribution
to institutional mission and goals.”
The Value of Academic Libraries, ACRL

3. Demonstrating Value
 Libraries cannot demonstrate institutional
value to maximum effect until they
 Define outcomes of institutional relevance
 And measure the degree to which they attain
them.
Kaufman and Watstein 2008.

4. Where is the Library?
 What are the institutional missions and goals of
the college or university?
 Where is the library in these missions and goals?
 What factors influence the role of the library in the
university?
 How do we measure or demonstrate our role
in the life of the institution?

5. Measuring Our Role
Tools and Data

6. Tools and Data
 The Newly Revised Carnegie Classification
of Institutions of Higher Education
 National Center for Educational Statistics
(NCES)
 The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data
System (IPEDS)
 Library Statistics Program

7. Carnegie Classifications
 Classifies institutions of higher education by
various descriptive elements, such as:
 Size and setting
 Private/Public
 Enrollment Profile
 Population
 Basic
 Gives a librarian the ability to compare their
university to others with similar characteristics

10. IPEDS
 Provides detailed information about higher
educational institutions, including:
 Enrollment
 Admissions
 Retention and graduation rates
 Core university expenses
 Core university revenues
 Gives a librarian the ability to understand
factors influencing the mission and goals of
their university

14. NCES Library Statistics Program
 Contains detailed information about academic
libraries, including:
 Gate counts
 Library expenditures
 Number of librarians per student
 Collection information
 Reference transactions and library classes
 Circulation statistics
 Gives a librarian information critical to
understanding both use of the library and the
success of library programs

17. Putting It All Together
 Used in combination, these tools can have a very
powerful impact upon:
 Understanding the type of institution to which the
library belongs (ex: Carnegie, Basic)
 Measuring the needs of a university (ex: IPEDs,
Retention)
 Measuring and demonstrating the role of the library in
the university (ex: NCES Library Statistics, Gate
Counts, Circulation, Classes)
 Also can reveal prevailing trends and
movements affecting librarianship as a whole.

18. The Serials Crisis
A Demonstrative Example

19. The Serials Crisis:
 Explosion of information
 Serials
become a primary means of scholarly
communication
 Pressure for faculty to publish
 Expansion of knowledge leads to an expansion in
serials
 New Serials
 Increased page counts and frequency of publication
 Branching and twigging of existing serials

20. The Serials Crisis Explained 2:
Explosion of Cost
 Serials inflating at rapid rate
 The average price of a journal in 1984 was
$78.35; in 2002 it was $543.96
 Serials often sold in bundles
 Amount of serials increasing
 Example: Physical Review, once a single title,
now is six separate titles

21. Research Question
 How are the libraries at very-high research
universities reacting to the rapid inflation of
serials and what factors are influencing their
decisions?

22. A Sample for Study
 A „Basic‟ category in The Carnegie
Classification System is very-high research
institutions. The prestigious 108 universities in
this category conduct the highest levels of
research in higher education and are therefore
heavily invested in serials and scholarly
communication

23. Finding Answers in the Data
 Through NCES library statistics, I was able to
document changes in serial and electronic
serial expenditures from 2000 to 2008 and find
connections between these expenditures and
other variables such as total library
expenditure growth and public/private
institution status.

24. Growth
2000 2008
25000000
20000000
15000000
10000000
5000000
0
Electronic Serials Current Serials Total Library
Expenditures

25. Growth
 Overall average growth rates
from 2000 to 2008:
 E-Serial Expenditures grew 616.8%
 Current Serials Expenditures grew 59.5%
 Total Library Expenditures grew 42.5%
 The percentage of Current Serial Expenditures to
Total Library Expenditures grew 2.5%.
 Essentially Current Serials now occupied 2.5% more of the
total library budget.

26. Looking Deeper
 2.5% increase not crisis over 8 year period
 Is serial inflation not as substantial as estimiated?
 Or, are other factors coming in to play?

27. Influencing Factors
 Total Library Expenditure Increases
 Universities with above average increases in Total Library
Expenditures increased their Current Serial Expenditures
by 81.2%
 Universities with below average increases in Total Library
Expenditures increased their Current Serial Expenditures
by only 43.7%
 Public/Private Institution Status
 Private Universities also had larger Current Serial
Expenditures (80.2%) when compared to Public
Universities (50.3%). Although some but not all of this trend
may be explained by the fact that Private Universities had
larger increases in Total Library Expenditures.

28. Conclusions
 The Serials Crisis is not a crisis of budget but
of access
 Schools and libraries will not spend more than
they can afford upon serials or bankrupt
themselves to pay for them
 However, the rapid inflation in the cost of serials
does have a chilling or prohibitory effect upon the
scholarly communication of public universities
and schools with limited financial growth
capabilities.

29. Discussion
 This study effectively proves that increases in
the cost of serials has a dramatic impact upon
a library‟s capacity to obtain these resources.
 For libraries in the business of providing
access, this may truly be dubbed a crisis
 Intellectual inquiry and scholarly research
presume ready access to the widest possible
range of scholarly resources. The role of the
library is not to impact the direction of research
but rather to offer up a full range of resources to
enable it. (Nadler, “A Library Born in the Age of
Google)

30. What I learned
 Data can provide the story and substance of
an argument
 SerialCrisis not a vague concept for me anymore
but true issue to which libraries need to react
 Data also allows libraries the ability to understand
the issues they face and their evolving role within
the university