The role of print books in academic libraries is changing, as it has been for more than a decade. Library and campus administrators are evaluating the role of locally held print collections in the library’s strategy and their contribution to user satisfaction and success.
The factors contributing to this discussion—declining print book use, changes in library spaces, redundancy across the “collective collection” and the cost of maintaining local collections—are well known. Increasingly, shared print monograph programs are seen as a way to provide continued access to the full range of titles, while distributing the costs of storage and management among a number of institutions.