This document discusses the challenges facing research libraries and RLUK in the coming years. It outlines RLUK's 2014-2017 strategy of reshaping collections, supporting open scholarship, and exploiting digital collections. It also notes the financial uncertainty from the 2015 UK election and potential impacts like rising student fees. Other challenges mentioned include the costs of administering the REF assessment, measuring research quality and impact, the importance of student experience, issues around collections and space, and demonstrating value to members. The document lists organizations that RLUK collaborates with but also mentions some absent partners.
1. Into the Yorkshire Sunset: reflections
on strategy, challenges and
partnership building
Dr Stella Butler
Chair of RLUK Board 2013-
2015
2. Powering Scholarship: RLUK Strategy 2014-17
• Re-shaping the modern research library collection
• Open scholarship
• Exposing and exploiting our collections
• Research support and researcher training
• Nurturing leadership innovation and skills
3. 2015- election year
• Financial uncertainty
• Student fees?
• Post-election comprehensive spending review
• The politics of HE
4. REF 2014 and future REFs
• Running to maintain position
• Costs associated with administering REF but the financial
implications of not getting it right
• Open Access requirements of future REF
• Measuring research quality and impact
5. Continuing importance of the student experience
• High participation rates for HE in UK
• Premium of the Russell Group ‘brand’
• NSS score is all important
6. Library challenges
• Publisher inflation- publisher as partner?
• Low use/ high volume collections and space
• Quality study space
• Open scholarship- data, outputs
• Relevance of Library in a world of open scholarship
• UDCs, discovery and surrogacy
7. RLUK challenges
• The database
• Establishing value for members
• Influencing publishers, policy makers
• Balancing concrete outputs with ‘softer’ activity
• Making 1+1=3
First of all I would like to say that its been a pleasure and a privilege to chair the RLUK board over the past two years. David suggested that before I trip off into the Yorkshire sunset I share some thoughts on what has occupied my time. I wasn’t sure that opening my diary would enthral you so rather I would like to share instead some thoughts on the context that we find ourselves in, the value in an organization like RLUK in responding to that context and the challenges that lie ahead for both individual institutions and RLUK itself.
I’m going to start with a slide about our strategic plan. Its been well received which has been very gratifying. I would like to record thanks on your behalf to David and Mike and Melanie for the energy that went into structuring the document and the final drafts etc. And of course to you all for kicking off the process with the workshop in York before our November 2013 meeting and subsequently the board for their ideas and energy at our 2013 awayday. Their critical eyes were particularly important at that stage.
We have heard quite a lot both yesterday and today about activities- which is great as no strategy is of any value unless its implemented. But now lets turn to the pressures that are likely to buffer and shape how we can continue to take the strategic themes forward.
The first and probably the most important context for us is finance. I don’t have to tell you that we are close to a general election. It has felt as though we have been in the middle of a campaign for months. The two main issues we are told are the NHS and Finance. Labour proposes a cap of £6,000 on student fees. Whether government funding would bridge any resulting funding gap is not clear. Conservative Party policies on higher education are hard to find. So whichever way you look or indeed whichever way folk vote, it is likely that money is going to be an issue for our parent institutions and therefore for us.
In December 2013, I am sure I wasn’t alone in heaving a huge sigh of relief when the REF submission was safely with HEFCE. We waited a year for the results. Leeds wasn’t alone in having improved significantly on its GPA. But so had its peers. So it seems we are all running to maintain our positions.
There has been much talk of how much was spent on administering the submissions and the assessments. I expect you have all followed the discussions in the media about the sums involved. PA Consulting estimated the cost at £47 million. Others put it over a billion. I think we all know that whatever the final figure it was a lot .
I am sure there will be varying views within this room about whether the opportunities lost and the money spent could have been better directed elsewhere. Some have argued for a wholly metrics based approach. Again there is lack of consensus around whether this would lead to an outcome accurately reflecting research strengths of individual departments.
What is certain, however, is that there will be another REF. And we know something of what it will look like- more complex because of the open access requirements for individual outputs which kick in from April 2016.
The production of graduates is key for the health of the economy. We know that because BIS tells us so. We look as though the blip experienced when the fees cap came off has now reversed and we are again around 50% participation and that’s where its likely to stay. We by no means lead the world in this area. The highest participation rates are found in South Korea, Finland, Greece, United States, Canada and Slovenia.
Here for home students there is undoubtedly a premium associated with the Russell group ‘brand’.
But within that cohort, NSS scores are undoubtedly a factor weighed if not by the students themselves then by their parents.
So what does this mean for Library directors?
For many of us, over-inflation increases in subscriptions challenges our ability to deliver balanced budgets. The introduction of APC charges has made this space more complex. Stephen Pinfield’s work has demonstrated that APCs are now 10% of what we pay to publishers for content. We should all therefore be grateful to the Ethical and Effective Publishing group for the work they do with Jisc Collections in this area.
We need to re-purpose space to provide more interesting and higher quality study space and for that to happen we need to address the issue of the high volumes of books that are hardly if ever borrowed or even read.
Supporting researchers adapt to new publishing processes that result from the transition to open access publishing, has become an important role within libraries. I think we need to start some fairly serious thinking about the library as the John Lewis to Amazon’s google. The virtual space for browsing for the research outputs you are looking for or want more information about (eg metrics). We have to add value. Otherwise we risk our university paymasters and our users shifting the way many STEM researchers view libraries. As increasingly irrelevant because I can find what I want through google scholar.
Propelling our Unique and Distinctive Collections into the limelight is the flip side to OA. Changes in culture are needed here too.
One of my first library roles was working for CURL on proposals for a distributed national collection which would be driven by the bibliographic riches of the CURL database. The database was both the reason for CURL’s existence and was the focus of the CURL Directors’ attention.
The RLUK database does not occupy the same position for RLUK. It is still important. And could be crucial for any shared print initiative. But its no longer the reason the organization exists.
So what’s the value proposition?
Influence. Shaping policy.
This is undoubtedly important. And I think RLUK is a very important club whose views are sought by our funders and regulatory bodies.
But we are an expensive club. And we need to deliver value in direct proportion to our costs.
So the relationship with publishers and Jisc is clearly key. As are the other activities around benchmarking through KPIs, the UDC hub and potentially services associated with shared print.
Making the whole greater than the sum of its parts is also an objective when it comes to choosing who we partner with.
The landscape is increasingly complex.
But perhaps increasingly important if positioning and influence form key components of RLUK’s value proposition.
So do we have it right at the moment? We have only a small executive team. Although that might grow if as we expect, membership grows nearer to 40 libraries from the current 34.
Nevertheless it is important they invest their time where there is likely to be most return.
I was struck by the organizations that don’t feature on this chart. And perhaps that is something for John and David and the board to consider as we move forward with strategy.
I’ve often found myself describing RLUK as the consortium of Russell Group libraries plus nationals plus. Given that description, one would expect a closer relationship with the Russell Group itself. But we have found it repeatedly difficult to find meeting slots for discussion with PVCRs about open access although I know Phil Sykes and Jan Wilkinson have recently had a meeting with the Chair, Birmingham VC Sir David Eastwood about publisher prices. And with our membership expanding that alignment will change, perhaps influencing the issues/areas we might expect to work collaboratively with them.
We also don’t talk to CILIP or the iSchools that train many of our staff. If we are concerned about workforce development then perhaps we should.
I also wonder whether our anglo-american axis doesn’t blinker us from innovation happening elsewhere around the world. I don’t suggest a displacement of US friends, just simply keeping an eye on developments elsewhere.
And how often do we talk back home in our libraries about the importance of customer-focus. Yet are we as a consortium nurturing a sufficiently close relationship with those organizations that represent our researcher-customers, ie the Learned Societies? Nor do we represent some of what I might call the heritage libraries- eg Dr William’s, Chetham’s Library, Leeds Library, the National Trust. Many of you will know that I chair the management committee of Chetham’s. Nor do we have strong relationships with funding bodies such as HLF, Wolfson etc who could potentially benefit our UDCs perhaps through focussed funding programmes, perhaps around collection care.
So I think I have left plenty of issues for John, the executive and the board to address. I wish them well and thank you all for having me!
