Comments on: Streamlining Harvard’s Science Libraries http://www.educatednation.com/2009/04/17/streamlining-harvards-science-libraries/ A higher education blog about news, humor, advice, and opinion on education, college degrees, university life and careers. Fri, 09 Dec 2011 00:03:32 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Simple Country Physicist http://www.educatednation.com/2009/04/17/streamlining-harvards-science-libraries/comment-page-1/#comment-125155 Simple Country Physicist Mon, 20 Apr 2009 12:44:26 +0000 http://www.educatednation.com/2009/04/17/streamlining-harvards-science-libraries/#comment-125155 The electronics/computer/information revolution has made libraries more fragile, especially science libraries. The fragility arises from the increasing practice of electronic, on-line periodicals. Science libraries are especially vulnerable since something on order of half their collection addition budget, in some cases half of total budget, is for journals. The effect of on-line periodicals available at desktop is that most of the senior users of the library - graduate researchers down to even upper level undergraduate students - cease or decrease visits to the physical library. Couple this with governing boards, staffed mostly with non-librarian managers, who are apathetic to Internet metrics and only consider physical presence metrics as valid. Decreased feet on the boards equals decreased funding. The electronics/computer/information revolution has made libraries more fragile, especially science libraries. The fragility arises from the increasing practice of electronic, on-line periodicals. Science libraries are especially vulnerable since something on order of half their collection addition budget, in some cases half of total budget, is for journals.

The effect of on-line periodicals available at desktop is that most of the senior users of the library – graduate researchers down to even upper level undergraduate students – cease or decrease visits to the physical library. Couple this with governing boards, staffed mostly with non-librarian managers, who are apathetic to Internet metrics and only consider physical presence metrics as valid. Decreased feet on the boards equals decreased funding.

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