Print vs. Digital: The Future of Coexistence

Sul H. Lee

Jun 2013 · Routledge

About this ebook

Libraries are currently confronted by the challenges of managing increasing amounts of electronic information. Print vs. Digital: The Future of Coexistence presents the expert perspectives of eight of America’s leading library administrators on ways to effectively manage digital flow and offers strategies to provide a level of coexistence between digital and print information. This excellent overview explores how to best balance print and electronic resources, and explores important issues such as the selection of electronic resources, improving access to digital information for a larger user base, and effective management of a library’s fiscal and personnel resources.

Print vs. Digital: The Future of Coexistence discusses the various challenges libraries now face from the massive influx of digital resources, including the ways that information-seeking behaviors have changed, the search for synergies between print and digital, economics of news preservation, and whether or not the end of print journals is at hand. New ideas and technological advances are explored, including the diverse ways these improvements will impact the future. This well-referenced resource includes useful tables, figures, and photographs.

Topics in Print vs. Digital: The Future of Coexistence include:

• cooperative collection development
• balance of print and electronic resources
• evolvement of digital resources in libraries
• change in research libraries
• factors influencing the selection of electronic resources
• disseminating information about scholarly collections
• impact of digital resources on research behavior and techniques
• design of digital libraries
• JSTOR
• effects of digital information on reference collections
• transition of print journals to digital formats

Print vs. Digital: The Future of Coexistence is a thought provoking, insightful resource on the future of libraries, invaluable for acquisitions, reference, and collection development librarians; and senior and mid-level administrators such as deans, directors, and department heads for public, special, and academic libraries.

About the author

Sul H. Lee, PhD, has served as Dean of University Libraries and Professor of Library and Information Studies at the University of Oklahoma since 1978 and is the university’s Senior Dean on its Norman campus. He directs Oklahoma’s largest research library with a collection exceeding 4.5 million volumes and is an internationally recognized scholar, editor, and consultant on librarianship. He was appointed to the Peggy V. Helmerich Chair in 2005. Dean Lee’s academic background is in political science, international relations, and library and information science, and he holds graduate degrees in those disciplines. He is the author of more than 30 books in the field of librarianship, along with numerous articles and professional presentations. In addition to his current positions at the University of Oklahoma, Dean Lee has taught at Oxford University in England, and the University of Michigan. He has served on important national and regional professional organizations and consortiums, including the Association of Research Libraries board of directors; the board of governors for the Research Libraries Group (RLG); the Council of American Library Association; and as Chair of the Greater Midwest Research Library Consortium. Dean Lee is also editor-in-chief of Haworth’s academic journal division and editor of the Journal of Library Administration (Haworth). He serves regularly as a consultant to academic book vendors and publishers, and advises state and local governments on library affairs. His outstanding career spans more than 40 years in academic libraries and he has witnessed the transition of libraries from the era of card catalogs to the proliferation and general acceptance of digital information.