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April 11, 2007
More on the future of reference books in libraries
Many thanks to Jenny Walker and John Dove at Xrefer for this entry:
"Reference has always been about meeting the dual objectives of finding facts and getting context. The web has exploded with a myriad ways to find facts (sometimes with lots of 'wish-they-were-facts' thrown in), but getting authoritative context and making sense of what you've found elsewhere--that is still at a premium. It represents a business opportunity for those who do it well.
Top publishers and top aggregators like Xrefer, among others, are continually inventing new ways to make compelling exploration of context online. In Xreferplus a user can not only ask about extensive data on Armenia , but can also ask for a table of data comparing Armenia with each of its neighbours. Or compare in multiple columns events in Australian history related to military events with those related to the aircraft industry. You could do the same in a physical book only by flipping back-and-forth between chapters.
In the physical world a significant percentage of a library's floor-space, shelf-space, and staffing is devoted to the reference function which offers the library visitor a welcoming place to get oriented, start their access to the whole library, come back to get oriented on the landscape of a field of interest-all things which improve significantly their use of the library as a whole.
Those who are assembling the digital library resources to equip their communities or institutions are recognizing that a significant portion of their expenditure needs to be on the reference component as well--and that well-organized and presented reference content, integrated into their other online resources (and those of the web) will significantly improve their patrons use of all the other online resources.
Yes, the market for reference is shifting. Print has its role for some resources, but there is both use and revenue to be gained by making the resources available online as well. Lorraine Estelle, the Collections Team Manager for JISC reported in ‘EPS Focus Report: The Future of Reference Publishing’, October, 2005, Electronic Publishing Services, London :
‘Reference works are very popular with our community with online reference resources at the top in terms of the number of institutions subscribing to particular types of resources. Strong reference brands tend to attract high levels of subscribers. . . .’
At Xrefer we have a strong demand for new content from our library customers. For example, public libraries in England are frequently requesting more and more bi-linguals given the changing population mix in their communities, so we will be adding a Polish-English bi-lingual. Last year we added a UK-USA bi-lingual, ‘Divided by a Common Language’. And we'll soon be announcing a reference collection available online of 10,000 biographies of cricketing legends from Wisden. (Thank you, Richard Charkin, for introducing us to Wisden.)
We've recently completed changes to our publishing process so that we can now economically repurpose many of those reference titles that Tim Coates mentions are ‘only available in book form’ and give them both accessibility to online users and valuable revenue for the publishers. "
Posted by Tim Coates at April 11, 2007 10:01 AM