2019 Charleston Library Conference

With significant annual price increases for subscription content and scarce resources becoming the norm for academic libraries across the world, we must question and adapt our traditional collections approaches in order to be sustainable. The University of Houston Libraries has embraced a new collections philosophy that prioritizes access to research materials over ownership. This shift has resulted in revised staffing models that rely on teams rather than subject liaisons to manage collections holistically, and new strategies including time-limited subscriptions, cost-sharing arrangements with academic departments, patron driven acquisition for print monographs, and the creation of an ongoing ROI-based assessment process for resource renewals.

This presentation will detail the reasons for the philosophical shift, our change management strategies, and lessons learned. We will also discuss how we have engaged with both our library stakeholders and our campus community as our collections services have evolved. We aim to provide a practical road map for evolving collections services, within the context of the current scholarly communications in higher education landscape. Presenters will encourage attendees to consider the applicability of approaches discussed to their home institutions through a variety of interactive strategies.