AARL

Australian library resources in philosophy: a survey of recent monograph holdings

John W East

Abstract: This paper reports the results of a survey of Australian library holdings of monographs cited in two major philosophy journals in 2002 and published from 1970 to 1999. National holdings of these titles appear satisfactory, but there is a marked decline in holdings after 1996. Holdings in the libraries of the Universities of Sydney and Melbourne are very satisfactory, but again show signs of decline in later years. Holdings in the National Library of Australia are poor after 1992.

In her memoir Half a Lifetime, the poet Judith Wright has left us a priceless snapshot of the libraries of Brisbane in the war years of the early 1940s. She was assisting her friend and future husband, the philosopher Jack McKinney, in locating material that he required for his research:

I had tried the libraries and been staggered by their inadequacies; the old WEA [Workers' Educational Association] library was the best of them, but there was not one trained librarian in any library in Brisbane. When I went to the public library [the future State Library] for a reference on one of Jack's quotations from an article in the Royal Society journal, the chief librarian had refused to entertain my request. 'The Royal Society for what?' he demanded. 'It must be a society for something. 'Finally I found the reference myself in the parliamentary library among a dusty series undisturbed since they had reached the shelves ...

The university library was better supplied, and... I began to go through the more recent accessions and journals and find at least some essential references... I remember asking for a back issue of Nature... The librarian finally located it in the limbo of some shelf far off in the dungeons and gave it to me with the expression of one overtaxed by demands, remarking, 'Nobody has ever asked for that before'.[1]

It is sometimes claimed that things change slowly in Queensland, but it is safe to say that Brisbane's library resources in philosophy (as in most other disciplines) have improved dramatically in the last sixty years. The decades following the Second World War saw a rapid expansion of university education in Australia, and library collections were enlarged to service the growing demand.

In recent years, however, cutbacks in government funding and a substantial decline in the value of the Australian dollar have had a serious impact upon the ability of Australian research libraries to maintain their collections. There is a perception among researchers in the humanities that collections in their disciplines have been particularly disadvantaged. A University of Melbourne academic, Janet McCalman, writing in 1997 argued that 'What is far graver in the long term is the decline of the national research infrastructure in our libraries... [A]s we approach the end of the century, only a handful of university libraries are buying widely, and not one State Library is building its collection adequately. The decision of the National Library to no longer be a universal library but to concentrate only on Australia and its region means that not one library in the country is building a comprehensive collection, or taking every significant serial. '[2]

In 2001, John Byron, president of the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations, expressed his concern 'that both Labor and the coalition are promoting research in areas such as science and IT, and overlooking the humanities'.[3]

Has there really been a significant decline in Australia's library resources in the humanities? The present paper aims to make some contribution to answering that question by focusing on one humanities discipline - philosophy - and surveying Australian holdings of a sample of monographs published during the thirty-year period from 1970 to 1999. The intention is to look for trends in collection development during that period, both on a national scale and also within individual libraries.

Methodology

The sample of monograph titles was extracted from the references cited in the 2002 issues of two major philosophy journals, Noûs and Philosophical Quarterly. Noûs describes its scope as 'the whole range of topics at the center of philosophical debate'. Philosophical Quarterly claims to be 'committed to publishing high-quality articles from leading international scholars across the range of philosophical study'. Both titles are source journals for the Arts and Humanities Citation Index, which indicates that they are among the most frequently cited journals in their field.

The references from two such journals should provide a valid sample of the publications that philosophers are currently using in their research. Of course philosophy (like every discipline) has its specializations and sub-disciplines, and it would be a mistake to assume that this sample is representative of the literature being used by every philosopher.

All monographs with a publication date from 1970 to 1999, which were cited in the 2002 issues of these two journals, were entered into a database using the EndNote software. Each of these titles was then checked against the Kinetica database in January 2003 to establish if the title was held in Australia. If so, the number of libraries reporting holdings to Kinetica was noted. Holdings were only counted for the precise edition cited in the sample journals. Holdings of earlier or later editions were ignored, but where the cited edition was published in simultaneous UK and US editions, the holdings of both editions were counted.

In addition, it was noted whether or not the title was held in three specific libraries. The libraries of the Universities of Sydney and Melbourne were selected for detailed examination, as they contain two of the oldest and strongest Australian collections in philosophy. The holdings of the National Library of Australia were also noted, in virtue of its special position as the national library and because of its traditionally strong holdings in the humanities.

Findings

Characteristics of the sample

A total of 411 books published between 1970 and 1999 (inclusive) were cited in the 2002 issues of Noûs and Philosophical Quarterly.

One unexpected finding was that all of these titles were in English. Some of them were translations from non-English originals, but the sample did not contain a single direct citation to a non-English book published between 1970 and 1999. This rather contradicts the common image of the humanities scholar as a polyglot at home in at least one foreign language. Perhaps it is an indication that English is becoming the lingua franca in certain humanities disciplines, as it has been for many years in the sciences. Of course the source journals were English-language journals and one would expect rather different results from a sample taken from journals published in another language.

Figure 1: Chronological spread of cited titles

Another unexpected finding was the high incidence of recent publications in the sample. One thinks of philosophy as a discipline where literature does not date quickly and where older publications may be in as much demand as newer works. The sample indicates that this is not the case. No specific figures were collected on pre-1970 works, but Figure 1 suggests that the more recently a book has been published, the more likely it is to be cited.

This does not mean that the works of earlier philosophers are rarely cited, but when they are cited, they are often cited in modern critical editions or collected volumes of previously published papers.

National holdings

Of the 411 books in the sample, only one had no recorded holding on Kinetica. 29 titles (7%) were recorded as being held by fewer than five libraries. 130 titles (32%) were recorded as being held by more than 20 libraries.

To see if there is any longitudinal trend in the collecting activity of Australian libraries, figures were calculated for the average number of holding libraries for all works published in each year. These figures were then graphed. The figures for 1970-1979 were not included, as the number of titles in the sample (an average of seven per year) was too small to show any reliable trend. The number of titles from the 1980s (an average of 13 per year) and the 1990s (an average of 21 per year) is probably sufficient to reveal any underlying trend. The results are shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Total Australian holdings by year of publication

Although the graph shows a slight downward trend, that trend only becomes pronounced during the last three years, from 1997 to 1999. It should be pointed out that some of the sample titles from these years will still be in print, and may yet be acquired by further libraries. However, holdings were checked in Kinetica in January 2003, which was at least three years after the publication of the most recent titles in the sample, so it seems unlikely that future acquisitions will significantly change these figures.

Holdings in individual libraries

Details were collected of holdings in three specific institutions. The percentage of cited titles held by each library was calculated on a year-by-year basis, and the results are shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Holdings in major collections

These figures confirm that both university libraries do indeed have strong collections in philosophy, although the collection at the University of Melbourne seems to be slightly superior. There is a small but noticeable deterioration in the holdings of both libraries from 1996 onwards. This decline is more marked at the University of Sydney.

As expected, the figures show that the holdings of the National Library deteriorated dramatically after 1992, following fundamental changes in the library's collection policy. It is also clear that, even before 1992, the National Library's collection in philosophy was far from outstanding, and certainly inferior to those of the two university libraries.

Discussion

The national collection

What do the above findings tell us about philosophy resources in Australian libraries today? Is it possible to conduct advanced, academic research in philosophy in Australia?

The answer to the latter question is clearly 'Yes'. Effectively all of the titles in the survey are available in one or more Australian libraries, and about a third of the titles are widely held. Assuming that the periodical literature is equally well represented, the national collection is clearly adequate to support research in many areas of philosophy. Of course, there may be specializations within the discipline of which this is not true. Those needing to consult large numbers on non-English references or older publications may find provision much less satisfactory, but one of the findings of this survey was that, for many philosophers at least, non-English material and older publications are not greatly in demand.

Having said that, there is clear evidence that the quality of the national collection is declining. The survey revealed that recent publications are the most heavily cited (see Figure 1), and it is precisely in the area of recent publications that the national collection is weakest (see Figure 2). The marked decline in availability of titles in recent years presumably owes much to the cutbacks in university funding announced by the Howard government soon after its election in 1996, though of course there were also other factors involved: the decline in value of the Australian dollar and substantial increases in journal subscriptions had a very negative effect on the monograph budgets of all Australian research libraries during this period.

Is this decline continuing? The survey only provides us with data to the end of 1999, but the decline in the value of the Australian dollar since then probably gives us some indication of recent trends. In January 2000 the Australian dollar was worth on average 65.60 US cents. In January 2001 it was worth only 55.52 US cents, and in January 2002 a mere 51.70 US cents. Given this substantial fall in the value of the Australian dollar since 1999, one would expect that the deterioration in national library resources in philosophy has, if anything, accelerated.

Local collections

The professional literature has been telling us, for at least twenty years, that browsing library collections is an essential research technique for scholars in the humanities.[4] Recent studies confirm that the digital revolution has not altered this.[5]

Research findings in the sciences are usually published in short journal articles dealing with very specific subjects, and these articles can be quickly and effectively abstracted and indexed in electronic databases. In the humanities, however, much new thinking and research is published in lengthy monographs. Such works are not easily summarized or indexed - three or four Library of Congress subject headings cannot do justice to the contents of a 200-page scholarly treatise. In any case, the vocabulary of the humanities is notoriously'soft ' and synonyms abound, so the process of indexing is fraught with difficulty: as one recent study puts it 'Humanists often use terms that have a wide range of meaning and ambiguity, with no two authors attributing exactly the same meaning to a term'.[6]

This explains why it is not enough for the philosopher to be able to search a database like Philosopher's Index or the online catalogues of remote libraries, and then obtain via inter-library loan the references that are not available locally. To conduct research effectively, the philosopher needs ready and frequent access to a well-stocked library where it is possible to browse the book stacks and scan the journal literature.

Thus the quality of local (as distinct from national) library resources is vitally important in the humanities and we cannot discuss the quality of library resources purely in terms of the national collection. The quality of local library resources is of crucial importance for the philosopher. As Figure 3 indicates, there are still excellent philosophy collections at the Universities of Sydney and Melbourne, even if there is evidence of decline in the quality of those collections. But Figure 2 makes it clear that the crucial recent literature is less widely held than older material. Taken together, these facts suggest an increasing concentration of resources in a few well-established and well-funded institutions. Researchers at those institutions will still be able to work effectively. But what of those at smaller institutions, especially those remote from the larger capital cities where the largest university libraries are located? Is it still possible to conduct research in philosophy in Hobart or Armidale or Townsville?

Conclusion

On the strength of the data presented in this paper, we could describe Australia's library resources in philosophy as 'Good, but with definite signs of deterioration'. Major libraries are maintaining their collections reasonably successfully, but it is unlikely that smaller institutions are faring so well. The same is probably true, to a greater or lesser degree, of other humanities disciplines. If the deterioration is to be reversed, significant increases in funding are required. Without extra funding, humanistic research in Australia faces a very uncertain future.

Notes

1. P Clarke (ed) Judith Wright Half a Lifetime Melbourne Text Publishing 1999 pp194-195
2. J McCalman 'The World we are Losing' Australian Universities' Review vol 40 no 2 1997 pp23-26
3. M Cook 'Paying the Price for Funding Cuts' The Age (Melbourne) 7 March 2001 p4
4. S Stone 'Humanities Scholars: Information Needs and Uses' Journal of Documentation vol 38 1982 pp292-313
5. V Massey-Burzio 'The Rush to Technology: A View from the Humanists' Library Trends vol 47 1999 pp620-639
6. S D Knapp, L B Cohen, D R Juedes 'A Natural Language Thesaurus for the Humanities: The Need for a Database Search Aid' Library Quarterly vol 68 1998 pp406-430

John East, librarian, University of Queensland, Library Corporate Services, Duhig Building, University of Queensland, St Lucia 4072. E-mail john.east@mailbox.uq.edu.au.nospam (please remove '.nospam' from address).