Examination of Witnesses (Questions 210
- 219)
WEDNESDAY, 21 APRIL 2004
MRS LYNNE
BRINDLEY, MR
PETER FOX,
MR FREDERICK
J FRIEND AND
MS DI
MARTIN
Q210 Chairman: Good morning. Thank
you for coming and helping the Committee with its inquiry. I am
sure you have been following it, line by line, sentence by sentence.
Libraries have told us that there is a crisis in the provision
of scientific publications: publishers vigorously deny this. Tell
me the truth. Who is right? They cannot both be right.
Mr Friend: There is certainly
a crisis, in that libraries are not able to buy all the content
that they need to supply their users, and the reason for that
is that the periodical side of our budgets is rising much more
rapidly than the cost of other information. That is the key factor.
Q211 Chairman: Can you quantify that?
Is there a way of measuring that?
Mr Friend: We have supplied figures
in the written evidence.
Mr Fox: I can give a specific
example. In Cambridge 10 years ago, scientific journals took about
25% of the materials budget, and currently that is 33% and rising,
which means in our situation that that is taking about half a
million pounds a year out of the resources available for purchasing
books and journals outside the scientific areamaps, music
and electronic resources and so on.
Q212 Chairman: Publishers tell us
that the problem lies with libraries and their failure to promote
themselves to university authorities. They are saying you are
a bunch of wimps really, I guess. Is that true?
Mrs Brindley: That is an unacceptable
comment, lacking in any evidence, frankly. I would support my
colleagues in saying university libraries have made major efficiency
gains to cope with enormous expansion of students. Indeed, from
the British Library's point of view, we have coped with 43% inflation
over five years in journals, which has meant an additional £2
million cost, and we have had to find that from internal efficiency
gains. We have done that very transparently in a way that might
be commended to publishers.
Q213 Chairman: It is rumoured that
a lot of people say that with the digital age you do not need
those vast ranges of buildings that you have now, and the huge
acreage they covernot that I have noticed. Is that true,
that the digital age makes it a very different game?
Ms Martin: Our evidence is contrary
to that remark, Chairman. We have seen an exponential rise in
use of digital information, but we have seen no reduction in usage
statistics of our buildings, or indeed in our book loan figures.
Q214 Chairman: What about overheads?
What proportion of library costs is spent on overheads, and how
do you account for that?
Ms Martin: If I could answer with
some examples from the University of Hertfordshire, we have seen
a reduction in staffing rather than an increase. We have had to
re-direct that staffing to create an additional post to deal with
licensing issues. I would say that there has been a reduction
in overhead rather than an increase.
Q215 Chairman: If somebody said,
"be more efficient", could you be more efficient?
Ms Martin: I think we have been
being more efficient over a decade now.
Q216 Chairman: It is just another
bit of impertinence to suggest that, you think.
Ms Martin: It is a requirement
of the university. We have had to invest so much more in our information
provision budgets that we have been forced to make efficiency
gains in other areas to support that.
Q217 Chairman: The idea being touted
is that you are planning digital-only publications? Are you planning
that? Are you going to increase the pace on that? Will it make
any difference in terms of overheads; or are you just having to
do it because nobody loves you any more in the university sector?
Mrs Brindley: The evidence, and
certainly the work done on behalf of the British Library in advance
of the Legal Deposit Libraries Act, suggested that we would be
living, at least until 2020, with a very hybrid system of both
digital and print publication, so I think it is too simplistic
to suggest that everything is immediately digital and that you
do not need buildings and so on. The evidence, certainly from
the use of our new building, is very much that people do still
come in to consult material. They of course consult both print
and digital material. One inhibitor to moving faster on the all-digital
front is the lack at the present time of a secure, long-term preservation
and access infrastructure to give that reassurance to libraries
and indeed publishers and science, that that record of science
will be kept in perpetuity, and providing access to it. That is
clearly an area where the British Library has a very strong role
to play.
Q218 Dr Iddon: Turning to bundling
of hard copy and digital copy, why is bundling so unpopular with
libraries?
Mr Fox: It is starting to skew
the way that we spend our money. Bundling requires us to buy journals
that we do not necessarily want in order to acquire things that
we do want, and is pushing more and more of our budget into the
pockets of a smaller and smaller number of publishers. It is skewing
the budget. As with the answer to the first question, the cost
of journals is reducing the amount of money available for other
things. Bundling is reducing the amount of money available for
the output of the publishers that do not bundle.
Q219 Dr Iddon: Research output has
grown, and with it the content of journals. Have your budgets
grown in line with that?
Mr Fox: No, our budgets have gone
up roughly in line with the way that universities' budgets have
gone up over the last eight years.
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