The Australian Library Journal

Australian university libraries: collections overlap study

Roxanne Missingham and Robert Walls

Manuscript received June 2003

Introduction

Australian university libraries contain very significant collections of material, including print and electronic resources. The scope of these collections, including the extent of unique holdings and collection overlap, has been a subject of discussion and speculation for a number of years. The study revealed that at a state level, university library collections have a high level of uniqueness. Further investigation of the trends identified by the study would be beneficial and would assist decision-making on future co-ordination of access to more diverse information resources for the Australian university community. Australian university libraries have developed collections to support teaching, learning and research in their institutions over many years. The extent and nature of the collections required to support each university's activities could be expected to be unique to some degree, because of the specific nature of research in each institution. There is likely, however, to be greater duplication of resources required to support teaching and learning in those subjects which are taught across a number of universities.

This overlap is inevitable if students are to have timely access to required information resources. The study sought to provide an overall snapshot of the extent of collection duplication and to provide an indication of future investigations which might refine our knowledge about Australian university library holdings. This could assist decision-making in a range of areas including co-operative storage ventures and support for providing co-ordinated access to digital information resources at a national level.

A variety of approaches to establishing collection development policies have emerged in the university sector around the world. Studies in the United States have sought to define a 'core collection' of resources to support teaching, learning and research in particular fields of study. There has been considerable debate in library literature as to the nature of core collections and whether a core collection is applicable to a wide range of universities.[1] In Canada[2] and the United Kingdom[3], considerable investment has been made to provide all universities with convenient access to a comprehensive collection of scholarly and educational materials. These programs have been co-ordinated nationally and received significant government funding. Few initiatives of this kind have occurred in Australia.

Collection development has, over the past twenty years been an area of considerable pressure for Australian universities. There is now wide acceptance that 'libraries can no longer hope to own all the materials that their readers know or want' and that financial limitations affecting all library purchasing have shaped a new perspective on library collections.[4] The 'serials crisis', of the 1990s, for example, was experienced because significant ongoing increases in serial prices without commensurate increases in library budgets led to a reduction in the number of titles purchased by Australian libraries.[5] The historic concept of 'ownership' of library materials has also been reshaped by the move to an access paradigm for electronic resources.

The development of purchasing consortia, such as the Committee of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) Electronic Information Resources Committee (CEIRC), has assisted Australian university libraries to provide wider access to electronic resources. Current consortia purchasing, however, operates largely within a framework of local needs and financial limitations which has inhibited the development of a comprehensive collection of scholarly and educational materials available to all universities. The need for new forms of co-operation, particularly in regard to digital publications, has emerged as a topic for discussion in the library community[6] and is beginning to attract support throughout the higher education sector.

Australians university libraries have developed a number of co-operative arrangements over time which have influenced the level of collection uniqueness and improved the range of information resources available. University library co-operative activities in every state have affected collection access and development. At a national level, the CAUL national borrowing scheme (University Library Australia), has provided easier access to resources.

These activities are supplemented by the national inter-lending scheme and by arrangements with commercial document delivery services. The national scheme has been in operation for decades and enables resources not held locally to be accessed through interlibrary lending. Use of interlending/document delivery is an effective means of sharing resources. Studies have shown that for serials where up to ten articles are requested per year, interlibrary requesting is less costly than purchase.[7] This is partly due to the on-costs of serial acquisition including the cataloguing, acquisition and storage components and also because the requested copies may well range across many years of any particular serial.

Libraries regularly review the balance of material held on site and that requested through interlibrary lending. The Australian Interlibrary Resource Sharing (ILRS) Code, endorsed by the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA), the Council of Australian State Libraries (CASL), the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) and the National Library of Australia forms the standard for Australian resource sharing. As Biskup has commented: 'Co-operation has been a virtually permanent item on the Australian library agenda'.[8] The level of interlibrary lending and document supply by Australian university libraries is significant. For example in 2001, university libraries received 383 555 items from other libraries and document suppliers, and supplied 304 834 copies and loans to other libraries

Academic staff and postgraduate students however, do not always perceive traditional interlibrary lending as serving them well. Reports prepared for the Australian Library Collections Task Force suggest that the inter-lending system does not work effectively for all sectors of the academic community.[9] Electronic delivery of copies of articles through software, such as Ariel, is widespread in university libraries, however some users still consider that the service lacks appropriate speed and delivery mechanisms.

While electronic resources are increasingly available at the desktop, scholars continue to require access to many resources which may never be available in digital form. Improved access to print collections will continue to be important and ongoing financial and space constraints will necessitate improved collaborative approaches. Knowledge about the composition of university library collections will assist in the provision of appropriate services and facilities.

Methodology

Collection 'overlap' studies have been undertaken since the 1930s as a means of assessing collections. There have generally been three purposes for these studies. Most commonly they have been undertaken by library co-operative networks or by libraries with a large number of branches to provide a basis for reduction in the number of duplicate titles.[10] Library co-operation has also provided a motive for overlap studies to reveal the relative strengths of library collections as a basis for collaboration in collection development and access.[11] Finally studies have provided a basis for consideration of issues that would improve co-operative activity such as adoption of common cataloguing standards or shared catalogues.[12]

The use of national union catalogues, such as the National Bibliographic Database [NBD] has enabled a large amount of data to be utilised.[13] But there are limitations to using a national union catalogue for such a study and some libraries will have reported only a part of their collections to the catalogue. For example, in Australia, holdings of the electronic aggregate collections, such as ScienceDirect, have not been reported by all university libraries. There are also issues in relation to duplicate records created by variation in cataloguing practices.[14] These factors need to be recognised as limiting the accuracy of any study based on a large collaborative catalogue.

In 2002, therefore, the Higher Education Information Infrastructure Advisory Committee commissioned the National Library of Australia to analyse the uniqueness and overlap of Australian university library collections using the NBD. The study was intended to assess the degree of uniqueness and collection overlap in Australian university libraries in each state: analysis would include holdings for English language monographs and serials, but not for foreign language or non-book materials. Monograph and serial holdings were differentiated on the basis of the values in the Leader/07 position in the MARC record; monograph items having the value 'm' and serial items having the value 's'. The presence of value 'a' in the Leader/06 position was used to identify language material. English language materials were identified by the presence of the code 'eng' in 008/35-37.

Branch library holdings were included in the study. The National Union Catalogue (NUC) symbols associated with each of the forty-two Australian university libraries[15] were identified using the Interlibrary Resource Sharing (ILRS) Directory and the Kinetica customer registration module. The CAVAL Archival and Research Materials Centre (CARM) in Victoria was also included in the study. The number of NBD holdings attached to each NUC symbol was then determined, and those NUCs without holdings were excluded from the comparison. Where a library had multiple NBD holdings attached to the same records under different NUC symbols, these were de-duplicated prior to comparison with other library holdings.

The libraries included in the study were as follows:

Table 1: Australian university library collections included in the study

The scope of this study excluded the merging of holdings on duplicate NBD records for identical titles. The comparison of the coverage dates of serials was also outside the scope of the study.

Results

The key findings of the study were[16]:

• There are 23 million monograph holdings in the NBD for the forty-two university libraries (including the CARM Centre).[17] These holdings are attached to 9.5 million separate titles.
• There are 1.07 million serial holdings in the NBD for the forty-two university libraries. These holdings are attached to 440 000 separate titles.
• University library holdings are the only NBD holdings for 1.67 million monograph titles and 79 365 serial titles.
• For monographs:
  • the percentage of monograph titles held by only one university library in a state (excluding Tasmania and Northern Territory) ranged from fifty-seven per cent in Victoria to 84.77 per cent in the Australian Capital Territory;
  • the percentage of monograph titles held by all libraries in a state (excluding Tasmania and the Northern Territory) ranged from 5.29 per cent in South Australia to 0.00 per cent in Victoria and Queensland.
• For serials:
  • the percentage of serial titles held by only one university library in a state (excluding Tasmania and Northern Territory) ranged from 62.19 per cent in New South Wales to 84.19 per cent in the Australian Capital Territory;
  • the percentage of serial titles held by all libraries in a state (excluding Tasmania and the Northern Territory) ranged from 6.04 per cent in South Australia to 0.00 per cent in Victoria and Queensland.
• There appear to be two distinct trends, one for states with a large number of libraries, and one for states with a small number of libraries.
  • New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland represent the large state trends. They have large collections and a relatively high level of unique material
  • South Australia, Western Australia and Australian Capital Territory fall into another pattern. They have a lower number of universities. Their collections are smaller, with a relatively low level of unique material
• Factors influencing the collections in each state include the degree of similarity in courses and research; the mix of regional and metropolitan universities, the balance of large and small libraries and the historical development of the universities and their library collections

Data quality is an issue which needs to be noted. While the NBD contains records for resources acquired by Australia's university libraries, its coverage is not complete and there will be material held by university libraries which is not included in the NBD. The NBD contains some duplicate records which may affect the accuracy of the recording of duplicate materials. Variations in cataloguing practices will have resulted in some duplicate records, as Hardesty has suggested '...data are not misleading. They are simply not precise.'[18]

Monographs

For monographs, a state by state analysis, summarised in Table 2, shows that New South Wales has the highest number of holdings that are unique on the NBD, and the highest number of holdings overall. Victoria and the Queensland have the next highest number of unique titles on the NBD.

Table 2: Monograph holdings Number of titles

Table 3 provides a summary of the percentage of titles held in each state that are unique holdings on the NBD, that is, only one library is recorded as holding that title, together with the overlap by libraries in each state. This breakdown reveals that between 6.03 per cent (Northern Territory) and 23.78 per cent (New South Wales) of holdings are unique holdings on the NBD.

Table 3: Monograph holdings Percentage of titles

A more detailed analysis of the monographs holdings by states indicates that the university libraries in the larger states have a higher percentage of unique material (Table 4). States with a smaller number of university libraries have a higher percentage of material held by only one library (Table 5) and a larger percentage of titles held by all libraries (Table 6). Nationally, the percentage of titles held by all libraries is very low.

Table 4: Ranking of uniqueness of collection by state of monograph titles in NBD (by percentage of collections in each state)

Table 5: Percentage of titles held by only one library in each state (Northern Territory and Tasmania excluded as each has only one university library)

Table 6: Percentage of titles held by all libraries in each state (Northern Territory and Tasmania excluded as each has only one university library)

Serials

For serials, a state by state analysis, summarised in Table 7, shows that New South Wales has the highest number of holdings that are unique on the NBD, and the highest number of holdings overall. Victoria and Queensland have the next highest number of unique titles on the NBD. Serials were compared using title information on the NBD, and the comparison did not include analysis by date of serial coverage by libraries. It is expected that there would be an under-reporting of collection uniqueness because of this approach.

Table 7: Serial holdings Number of titles

Table 8 provides a summary of the percentage of titles held in each state that are unique holdings on the NBD, that is, only one library is recorded as holding that title, together with the overlap by libraries in each state. This breakdown reveals that between 7.03 per cent (Australian Capital Territory) and 26.62 per cent (Queensland) or holdings are unique holdings on the NBD.

Table 8: Serial holdings percentage of titles

A more detailed analysis of the serials holdings by states indicates that the university libraries in the larger states have a higher percentage of unique material (Table 9). States with a smaller number of university libraries generally have a higher percentage of material held by only one library (Table 10) and a larger percentage of titles held by all libraries (Table 11). The percentage of titles held by all libraries is overall very low, while the percentage of titles held by only one library is quite high.

Table 9: Ranking of uniqueness of collection by state of serial titles in NBD (by percentage of collections in each state).

Table 10: Percentage of titles held by only one library in each state (Northern Territory and Tasmania excluded as each has only one university library)

Table 11: Percentage of titles held by all libraries in each state (Northern Territory and Tasmania excluded as each has only one university library)

Comparative studies

Many studies on collection overlap have been undertaken comparing the holdings of academic, public and special libraries around the world. Results have often shown, consistent with this study conducted by the National Library of Australia, that there is a high degree of uniqueness among collections of academic institutions. A study of Louisiana academic universities of new acquisitions over a six month period found 83 per cent of titles were unique, and five per cent were held by three or more libraries.[19] Serials in Glasgow universities have also been studied. 80.53 per cent were unique titles, 1.83 per cent were held by all university libraries[20]. A study of sixty-four liberal arts colleges in Oberlin (Ohio, United States) found only 1.5 per cent of the titles were held by a majority of libraries and that 49.4 per cent were held by only one library. [21]

A study covering the 'Group of Eight'[22] Australian university libraries was completed earlier in 2002. The study found:

Monographs

56 per cent of titles were held in only one of the eight libraries;

0.5 per cent of titles were held in all libraries;

Serials

58 per cent of titles are held in only one of the eight libraries;

1.3 per cent of titles are held in only one of the eight libraries.

Other recent studies include:

• That by the Consortium of University Research Libraries (UK) which undertook a collection mapping project using the OCLC iCAS software to compare the collections of six UK libraries including three university libraries: Edinburgh, Hull and Liverpool. The study focused on monograph titles. The level of material held uniquely by each library participating in the study (that is, number of titles held by only one library) was between 71 per cent and 75 per cent for the three university libraries. [23]
• The further study of monographic bibliographic records in the OCLC WorldCat database which was conducted by Anna Perrault. It used a ten per cent sample from the WorldCat database of approximately three million records and found that 53 per cent of records have only one library location symbol. 63.5 per cent of the records for research libraries were unique holdings. [24]

Further research on collections held by Australian libraries would be beneficial and would assist decision-making on future co-ordination of access to more diverse information resources for the Australian university community. A range of methodologies could be used - the University of Western Australia is currently analysing the research collections of the National Library and 'Group of Eight' libraries relating to the Indian Ocean rim and South-East Asian regions using OCLC's collection analysis software.

There are many factors which may potentially affect the overlap of collections including:

• the degree to which the teaching and research of the university is unique, those universities offering similar courses are likely to have some commonality of collections;
• the period of time over which the libraries have been collecting - those with older collections may tend to have more unique materials especially those with older imprint dates;
• the degree to which there are collaborative collecting agreements; and
• the extent of co-operative access agreements between universities providing a basis for a locally distributed collection and consequently lower collection overlap.

All of these factors provide areas for future research and analysis.

Conclusions

The collections of Australian university libraries, using the NBD to compare collections, hold a remarkably high level of unique materials; in addition, widely held titles in the collections would be expected to comprise materials such as reference resources and undergraduate texts. This is justifiable given the need for immediate access to these materials. The overlap rate varies between states, but is low overall, particularly for monographs. While there are limitations inherent in using the NBD, the consistency of the results across states suggest that national access through inter-library loan to the collections of university libraries is required for effective support of research in Australia. While there appear to be two distinct trends, one for states with a large number of libraries and one for states with a small number of libraries, closer investigation suggests a different set of factors apply to each state. In some states co-operative activities have included collection development, in others the level of uniqueness of holdings is likely to be influenced by the fact that one university library holds a majority of the titles in the state, and in larger states the sheer volume of holdings in a number of libraries is likely to influence the level of collection uniqueness and overlap.

Further research could add to the understanding of the nature and scope of Australian university library collections. Research into overlap in specific subject areas, current acquisitions or the adequacy of Australian collections for research and teaching would complement this study. [25]

Electronic resources are providing the most fundamental contemporary change to university library collections. The increased access to electronic resources through journal aggregations has greatly increased the resources available to some members of the university sector. Desktop access to electronic resources has undoubtedly increased the ability of researchers, staff and students to access information. This study did not assess the degree to which collection overlap has changed with the move to electronic resources, although it has been suggested that the 'serial crisis' together with the move to electronic publishing provide pressures which may reduce the range of titles published.[26]

Interestingly, the increase in access to electronic resources has not produced a simple change in inter-lending for Australian university libraries. The CAUL statistics[27] indicate that, for material received by university libraries, there has been an increase in the number of copies (print and electronic) received over the past decade, but a decrease in the number of original materials borrowed. Trends in material supplied to other libraries is quite different, there has been an increase in loan of original material and a decrease in copies. In the United States research libraries report a significant increase in interlibrary loan requests,[28] which may be due to improvements in inter-lending systems.

Co-operation by university libraries has traditionally enabled access to other resources within a region. Well-established co-operative agreements in Western Australia, South Australia and Victoria, for example, have enabled collaboration to extend to collection analysis and collection building activities. The effect of these agreements will have influenced the degree of uniqueness and overlap. Given the complexity of other factors affecting state collections, it is not possible to assess in detail the effect of these co-operative schemes from the data produced by this study. The diversity of resources held by Australian university libraries suggests that the combined collection provides an important national infrastructure for teaching, study and research. Access to this infrastructure has been assisted by co-operation under the aegis of the Australian inter-lending code. State and national reciprocal borrowing schemes have also improved access particularly for students.

As Gorman has suggested, there are three essential elements for successful co-operation - trust and co-operation, effective and rapid delivery methods, and easy access to holdings information.[29] Australian university libraries have demonstrated success in co-operation through regional co-operative initiatives and the national borrowing scheme. New technology, particularly Ariel, enables rapid access to resources from other collections. The NDB provides easy access to the university holdings information reported to the NBD, although the coverage of Australian university library collections is not comprehensive. Most university library catalogues can be searched individually on the web.

Lynch has commented that 'Effective information access within a library and, to an even greater extent, interlibrary resource sharing, both presuppose that library patrons have the ability to effectively identify and locate materials of interest'.[30] These conditions are met to some degree in the Australian university library sector, with automation offering significantly improved delivery over the past decade. There is still, however, a long way to go before members of Australian universities can seamlessly request material from their desktop. Increasing the coverage of the NBD, and implementing automated requesting systems which serve the clients directly, are essential to effective information access in the sector.

For Australian libraries the challenge of providing services from an increasing electronic collection and maintaining access to a nationally significant dispersed collection is a key issue for the twenty first century.

Endnotes

1 See, for example Hardesty, L 'Searching for the holy grail: a core collection for undergraduate libraries', Journal of Academic Librarianship, 19 1994, 362-371.

2 Canadian Site Licensing Project http://carl-abrc.ca

3 http://jisc.ac.uk

4 Clayton, P and Gorman, G E Managing information resources in libraries: collection management in theory and practice, London, Library Association, 2001, p53.

5 'Australian National University Library Serials crisis, http://anulib.anu.edu.au/news/stories/serials.html, 1998; Monash University Library Annual report, http://www.lib.monash.edu.au/reports/annual/1998/98ar01.html, 1998; University of Adelaide Library 'The journals crisis and the University of Adelaide', News no. 19, http://www.library.adelaide.edu.au/ual/publ/News/NEWS_18.pdf, 1999.

6 See, for example, Shreeves, E 'Is there a future for co-operative collection development', Library Trends, 45 (3), 1997, 373-391.

7 See McCarthy, P 'Serial killers: academic libraries respond to soaring costs', Library Journal, 119 (11) 1994, 41-44.

8 Biskup, P Libraries in Australia, Wagga Wagga, NSW, Centre for Information Studies, 1994

9 Cantrell, L Looking for Books: a Report on Access to Research Monographs by Academics and Higher Degree Students at Australian University Libraries, http://www.nla.gov.au/initiatives/alctf/cantrell.html; 1999; Fletcher, Neville Access to Scientific Journals in Australian Libraries, http://www.nla.gov.au/initiatives/alctf/fletcher.html, 2001.

10 See for example Strubbe, LA 'Characteristics of serials duplication within an academic research library' Library and Information Science Research, 11 (2), 1989, 89, 91-108.

11 German, RN, Kidd, T and Pratt, G 'Serials overlap in the higher education institution libraries in Glasgow', New Review of Academic Librarianship, 3, 1997, 115-138.

12 See, for example the Consortium of University research Libraries iCAS study, http://www.curl.ac.uk/projects/icas.html, 2002.

13 Potter, G 'Studies of collection overlap: a literature review' Library Research, 4 (1) 1982, 3-21; Rochester, MK 'The ABN database: sampling strategies for collection overlap studies', Information Technology and Libraries, 6 (3) 1987, 190-199.

14 Buckland, MK, Hindle, A and Walker, PM 'Methodological problems in assessing the overlap between bibliographic files and library holdings', Information Processing and Management, 11, 1975 89-105.

15 The Australian Catholic University was counted as a separate university for each state in which it has a campus.

16 The National Bibliographic Database contained a total of 13 515 919 bibliographic records and 35 677 592 holdings at the time this study was undertaken.

17 CARM (Caval Archive and Research Materials) contains low use and last copies of archival and research materials from Victorian university libraries and the State Library of Victoria.

18 Hardesty, L 'Collection development and bibliographic instruction: a relationship', in Bibliographic instruction in practice: a tribute to the legacy of Evan Ira Farber, Ann Arbor, Michigan, Pierian Press, 1993, 131.

19 McGrath, WE and Simon, DJ LNR: numerical register of books in Louisiana Baton Rouge LA, Louisiana State Library, 1972.

20 German, op cit

21 Hardesty, L op cit

22 The Group of Eight is a coalition of the University of Adelaide, Australian National University, University of Melbourne, Monash University, University of New South Wales, University of Queensland, University of Sydney and University of Western Australia.

23 See http://www.curl.ac.uk/projects/icas.html.

24 See http://www.oclc.org/research/grants/reports/perrault/intro.pdf

25 Gilbert (op cit) found that the highest level of uniqueness was for material published prior to 1968. Material published from 1973 onwards was the least unique

26 Case, M 'Igniting change in scholarly communication: SPARC, its past, present, and future', Advances in Librarianship, 26, 2002 http://www.arl.org/sparc/SPARC_Advances.pdf.

27 CAUL statistics can be found at http://www.caul.edu.au/stats

28 ARL statistics (http://www.arl.org, in particular see http://www.arl.org/stats/arlstat/graphs/2001/2001t3.html)

29 Gorman, M 'Laying siege to the "fortress library"' American Libraries 17 (5) 1986, 325-328.

30 Lynch, C 'Building the infrastructure of resource sharing: union catalogs, distributed search, and cross-database linkage', Library trends, 45 (3), 1996, 448-614.

Biographical information

Funded by the Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST), Higher Education Information Infrastructure Advisory Committee

IBM GSA assisted with data collection.

Roxanne Missingham is assistant director general, Resource Sharing Division, National Library of Australia; Robert Walls is director, Kinetica Database Services, Resource Sharing Division, National Library of Australia