Between the Visionaries and the Luddites: Collection Development and Electronic Resources in the Humanities

THEINCORPORATION OF electronic resources in the humanities into the traditional practice of collection development presents challenges that have pragmatic, technical, fiscal, and cultural dimensions. Many of the selection criteria valid for print resources have analogues in the electronic realm, while others are unique to the new medium. Among the most significant challenges will be understanding and responding effectively to the way computer-aided research in the humanities changes scholarship and scholarly communication. The substantial differences among humanist scholars in their readiness to participate in the evolving new world will require considerable attention from collection development librarians. INTRODUCTION The process of building a collection takes place within a cultural and social context from which it derives its values and assumptions. For selectors in the humanities, a part of that context has been formed by a system of scholarly communication and a literature that has developed over decades, if not centuries. As noted by many, that system is now suffering from severe strain on a number of fronts and is undergoing radical transformation. The emergence of machinereadable texts, of computer-based networks, and of all the attendant technological apparatus, has provided the means to alter radically scholarly communication and scholarly method in the humanities. Many librarians are eager to move toward this new future but are Edward Shreeves, Collection Management and Development, University of Iowa Libraries, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242 LIBRARY TRENDS, Vol. 40, No. 4, Spring 1992, pp. 579-95 Q 1992 The Board of Trustees, University of Illinois 580 LIBRARY TRENDWSPRING 1992 unsure how to proceed. Both their eagerness and uncertainty have valid roots. A computer-based system of scholarly communication offers the hope of an escape from the insoluble morass of economic, space, and access problems of the last few years. There are even more reasons for uncertainty. The technology ieself is in a state of constant flux with little probability for stability. The glimpses of the future, which now and then emerge from the mists, demand that libraries reconceive the ways they fulfill their missions or even redefine the mission itself. The price for this emerging system-both infrastructure and information-is likely to be very high at a time when many institutions are suffering their worst fiscal problems in years. Finally, changes in the social and cultural context in which scholarship occurs are taking place much more slowly than changes in technology. This article will consider some of the implications of these factors for collection development. THEISSUES As machine-readable texts (of a kind that might interest scholars in the humanities) began to grow in numbers in the 1970s, there was considerable skepticism-to the extent there was any concern at all-about the library’s role in collecting and making these texts available. Some librarians, recognizing the research potential of these resources, argued that selection of research materials should not be limited by format (indeed, this argument was traditionally used for other nonbook resources), and that a computer file was simply another information package which libraries should collect. Like video recordings and microform, i t had special features that differentiated it from print resources, but it was still an information source that supported teaching and research. In many ways this position, however enlightened and progressive, leaves unanswered a number of important questions and understandably did not foresee the world of iietworked resources that is haphazardly, but luxuriantly, growing today. A concomitant argument deals with the issue of funding. In essence, this argument held that, while electronic resources were unquestionably useful, libraries should demand additional support to pay for them and not redirect dollars from already undersupported print resource funds. If librarians made a strong enough case to funding sources the argument ran, and local demand for these absent materials grew, the library would succeed in getting “new” monies to pay for these new and expensive formats. Although experience suggests that this tactic has rarely borne fruit, it is still heard in many quarters. It is tempting to assert that this argument, in fact, is not only fruitless, but perhaps dangerous, because it proffers an SHREEVES/VISIONARIES AND LUDDITES 581 excuse for inaction. As long as funding sources fail to provide the extra cash libraries need, there is no reason to look for ways to fund this new activity from existing resources. Taking the cost of electronic information from current resources is not a pleasant prospect, but i t may be the only strategy available for many. A counter argument claims that such reallocation of existing resources gives funding sources a pretext for ignoring these new needs. This prospect leaves everyone at an impasse, and the potential beneficiaries-the humanists who need information resources-are the losers. It also puts the library at risk of abdicating its role as the organizer and provider of information for its clientele. THESCHOLARLY RECORD In one way it makes sense to approach electronic texts in the humanities like their print counterparts. Books and journals are acquired to support teaching and research. To the extent that electronic texts justify the expenditure of resources, analogous selection criteria are valid. But many of the basic principles and practices of collection development assume the acquisition of an object-paper and ink or media carrying audio or visual information-which typically becomes a permanent part of the collection. A major function of the collection development librarian is to serve as a gatekeeper, identifying that portion of the published universe which a given library chooses to acquire. Selectors routinely perform this responsibility under a number of constraints. These include the availability of funds, the programmatic emphasis of the institution supported, the universe of publications and its accessibility, the number and skills of processing staff, and space availability. An effective bibliographer or selector should be familiar with the subject matter, including trends in research and publishing, knowledgeable about the strengths and interests of faculty and students, well informed about the book trade, and able to manage a budget. This bibliographer is judged, over the long term at least, by the collection he or she built-the aggregate result of specific, title-by-title, decisions made about which books (journals, microfilms, videos, etc.) to bring into the collection, and which to leave out. While many electronic texts can be purchased and acquired like their print counterparts, others, available through networks or through licensing arrangements, do not become a part of the library’s collection of information resources. The theoretical and practical models developed for the processes of collection management have all shared this fundamental assumption-that the selector was exploiting limited resources to acquire that subset of the published universe most useful in the local 582 LIBRARY TRENDWSPRING 1992 setting. Cooperation with other libraries collecting similar materials, with the avowed intent of avoiding unnecessary duplication and maximizing budgets, has received increasing attention, but the focus has always been the local collection. Present in the background has been the assumption that the cumulative resources of libraries and other repositories of textual information define what becomes the scholarly record. While the definition of what constitutes that record has been expanding in recent years to the point that virtually no source of information is outside the pale, libraries and archives, in the act of selection, effectively limit what enters the record. As Ross Atkinson (1990) points out, “[tlhe definition of the record ...has always been one of the library’s primary social and epistemological functions” (p. 356). Preservation is another concern. Various dangers to the physical integrity of collections pose risks to the intellectual integrity of the record and are a major reason preservation has received so much attention from collection management librarians. Collection development librarians have tacitly assumed that the information represented in the various media typically acquired by libraries would remain unchangeable and permanent. Atkinson ( 1990) explores the implications of a system of scholarly communication in which most information, textual and otherwise, being distributed electronically, is no longer immutable in the way print and other media are. He urges that libraries must continue to play a role in the definition and maintenance of the scholarly record. The method he suggeststo move “a carefully selected assembly of graphic utterances from the environment into a library database”-may not be the most efficient or desirable means to achieve the desired goal, but i t does attempt to respond to the problem of record definition and preservation (p. 356). The proliferation of discussion groups or lists on Internet and its affiliates raises some interesting questions for the collection development librarian. In the process of record definition and gatekeeping discussed earlier, there was little attempt to collect, except very selectively, the communications among scholars that took place prior to publication of finished products in peer-reviewed journals and books. The existence of these discussion groups, and the fact that the interchanges appear as text and are sometimes archived and searchable, has led some to wonder what role libraries should play in mediating access to them and preserving their contents. It is the invisible college made visible. Douglas Greenberg, in a paper delivered at the Symposium on Scholarly Communication held at the University of Iowa in November 1991, argues that “this is hightech cocktail party conversation at a very high level and across very SHREEVESNISIONARIES AND LUDDITES 583 great distances. Not all communication among scholars is scholarly communication.” Greenberg’s point is that only peer-reviewed scholarship, of which the networks presently offer little, represents real scholarly communication, and by implication, that electronic conversations among scholars, however interesting, do not form a significant part of the record and should not be a primary concern