Friday, March 26, 2010

Research Libraries, Risk and Systemic Change from OCLC Reseach

Research Libraries, Risk and Systemic Change: a report from OCLC Reseach is available as an online pdf at http://www.oclc.org/research/publications/library/2010/2010-03.pdf

This report is from data gathered in 2008 and used at OCLC internally since then, but it is just now being published externally. It makes a clear, concise, and compelling case for change in libraries. The identification of risks and the strategies for mitigation are sensible and prudent. One wonders how the research library community could act collectively to implement these strategies. The Association of Research Libraries seems to be one useful organization to shape collective action. Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) is another.

How might this analysis be used by individual libraries or ad hoc groups (such as the Ivy plus libraries or the borrow direct libraries) to mitigate the risks and seize the opportunities for which these risks are but shadows?

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