(28 October 2016, Mountain View, CA) A newly released ProQuest survey of more than 600 libraries found that 82 percent of academic libraries consider space reclamation a priority or believe it will be in the near future. More than a third have prioritized repurposing space for more than five years.
The survey revealed the innovative ways libraries are using reclaimed space, with 25 percent stating they are developing makerspaces and hackerspaces. The survey whitepaper, “Evolving Spaces for Evolving User Needs in Academic Libraries” is free to anyone who registers at http://bit.ly/libspacereclaim.
“Despite the popularity of the space reclamation initiative, many libraries are still struggling to overcome common barriers as they repurpose space,” said Kevin Stehr, ProQuest Vice President of North American Sales. ”For example, only six percent of libraries have newly allocated budgets for ebooks.”
Even those that are reallocating print funds, Stehr adds, “have to balance researchers’ desire for collaborative spaces with their reluctance to move away from print.” As one of the surveyed librarians aptly put it, “it’s a balancing act that requires a deep understanding of the usage of resources in all formats in order to make the best decisions about what to weed, what to duplicate and what to keep as-is.”
Enabling libraries to achieve that balance and repurpose space underlies a variety of ProQuest solutions and services. For example, the company’s complimentary Title Matching Fast (TMF) service helps libraries assess their print and digital books and journals to make data-driven collection development decisions. Its Digital Archive and Access Program (DAAP) enables libraries to convert print archives to online, often saving miles of shelf space without reducing the scope of their collections.
ProQuest’s online solutions help libraries confidently replace physical materials with robust, comprehensive and often more complete digital collections than libraries owned in print. These solutions include:
- More than 830,000 ebooks from over 650 publishers with flexible and affordable models that guarantee access for users.
- Access-To-Own, an acquisition model that allows libraries to purchase ebooks according to demand and apply rental fees toward title ownership.
- Premium Ebook Packs in five interdisciplinary subject areas – aligned with ProQuest’s digital archives — that offer unlimited multi-user access to industry-leading content.
- ProQuest Historical Newspapers, featuring 35+ million digitized pages of full-text and full-image articles for significant newspapers dating back to the 18th century.
- Periodicals Archive Online (PAO), a major electronic archive of over 700 scholarly journal backfiles, within the arts, humanities and social sciences
- Government document collections that include ProQuest Congressional — the most comprehensive collection of government documents available anywhere — Executive Branch Documents and UK Parliamentary Papers (includes both the House of Commons and the House of Lords).
- Online video collections such as Alexander Street’s Academic Video Online, which save shelf space and expands discovery.
On Friday, 4 November, Stehr will be leading a lively lunch that features the results of the space reclamation survey at this year’s Charleston Conference in Charleston, South Carolina. Get more information and register for the session at http://www.proquest.com/.
The full press release is here.
