As I sit down and think about ASIS&T’s strategic plan and what it means to me, I thought about the usual …career, jobs, how to find the unlisted ones (hint hint strategic plan)….Then my thoughts went to the future a little bit more. What happens when I leave school and don’t have access to all the databases that I currently wander around in? There are public libraries, but what if I wanted more specific journals?

• There is value in membership to associations (like ASIS&T) who offer journal subscriptions built into their membership.
• As an alum, you can have access to your schools library, but you usually need to come in person. Maybe university libraries could partner with off-campus alumni and share some cost?
• Along those same lines, maybe small business could partner with public libraries to purchase some of the larger databases of journals.

Has this happened already? If you are a librarian can you envision this working? Tell us your story

If someone wants to consult or work independently – How much would it cost me to buy my own suite of journals? What if I want to build a library for my organization and incorporate industry specific online journals? It is impressive how libraries are managing the cost and this article from lj.libraryjournal.com highlights some of the costs:

  The Winds of Change | Periodicals Price Survey 2013

Some summary highlights:

• The authors noted that “All elements of the information marketplace-libraries, publishers, and vendors- will continue to be impacted by the changing market conditions.”
• Changes in how a e-journal packaging is defined
• Cost rising easily over 6% in one year
  • High Schools and Public Libraries: 5-6%
  • University and College libraries: 5-7%
• Open-Access
  • A business model to pay attention to
  • Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR)
    • Open access to well-funded federal agencies research articles
  • SCOAP3 and CERN working with publishers towards open access  (oh, don’t go too crazy DaVinci conspirators…)
  • Open Access to science journals-great! They have funding…but wait, say it isn’t so…the humanities are not big fans of open source? Oh the humanity of it all.

So could LIS associations be one part of the solution? Can partnerships between entrepreneurs, small business, and libraries off-set journal costs? Could there be a NETFLIX model for these professional groups and public libraries and strategically move away from the costly grip of publishing cable companies offering 100 journal channels?

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