Editorial
The working year is punctuated by regular deadlines. One of those which I am apt to neglect until the last minute, mainly because it falls just after the hiatus of the Christmas and New Year break where we shut up shop for nearly two weeks, is the submission deadline for SCONUL Annual Library Statistics.All except readers working in the UK higher education sector will be blissfully unaware of this annual chore, and will most probably never have heard of SCONUL let alone its yearly gathering of statistics. SCONUL, or to demystify the acronym, the Society of College, National and University Libraries (previously the Standing Conference on National and University Libraries), has for many years collected and compiled a very useful set of data on all aspects of libraries in UK university level institutions. From a reference and information point of view the data harvested are generally non-illuminating as little relates directly to this area of activity. However, in my library we extract information for SCONUL from a much more detailed local compilation of data. This is got together early in the autumn term (data relate to the August to July academic years), but it is usually not until the SCONUL deadline looms that we subject it to proper analysis.
I mention all this partly because I have just sat down to write this editorial after a day of tussling with our SCONUL submission and feel the need for a little unburdening, but also because our data reveal a number of trends about the use of information services. One of the areas on which we collect data is database search sessions and searches. The former represents the number of times users have logged onto a subscription electronic service and the latter the number of discreet searches conducted during each session. Over the last few years there has been a gentle decline in the number of searches sessions, but an increase in the number of searches conducted – users are logging in less but searching more. Does this mean that they have become more discriminating but assiduous searchers or are they simply thrashing around in a database that they know? Further analysis of the data suggests that neither is the case. It would seem that users are becoming more aware of the sources appropriate to particular topics, hopefully at least in part because of the information skills training we provide, and then using them more thoroughly. They are also increasingly doing this from home rather than on campus (over 40 per cent of our search sessions on subscription searches are now off-site, up from less than 20 per cent just two years ago) and using free search engines (nearly always Google) for more cursory queries which might previously have led to an abortive database session.
Delving further into the data, it is interesting to note that usage is increasingly concentrated on a narrower range of resources. The popular databases, generally those provided by the big name reference players, are getting more hits, while use of the less mainstream, especially if no full text is available, is dwindling. This is giving us a very variable cost per search(our primary measures of cost-effectiveness is the subscription cost divided by the number of searches). On some of the more popular sources each search can be computed to cost less than five pence, while for a few sources, to which I really am going to have to take the axe despite the howls that will come from the academic areas affected, the cost is more than ten pounds sterling. Of course, I need to be careful in drawing too many conclusions from data such as this, especially as the value of say a search leading to a full text download should not be equated with one yielding only a barebones citation to an item we do not hold. Nevertheless, the data does seem to suggest that use, measured either in the way searches are conducted or by crude indicators of cost-effectiveness, is increasingly concentrated. If we want to save money but still provide the key sources our users will exploit it would seem consolidation is the policy to follow.
Consolidation is certainly the strategy being followed by the commercial providers of reference information. In the previous Editorial we noted the announcement of Wiley’s takeover of Blackwell and Springer’s surprise bid for Routledge parent Taylor & Francis. We were just too early, however,to pick up on news breaking a few days later, that the bulk of ProQuest had been sold to Cambridge Information Group, operators of the much smaller Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA). What this means for the various ProQuest products,many reviewed here over the years and quite a few of which were acquired with the former UK Chadwyck Healey company (ironically based in Cambridge UK), is not clear from the press releases announcing the CSA acquisition. Presumably,however, over time we can expect to see a migration of at least some of the ProQuest products to the new CSA Illumina platform. For CSA acquisition of ProQuest will bring a far wider range of full text sources and make the company one of the major players in the non-specialist information market.
Despite the consolidation and concentration of key reference sources in the hands of a few information providers, there internet continues to give birth to an array of valuable free resources. One to which I frequently refer students asking for definitions of art terms is Artlex Art Dictionary (RR2007/147). Now more than eight years old, this well maintained site covers over 3,500 art-related terms and provides links to images and sites which users seem to find especially helpful. A contrasting site, and one that requires a fee, is the World Tourism Organization’s WTO E-library (RR 2007/152). Containing all new publications from this body and with older ones to be retrospectively added back to 1975, this is a typical example of an organization making accessible its entire publishing output in a way that would never have been possible in print format. Price may be a deterrent for some smaller libraries, but as our review concludes, this is a key resource for institutions specialising in hospitality and tourism.
Another key resource, this time in the area of children’s literature is the Oxford Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature (RR2007/135). In another of his hallmark insightful and comparative reviews Stuart Hannabuss looks at this four volume set from Oxford University Press and concludes that its publication stands as a landmark in the reference literature of the subject giving it a maturity and finality that has long been awaited. Another major encyclopedic set we cover is new edition of Scribner’s Encyclopedia of the American Revolution (RR 2007/156). Previously known as “Boatner”from the name of the original editor, this is a thorough revision of the 1966 first edition and will reinforce this title as one of the key sources of reference on the struggle for American independence, especially on matters military, political and biographical. Finally, the ability of publishers to find niches for new reference topics never ceases to amaze. Greenwood Press has excels in this issue. Their Encyclopedia of Junk Food and Fast Food (RR2007/142) is an obvious attempt to cash in on the topicality of diet and obesity partly provoked, as our reviewer notes, by Spurlock’s Super Size Me. The other title is less obviously market driven, but must still get full marks for originality. Encyclopedia of Hair (RR 2007/122), which, in case you are wondering, covers the cultural aspects of human hair, must surely be the first reference text to be devoted to this subject. Like the junk and fast food volume it is not only a useful reference but a fascinating and absorbing read that will entertain as well as inform. This is the type of reference product libraries still need – long may Greenwood and other publishers keep them flowing.
Tony ChalcraftEditor, Reference Reviews and University Librarian, York St John University, York, UK
