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Although libraries have a long tradition of working together to improve their collections and related services, collaborations should not be viewed as a panacea. As the landscape of scholarly resources evolve, to be effective and tactical, collaborations need to carefully balance their collective and institutional priorities while remaining responsive to the user needs and behavior. Today, we share a new report on the governance and business characteristics of collaborative collection development initiatives. We intentionally focus on governance models as…

The scholarly publishing sector is undergoing its second digital transformation. In the first, we saw a massive shift from paper to digital, but otherwise publishing retained many of the characteristics of the print era. In this current second digital transformation, many of these structures, workflows, incentives, and outputs are being revamped in favor of new approaches that bring tremendous opportunities, and also non-trivial risks, to scholarly communication. In a report published today, with funding from…

Developing open access models for monograph publishing is a priority for many university presses today, but it has been a challenge to provide the level of subvention necessary to sustain open models. As a consequence, open access programs have increasingly looked to include library support as well, for example through various flavors of subscribe to open models. In addition, some publishing leaders have come to question the assumption that when monographs are published on an open access basis,…

We’re thankful for all the comments the draft report received. We will publish a final revised version in October. A robust and nimble infrastructure is imperative to support the vital work of scholarly communication and effectively and efficiently meet the emerging service needs of different stakeholders. Publishers and other scholarly communication services and providers rely on this shared infrastructure in many key parts of their work, and it forms a foundational part of their technology stack and service…

The ability of computers to create original content is advancing rapidly, spurring an investment arms race within the technology sector. As these advancements touch every area of higher education, universities face decisions about how and when AI can support student learning and faculty research. This fall, Ithaka S+R is convening a two-year research project in collaboration with a select group of universities committed to making AI generative for their campus community. Together we will assess the immediate and emerging AI…

Developing, maintaining, and sustaining fit-for-purpose community infrastructure is a challenge in the higher education and research sectors, particularly when the technology and policy environments are in flux. Ithaka S+R has conducted a variety of projects and studies touching on these issues over several years. Today, I’m pleased to share that we are launching a new study focusing on shared infrastructure in support of scholarly communication, with support from STM Solutions. The Project For some time, shared infrastructure has been a…

In July 2022, we shared our findings from a broad examination of the digital preservation and curation systems landscape, drawn in part from deep dives into a number of third-party preservation platforms. Along with this research, we’ve held a series of online forums to gather feedback on the report from the community. Here, we synthesize what we heard during five invitation-only and three open webinars with 253 people, including preservation service providers, curation specialists, technologists, and more.

We are so terribly sad about the passing of our beloved colleague Deanna Marcum on August 16, 2022. Deanna was a humble and private person, so she would not want a lot of attention focused on her, but her impact on me and us here at ITHAKA is so profound that we must recognize and share it.  I first met Deanna in 1996, when she was the president of the Council of Library…

Academic libraries exist to serve the needs, over the long-run, of their parent institutions. To be successful, then, it is imperative that each research library regularly works to ensure its ongoing alignment with its parent university. Institutional alignment is, however, a complicated endeavor.  In a project Ithaka S+R co-published with ARL and CARL, my colleagues Danielle Cooper, Catharine Bond Hill and I examined the strategic directions of research universities in North America to determine how…

Over the past few years, the scope and breadth of Ithaka S+R’s work has grown substantially. The Libraries, Scholarly Communication, and Museums program has seen increases in cohort projects that explore critical issues facing libraries; grant funded initiatives focused on digital preservation, higher education in prison, student success, and museum leadership; national surveys of faculty, community college administrators, and archivists; and sponsored work on topics including the health of the research enterprise and diversifying collections.  To…

At this week’s CNI meeting, we presented findings from several recent studies we conducted about the academic research enterprise (video is available here). Taking an inclusive approach, we offered a broad working definition of the research enterprise: “the systems, services, policy, and staffing for the work of the university to generate knowledge.” In the session, CNI’s Clifford Lynch asked us to probe a little more deeply how this term can be scoped. Here,…

For many of the largest universities, the research enterprise is an essential component of the mission. And during this year of pandemic related disruptions, it has proved to be one of the most resilient sources of university revenue. In recent years, major universities have established senior research officers to provide a unitary source of leadership for this vital work. Today, my colleague Oya Rieger and I are publishing a major examination of the role of the senior…

This year, the research activities of academia have been profoundly disrupted, as have the lives of researchers. Yesterday, we published a landscape review focusing on the disruptions caused by the pandemic itself. In addition, there is another source of growing disruption, caused less by a sudden event but rather by the geopolitical tensions that are causing a growing split between China and a group of liberal and democratic countries. In an issue…

Scholarly research is an enormous priority for many higher education institutions, serving both as a core part of the academic mission and also in some cases a major source of revenue. This year’s COVID-19 pandemic massively disrupted scientific research projects and the lives and careers of scientists themselves, and it has already begun to have profound budget consequences for some of the most research intensive higher education institutions. Some of the other impacts of this period of disruption…

A university’s senior research officer (SRO), who may have the title of vice president, vice provost, or vice chancellor for research, can have a variety of responsibilities, including overseeing institutional research safety and compliance, purchasing advanced research equipment, grant seeking and external funding administration, research ethics and integrity, strategic research directions, and procuring research workflow tools. The scope of this role is  broadening as SROs participate in federal and state research-related policy making and develop new partnerships with…

Over the past 20 years, the organization of academic health sciences libraries (AHSL) has changed markedly. While once medical libraries—as well as libraries supporting schools of nursing, pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary medicine, and public health—were separate entities, many are now consolidated under a larger university library. Have these consolidations and mergers improved the accessibility of health sciences information and other AHSL services? Have they impacted cost or service quality? What new…

Over the past two weeks, Ithaka S+R has organized five roundtables for academic library leaders to help support their leadership during this time of disruption and uncertainty. In total, 40 library directors and two associate university librarians attended these sessions, representing every four-year institutional type. Participants introduced themselves by describing what has been working well for their libraries, the challenges they are facing, and their budgetary expectations. The discussion that followed–with minimum facilitation–then focused on the participants’ most…

Academic libraries have been on the leading edge of universities’ digital transformation for two decades. As a result, they were prepared for this moment of crisis. The broader lesson here, not just for libraries but for the entire higher education sector, is to continue investing “just in case” in enabling capacities—rather than, in this time of looming cutbacks, budgeting narrowly for today’s immediate needs only.  Recent weeks have seen the collapse of…

The COVID-19 public health crisis gripping the world today has been a sprint for leaders over the past week or two, making urgent decisions about closing facilities, virtualizing the workforce, and providing services online. In the weeks and months ahead, we will face a full marathon, with colleagues, services, and in some cases businesses needing care and tending in a period of great uncertainty.  In a public health emergency, every organization must ensure it is caring…

OhioLINK recently shared its vision for the library system of the future in a white paper. That vision, developed by a group of library deans and directors whose work was facilitated by Ithaka S+R, involves two key elements that have garnered some attention for what they say about the future of the library and the work performed within it. The first element is centering the library system—just like the library itself—around the user. And the second involves enabling the…