Follett Report
Chapter 6 - Libraries and the Researcher
Introduction
- 190.
- While the primary concern which led to the establishment of the
Review related to library provision for taught course students, the
Review Group has also considered the role of library and related
information services in supporting the work of research staff and
students. The funding and organisation of library support for
researchers need to be addressed especially in relation to departments
and institutions where research quality has emerged where previously
there has been limited library support for research. It is also possible
that more effective deployment of resources in support of research may
in some cases help to release funds for use in other areas.
- 191.
- This chapter considers the role of libraries in supporting
research, and briefly examines the present organisation and funding of
provision. It then outlines recent developments which mean that both the
need and the opportunity for change are substantial. Finally it examines
the options for change which the Review Group has considered, and sets
out its recommendations.
Role of Libraries in Support of Research
- 192.
- Distinguishing the role of libraries in supporting the information
needs of researchers from their support for teaching is not
straightforward. All academic staff, even if not directly involved in
research themselves, require access to the research findings of others
to enable them to keep abreast of developments in their fields and
ensure that their teaching is well informed. Most libraries have made
little or no explicit distinction in operational terms between provision
for teaching and research. This has been reinforced by financial
arrangements, with library budgets generally making no distinction
between research related and teaching related expenditure.
- 193.
- These points were highlighted by the difficulty many respondents to
the LISU survey had in differentiating between library activity in
support of teaching and research. This was confirmed by the findings of
the separate study conducted for the Review Group by the University of
Sussex, where the existence of a machine readable archive file of loan
transactions during the years 1981-91 covering monograph bookstock
enabled analysis of loan patterns focusing on teaching and research use.
This showed a very substantial degree of common use of bookstock for
both teaching and research. This reinforces a similar conclusion reached
in the 1987 report on research spending produced by Professor Keith
Clayton (The Measurement of Research in Higher Education by Keith
Clayton 1987, a research report commissioned by the Department for
Education and Science, Sections 3.5-3.15).
- 194.
- It is also possible that developments in teaching methods have
intensified the use of journals and monographs for teaching purposes,
further blurring such distinctions. This is particularly so in cases
where such material is used in projects and dissertations in final year
undergraduate or taught masters courses.
- 195.
- The Review Group has nevertheless found it helpful to consider the
research role of libraries separately from their teaching role. Even so,
the discussion which follows should be read against the recognition of
the practical difficulties of distinguishing these two functions, and of
the overlap between them.
Libraries, Information Provision and the Researcher
- 196.
- Libraries provide a crucial resource for researchers across all
subject areas. For most of those working in the sciences and in
technological subjects, the journal or periodical is a major research
tool. It is the means whereby the results of research are most often
published, and access to a range of specialist journals is a
prerequisite for those who need to keep up to date with the work of
colleagues in the same and kindred iplines. Typically, there are a
relatively large number of scientific journals in a given field, but in
most disciplines the relevance of particular papers or issues may begin
to wane quickly as research moves on (although this is not always so -
for instance in some branches of mathematics). But usually it is access
to a wide range of recent journal articles, rather than to long runs of
back issues, which is needed.
- 197.
- The researcher usually also requires a facility to be able to
browse through indices and abstracts of articles, and then obtain the
full text of an article if detailed consideration is needed. The
capacity to undertake literature searches, access to effective
inter-library loan systems, and access to large bibliographic databases
are also usually regarded as vital.
- 198.
- In the humanities and the social sciences the needs of most
researchers tend to be different. Access to journals is also required,
but the need for a long run of a particular title is often more
important than in the sciences, because articles tend to retain their
relevance for a much longer period. Moreover, periodical literature does
not have the dominant significance which it holds for the scientific
researcher. Books, in particular specialised monographs, complement the
journal as the medium through which research is usually published. In
addition, the library is often the principal repository for the primary
sources on which a researcher may work. This material is of many kinds,
but includes manuscript and printed items, often rare or unique and held
in special collections, together with databases of primary material
which are increasingly used by researchers in the economic and social
sciences and in the humanities. Libraries often provide expertise and
facilities to help with the analysis of such materials, ranging from
palaeographical advice to computer facilities for database analysis.
- 199.
- For the humanities and social sciences in particular therefore, the
effective research library must offer a range of professional support
services. While the analogy the scientific laboratory can be pressed too
far, it does illustrate an important point.
The Availability of Library Support for Research
- 200.
- The provision of library facilities in support of research across
the newly unified HE sector is very uneven. In part this reflects the
different objectives of institutions in a heterogeneous sector, and in
part inherited circumstances whose origins reach back over a long period
- sometimes centuries.
- 201.
- Until recently all institutions in the former UFC sector were
expected to undertake research on a substantial scale. While some had a
stronger research base than others, or had particular strengths in
certain subjects, all universities would expect to conduct research
across all or most of the disciplines in which they also provided
teaching. This inevitably had implications for their library provision.
In particular, most such libraries were expected to provide to a
reasonable level, for at least the basic research needs of their
academic staff and research students. This usually meant holding
important journals and significant monograph stocks, with inter-library
loan facilities to supplement these local holdings.
- 202.
- Even so, within the former UFC sector there has always been
considerable differentiation in how far libraries have been able to
provide support for researchers in depth and across a full range of
disciplines. Particularly in the humanities and social sciences
researchers have long been accustomed to making use of facilities
offered by libraries other than their own, and arrangements for them to
do so are commonplace. The extensive use made of inter-library lending,
including through the British Library's Document Supply Centre, is also
an integral part of this system. So too, specialised research oriented
collections, such as periodicals, books, or rare almost by definition
concentrated in certain centres. The most obvious examples are the
libraries of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, which as well as
housing large historic collections are also legal deposit libraries, and
thus share with the British L ibrary (BL) an important role in
inter-library lending and document supply. As well as these, libraries
in many other institutions, both large and small and of varying ages,
house important collections; while in London the resources of the
specialist institute libraries are often amongst the principal national
collections in their fields.
- 203.
- It has therefore been an important starting point for the Review
that even in the former UFC sector, research oriented library facilities
are already to an extent unevenly spread; and that the sharing of
research facilities is common, especially in the case of specialised
material and collections.
- 204.
- The position in those universities not formerly in the UFC sector,
and in colleges of HE, is very different. Until 1993-94, such
institutions received minimal research-specific funding, and their
library provision has accordingly been properly geared to meeting the
needs of undergraduate and (more recently) taught postgraduate students.
Monograph and periodical holdings have nevertheless developed in some
former non-UFC sector institutions to support project-based
undergraduate study and taught postgraduate work, and also to meet the
scholarly needs of teaching staff.
- 205.
- Libraries and record offices outside the HE sector are also
important in meeting the needs of researchers. The British Library is
the most obvious example. Its holdings of both printed and manuscript
materials make it an almost unrivalled resource for those researchers
working in the humanities and social sciences, while its position as a
legal deposit library reinforces its importance in all subject areas. In
addition to the BL, the National Libraries of Scotland and Wales are
particularly important, while in the humanities and social sciences the
functions of the Public Record Office, and of other onal and local
archives and record offices, are of considerable significance.
Recent Developments
- 206.
- Several developments over the last five years have led to concern
about the capacity of libraries in higher education to meet the needs of
research into the next century.
- 207.
- First, the increasingly selective distribution of research funding
by the UFC prior to 1993-94 had already made it clear that at least some
institutions in the former UFC sector could no longer expect to continue
to carry out significant amounts of research across all the subjects
which they taught. The expansion of the university sector through the
merger of funding bodies, and the incorporation of the polytechnics and
HE colleges into the unified HE sector has further highlighted this
point; while the new funding councils have each continued to introduce a
more selective approach to the allocation of research funding. As
research selectivity increases, so will the differentiation between
those institutions and departments which have substantial research
activity and those which do not. This has important implications for
their library provision.
- 208.
- Second, the establishment of separate funding streams for teaching
and research by the new funding councils, and the requirement for much
clearer accountability than hitherto for the research element, mean that
libraries are likely to have to become more explicit about their
separate roles in respect of teaching and research. Especially in
institutions which are undertaking both functions on a large scale, the
distinction between provision for teaching and provision for research
will increasingly be necessary to meet funding council requirements for
accountability.
- 209.
- Third, growing financial pressures on libraries have emphasised the
need to ensure that scarce resources are used effectively. These
pressures are in part general ones, t there are others which are
specific to research-related provision in libraries. The single greatest
of these is the rapid inflation in periodical prices in recent years,
noted in chapter three. This has led to cancellation of subscriptions in
many cases, which in turn has reinforced the upward trend in prices. A
1991 British Library survey (Research Libraries in Transition, Bob
Erens, BL Library and Information Research Report No. 82, 1991)
documented this trend clearly within the UK, and it has continued since.
In the United States, the value of cancellations has doubled each year
since 1990, with cumulative cancellations totalling $21.5 millions since
1990. here is evidence that the cancellation of journals leads to an
increase in their price.
- 210.
- The pressure from rising prices has been compounded by the growing
number of publications. Between 1987-88 and 1990-91, Ulrich's directory
of world periodical publications showed an increase in the number of
current periodicals of 14 per cent, with growth in the number of titles
from 103,951 to 118,500. Some also regard successive UK Research
Assessment Exercises as having been part of the reason for the
increasing volume of publications.
- 211.
- The Review Group recognises that the problem of periodical prices
is a complex and intractable issue. To address it in the immediate
future, the Group recommends that the CVCP seeks cooperation with the
Association of American Universities and other appropriate US bodies, to
find practical and effective ways of influencing the periodicals market
in a manner which both provides value for money for periodical
purchasers and a fair return for publishers.
- 212.
- Book price trends have been similar to those affecting periodicals,
and similar pressures have resulted. In addition attempts to maintain
spending on periodicals has often adversely affected libraries' ability
to buy monographs and undergraduate collections.
- 213.
- A final point is that developments in information technology are
also creating new opportunities for managing and disseminating research
findings, and these can place new demands on libraries. Particularly
important are possibilities for electronic document delivery, provision
of extensive on-line cataloguing and database facilities throughout the
HE system on an inter-institutional basis, and electronic publishing.
Proposals for a major extension of the existing CURL database made in
chapter seven are relevant, and in general the success of the funding
proposals set out in the rest of this chapter will be much less
effective without the extensive use of IT.
Funding Arrangements
- 214.
- At present, recurrent funding for the information and library needs
of the research community in HE is provided largely through the general
resources available to individual institutions in the form of block
grant from the funding councils and fee income from postgraduate
research students. In addition, the two legal deposit libraries of the
universities of Oxford and Cambridge each receive a specific
non-formulaic funding allocation of 1.1 million per annum to cover the
additional costs created by their legal deposit status.
- 215.
- The block grant for research provided by the funding councils is
allocated between institutions on the basis of a funding formula whose
principal element is driven by measures of research quality as assessed
through periodic research assessment exercises, together with measures
of research volume. These latter include numbers of research active
staff (the most important measure), numbers of research assistants,
numbers of research students, and research income from charitable
sources.
- 216.
- In the calculation of block grant allocations, no explicit element
is included to cover library and information requirements. The formula
is based on the assumption that hese can in practice be adequately
reflected in the formula as a whole. Nor is the funding formula based on
any assessment of the costs of undertaking a piece of research, or of
the costs of library provision. The principle which therefore underlies
the allocation of almost all funding related to the provision of
research libraries in HE is that it is for individual institutions to
decide how to allocate resources to meet these needs, from within the
general funds available to them.
- 217.
- The Review Group considered the possibility that the library
requirements of researchers might be the subject of a separate element
within the recurrent research funding allocated by the funding councils,
but has firmly rejected such an approach, for reasons similar to those
which led it to reject an analogous suggestion in relation to funding
for teaching. Given that the criteria adopted for allocations would
inevitably be similar to those used for the remainder of the research
grant, it is not easy to see that much would be gained. As with
teaching, the Review Group considers that the principal stream for the
delivery of grant to HEIs to enable them to provide for the library
needs of research staff and students should be the unhypothecated income
from grant and fees. This enables HEIs to distribute funding internally
as they think best and helps to ensure responsiveness to local needs.
- 218.
- The Review Group thus recommends that the principal library and
information needs of research staff and students should continue to be
provided largely from within the unhypothecated grant for research
provided by the funding councils.
Future Information Provision in Support of Research
- 219.
- While prime responsibility for meeting the library and information
needs of researchers should continue to rest with their home
institution, there are also opportunities to develop a more strategic
approach and to promote more cooperation and ement the facilities
available at any one institution.
- 220.
- Selective research funding, financial constraints, and the
explosion of publications and their costs mean that it is neither
feasible nor even desirable to expect each institution itself to provide
itself for all the research needs of its staff and users. Instead, in
order to provide for specialist or very expensive needs, networks of
research libraries should be encouraged to develop at national or
regional level, which might be discipline based or cover a number of
subject areas. In each case they would draw on the strengths of
particular libraries or groups of libraries. This will require a
willingness on the part of individual HEIs, and representative bodies
such as the CVCP, as well as the funding councils, to take such an
approach.
- 221.
- The case for adopting such an approach rests on several
considerations, and in particular:
- a.
- Considerable specialisation already exists, and there is the much
to be gained from more widespread sharing of these resources.
- b.
- The selective allocation of research block grant does not any
longer coincide with the historic disposition of library facilities in
support of research. This applies to some extent to journal and
monograph provision, but much more significantly to archival and
specialist research collections and facilities. The simple operation of
selectivity in recurrent research funding through the block grant is not
adequate to ensure that sufficient resources reach all research related
collections to maintain them.
- c.
- The management of research library and information provision needs
to take place over a long timescale, which cannot always be catered for
within the operation of the annual block grant allocation. The
development of collections of books, manuscripts, and ase facilities is
a lengthy process, while long runs of journals can be turned off, but
not on again, quickly. The approach advocated here would avoid this
problem by enabling funding for certain specialised research support
facilities in libraries to be allocated independently of the annual
block grant.
- 222.
- The Review Group makes three proposals based on this approach, and
these are considered below.
Specialised Research Collections for the Humanities
- 223.
- Specialist provision relevant to the humanities is already
concentrated in particular locations and is often used by researchers
from outside the institution in which the facility is located. However,
arrangements for access to such facilities are variable, and host
institutions may have progressive difficulty in supporting from purely
institutional funds the costs of a facility whose benefits are enjoyed
more widely. The costs of storage, conservation and of providing access
are good examples of areas where the possession of specialist facilities
gives rise to extra costs which can be substantial. If these facilities
are to be exploited for the benefit of the system as a whole then it is
not acceptable that one institution should be expected to bear the full
costs of their upkeep from regular recurrent grant.
- 224.
- The Government's recently announced decision not to establish a
Humanities Research Council is also important. This has highlighted the
role of the funding councils in ensuring that library provision to
support research in the humanities can be made effectively. The Review
Group recognises that without a clear initiative from the funding
councils, individual institutions might increasingly find it necessary
to charge users from other institutions. The Review Group therefore
proposes that a small proportion of the funds currently allocated for
research through the main funding rved for allocation specifically to
support certain specialised research library collections and provision.
This would primarily be aimed at supporting provision in the humanities,
where there is no possibility of research council initiatives (of the
kind now being promoted by the ESRC in the social sciences) to support
library and information provision. While funds to provide for access by
individual researchers to these facilities (for instance for travel and
other incidental costs) would continue to be met by their own
institutions from within the main research element of the block grant,
additional earmarked funds would provide for the extra costs of
enhancement of the facility, external access, processing, storage,
reader support and conservation.
- 225.
- Non-formula funding would enable support to be targeted at such
specialised centres on the basis that the facilities being supported
were equally available to staff and research students from throughout
the HE system, with the arrangements defined by clear service level
agreements with institutions receiving funding. This would also be
consistent with the criteria applied by the councils to other elements
of non-formula funding.
- 226.
- The facilities covered by recurrent funding of this kind would be
diverse. They would be likely to include some specialist libraries
within the University of London, special collections elsewhere, and
especially strong collections of periodicals or other material which was
not generally available. The criteria and mechanisms for implementing
this proposal would require careful attention by the funding councils.
The Review Group considers that up to 10 million a year should be
allocated in this way. The precise sums will depend on decisions by the
four funding bodies individually and collectively.
- 227.
- The particular position of London and its specialist research
libraries and institutes would need to be considered in the light of
this proposed strategy. There are specialist libraries (such as those at
the Institutes of Historical Research and Classics, and the Warburg
Institute) which provide a nation-wide facility but within ch are too
small and too specialised to be supported effectively from within the
main block grant formulaic allocations. These libraries would be
eligible for special support through the recommended approach. Support
for the mainstream collection of the University of London Senate House
Library would not fall into this category.
- 228.
- Unlike the more general initiative proposed below (paragraphs
232-237) covering all subjects, this is an area where the funding
councils can act immediately. The Review Group therefore recommends that
the funding councils should invite bids from institutions for recurrent
non-formula funding in support of specialised research collections which
are widely used by researchers in the humanities from other
institutions, but whose provision and maintenance gives rise to
significant additional costs which cannot reasonably be met from
resources provided through the block grant. Such funding would be
provided on the condition that free access was granted to bona fide
researchers from within the UK.
Legal Deposit libraries
- 229.
- Under both the UGC and the UFC, and provisionally for 1993-94 under
the HEFCE, non-formula funding of about 1.1 million a year each was made
available to the universities of Oxford and Cambridge in view of their
position as hosts of legal deposit libraries. The Review Group has
considered the future of the existing non- formula funding arrangements
for these two libraries as part of its general remit.
- 230.
- The availability of extensive collections accumulated over several
centuries by these libraries under the legal deposit legislation is an
important asset which it is legitimate for the HEFCE to support through
non formula funding. The Group therefore recommends continuation of
existing non-formula funding to the universities of Oxford and Cambridge
by the HEFCE in respect of their position as legal deposit libraries.
The atisfied that the current level of non-formula funding inherited by
the HEFCE from the UFC is both adequate and reasonable given the
additional cataloguing, storage and access costs which the libraries
incur.
- 231.
- Additionally however the Review Group recommends that the
allocation of this support should be conditional on clear agreement that
the facilities which are supported in this way at the two libraries
concerned should be available without additional cost to all bona fide
research staff and research students from within the UK. The Review
Group is particularly concerned that a clear definition of those users
who may legitimately have access should be arrived at. It therefore
recommends that the HEFCE should define these in consultation with the
other funding bodies and with the libraries concerned, and that brief
but clear service levels agreements should be drawn up between the HEFCE
and the two universities.
Library Provision for Researchers: a National and Regional strategy
- 232.
- The Review Group also considers that the strategic approach which
it recommends the funding councils to adopt in the case of provision
related to the humanities should be extended to other subject areas.
This would involve developing networks and groupings of institutions
based on particular centres to support particular subjects. It would
include integrated acquisitions and disposals policies, and investment
in document supply, electronic database and catalogue facilities which
would help to make library research facilities accessible on a regional
and national basis.
- 233.
- Different aspects of the strategy would support different subjects,
but all would benefit. It would also address an area of difficulty which
can arise under the present funding system, namely where a researcher of
the highest quality is working in a department whose overall ratings
(and hence resource levels) are much lower, and n help to make more
widely available strong research collections relating to departments
whose ratings are low.
- 234.
- There may be advantages in pursuing a regional approach to this,
particularly for institutions in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
In other cases the natural groupings of libraries may straddle such
boundaries.
- 235.
- The Review Group views this proposal as a long term development of
high priority, with potentially far reaching implications. It recommends
that it should be discussed at the highest level with the CVCP, SCOP,
the research councils, the British Academy, the British Library, the
national libraries of Scotland and Wales, and the new Libraries
Commission. These further discussions would also need to consider such
issues as whether there should be a specifically regional approach, for
instance ensuring the presence of certain facilities in each region; how
far a UK wide strategy as opposed to separate English, Welsh, Scottish
and Northern Irish approaches should be fostered; and how to ensure
accessibility to facilities by those not in host HEIs. In pursuing this,
those concerned should build on recent initiatives such as the ESRC's
Resource Centre competitions, which in their own field are designed to
develop the quality of and access to research resources of particular
importance.
- 236.
- Those involved should be required to report back to their parent
bodies with firm proposals within one year.
- 237.
- If the full benefits of this recommendation are to be realised, it
is essential that additional investment in information technology should
take place. The next chapter of this report deals with this in more
detail.
[Contents List]