Content anxieties in a digital age

In launching a major consultation exercise about what it should collect and what it should connect to, the British Library is looking to users to help formulate the right balance between connection and collection, print and digital

The British Library has a budget to die for. Yet the massive increase in the volume of information being produced, and rapid changes in the way this content is being accessed, has forced the BL to start making some hard decisions.

The BL is on a mission to banish the popular misconception that it collects everything, and is enlisting the help and support of its users and researchers to decide what it should collect and connect to. At the same time, it is working to maintain its role as a visionary and relevant national library.

In April, the BL published the first part of its proposed content strategy, which focuses on the paid-for content that is collected and connected to. This document describes the BL’s thinking about how it will change its approach to content and set new priorities as to where this content will be sourced (China, for starters) as well as some detail about what that will mean for its arts and humanities collections.

The content strategy proposal is a working document, available on the library’s website for anyone to view and comment on (see Consultation 1 below). There is likely to be considerable debate as interested parties fight their corner.

In inviting users to get involved in its policy making, the BL has taken a groundbreaking step. Lynne Brindley, chief executive of the BL, says: “We are redefining the library and what it is collecting, seeking to get the right balance between collection and connection, digital and print.

“We are a bit unusual among national libraries in that we are trying to pull together a holistic overview and be more explicit about articulating what is going to change. I am not aware of any other library undergoing a major consultation and seeking the engagement of users.”

Caroline Pung, head of strategy and planning at the BL, and author of the content strategy document, says: “I hope this will give people a greater level of clarity about what we are trying to do and I hope it will lead to the BL making the right decisions as it prioritises today’scontent for the researchers of tomorrow.”

Pung says that the new integrated library system, launched two years ago, has helped make possible the new approach to content. “This major IT project successfully integrated 29 million catalogue records from 14 separate legacy systems,” she says. “This enabled us to start to look at the collection in different ways, and our users are able to search in one place for everything. It also enabled us to streamline our acquisitions.”

But the BL still faces huge technical issues in how to provide easily integrated access to persistent digital resources. It faces criticism of its choices of what to collect and where from.

Its endeavours to remain relevant arise not just from the need to maintain its profile as a national institution. There are more basic needs to be met as its profits from services come under pressure from new methods of content delivery.

Michael Jubb, director of the Research Information Network, sat on the advisory panel that helped create the content strategy. He says the challenge in creating the consultation document was getting the balance right between presenting an overall strategy and giving it some substance.

“I suspect there will be quite a lot of comment about the individual priorities being set out in the subject descriptions in the annexes,” says Jubb. “The concern is that some respondents will miss the point.”

Clare Jenkins, director of library services at London’s Imperial College and ex-chair of CURL (Consortium of Research Libraries in the British Isles), also sat on the content strategy advisory panel. She believes the BLis working hard to maintain its relevance but runs the risk of trying to be all things to all people.

“The BL is very much looking ahead and being proactive,” she says. “They have seriously been trying to engage a representative sample of stakeholders to inform their thinking, as shown by the content advisory board, which was made up of a
range of experts.

“There are so many new things they want to do because of the growth of digital content that they are still grappling with trying to do them all and are understandably reluctant to stop doing some other things. The consultation process may help if there is more support for some things than others.”

Fast-moving digital world

Although the strategy covers a wide range of content, there are some notable omissions. Newer forms of popular online content, such as blogs and wikis, are not mentioned in a document that sets out to underpin the BL’s relevance. This is because digital resources that are not part of the BL’s paid-for content fall into the remit of its legal deposit work, which will remain unchanged.

As part of its legal deposit activities, the BL set up a web archiving project focused on the UK in 2001. It hopes other national libraries will do the same for their countries so that a federated model of archiving the web can be created. Wikis and blogs will fall within the scope of this project rather than being part of the content strategy because of the current legal and technical barriers to connecting to and archiving them.

“We have to seek permission from the host site and it is even more complicated than that because many sites then contain links to other sites,” explains Clive Field, director of scholarship and collections at the BL. “This permission-based route is leading to about a 33% success rate in terms of the sites we would like to archive.

“It is also a modest start because the technology is not there to harvest and generate metadata from that. We really need a technical breakthrough. We are doing all we can to accelerate legislation in this area because it is a very fragile area of the web. These freely available sites tend to disappear, yet they hold a nucleus of modern history such as sites documenting the response to the 7/7 bombings and the South Asian tsunami.”

A new technical solution is also likely to be needed to ensure that researchers can navigate easily between materials held by the BL, which is a requirement of the strategy. “A new system is likely but I couldn’t put my hand on my heart and say exactly what is needed yet,” says Pung. “This will very much be part of the STM (science, technology, medicine) strategy, though it is not limited to STM. As part of the development of the STM strategy we have started looking at identifying priorities, and linking up with primary data sets is one of them.”

The BL has not yet set a date for the release of the STM strategy consultation document. This will come when it has had time to assimilate the impact of the content strategy consultation document, which is unlikely to be within the next 12 months.

“The reason we are developing the detailed analysis of STM later is partly practical, as it would not work to put a lot of material in one document,” says Pung. “Also there are rapid changes in the STM landscape that are having a big impact on our service areas. We have ongoing work on our services strategy too.”

A key focus of the strategy is the need for the BLto make more and better partnerships. This is referred to several times but there is little flesh to this recommendation.

Impact of e-research

Michele Shoebridge, chair of CURL, and executive director Robin Green agree that the BL could better define partnerships and make more explicit mention of important national and international partnerships. They also feel the issue of going direct to academics in partnership will be an important one.

Shoebridge says: “The BL does work with librarians but its focus on reaching out directly to end-user academics has been made explicit. They are reaching out directly to academics; university librarians are aware of this and some are happier with it than others.”

However, she adds:“The whole virtual research area is changing dramatically and the days of researchers going through libraries are numbered. CURL is researching e-research support and the impact that e-research will have on libraries and library staff.”

Pung says: “The issue of selecting research-relevant material is a core part of our expert role and will continue to be so. Most of our staff have close links with academics ­ informal networks with people in their area. We are looking to systematise that and capture the best practice. There are new tools available to let us communicate and interact with people in different ways.

“I would be very surprised if the librarian community felt threatened by this and everyone seems right behind it. People understand the need for co-operative working. We are just recognising a core part of the role librarians have always played.”

Partnerships will become ever more important if the BL’s content is to be balanced between collection and connection. Connecting to others’ resources, particularly digital resources, does not carry the same sense of permanent ownership that the BL’s guardianship role might seem to demand.

A new raft of issues faces the BL and it is realistic about its ability to control them. “If we are linking to other people it requires us to be more thoughtful about persistence, although we can’t guarantee it,” says Pung. “We are looking for partners’ commitment to persistence as part of our arrangement. There needs to be more progress with persistence but we will do our best to ensure the persistence of content.

“We are, absolutely, behind championing the importance of digital preservation and long-term access to content, and we are working with others to push this issue up the agenda with government. Can we take ownership of the whole problem? No.”
The BLhas to deal with many of the same issues that confront smaller libraries and it is clearly looking to take a leadership role in steering through a time of great change.

Shoebridge welcomes the strategy’s shift from collection development to content and will be reviewing her own university library’s strategy in the light of BL’s document.

“It is a total turnaround and really illustrates that they have made changes and understand the need for consultation. We are entering a new era of collaboration and use of each other’s resources. It is a powerful argument for university libraries with their academics and VPs that collaboration between university libraries meshes with the higher-level BL strategy. I am really pushing collaboration and some of our stuff might go to the BL.”

Brindley says the strategy reflects a vision that the BLexists not just to ensure the posterity of the nation’sscholarly output but to drive the economic well-being of the nation. “During my time here we have pushed how we have contributed to the economic competitiveness of this country. We are the nation’s intellectual memory through our role as legal deposit, and we create economic potential for the future as research underpins knowledge.”

Consultation 1: The content of the strategy

The British Library’s Content Strategy consultation document is the first part of what will initially be a two-stage process. It follows the publication of Redefining the Library: The British Library’s strategy 2005-2008 . The content strategy is intended to replace and surpass the traditional collection development strategy.

In this first stage document, the British Library (BL) has set out the main principles of its proposed content strategy, and has applied these to what it will collect in the areas of arts & humanities and social sciences. In a second, later, stage, it will consult on its science/technology/medicine (STM) strategy.

The strategy focuses primarily on materials the BL purchases or connects with, not its legal deposit intake. It will continue to collect UK print legal deposit material and will collect digital legal deposit material as the 2003 Legal Deposit Libraries Act is translated into secondary legislation.

The consultation document is arranged into six sections:
• Section 1 - sets out the purpose of the content strategy review and how stakeholders can respond to it
• Section 2 sets out the context for the strategy
• Section 3 outlines the key proposals and target audiences
• Section 4 describes the methodology that the BL will use to determine its content (see second box)
• Section 5 summarises what will and will not change
• Section 6 covers plan to improve its partnerships

Three appendices contain the nitty gritty of the BL’s attempt to categorise its complete collection of arts and humanities and social science holdings by research discipline. They are described as “an invitation to dialogue”.

Methodology: Identifying the drivers behind collections

The British Library has identified five drivers of the content strategy that will influence its methodology for determining the content to collect or connect to. These are a mix of short-term and long-term factors. In addition to assessing potential content under these criteria, it will also apply practical considerations as part of its content strategy methodology.

The five drivers are:
• Global trends – the BL assesses whether material relates to high-priority global themes
• Relevance to the UK – the content strategy questions whether material develops the intellectual memory for the UK
• Current UK research priorities – material is included if it is an area of research given priority in the UK as identified by public and private sector funding sources
• Historic strengths – material may be included where it enables the BL to build on existing strengths and expertise
• Demand – the BL will also attempt to better assess demand for material both currently and in the future.

As well as being assessed under these five key drivers, potential content a cquisition will also be subjected to practical considerations. The BL will look at whether other organisations in the UK or internationally are likely to purchase this material.

It will also check material for access restrictions, by looking at how difficult it is for different groups of UK researchers to access this material in the UK or elsewhere - for example, if there are membership/charging/political or technical restrictions to material. The BL does not rule out taking an active part in resolving any of these issues to break down barriers to access.

It will also assess life-cycle collection management implications. It must be certain it can support the lifecycle management tasks of content such as cataloguing, storage and preservation.