Thanks for this very helpful reply. I think I now see better how our perspectives here differ, and I think it comes down to how we each imagine the “gateway” role operating.

Although we did not specify the “gateway” services we intended, my belief is that they incorporate discovery and search resources, such as A&I databases, Google Scholar, meta-search engines, the library OPAC, WorldCat, PubMed, archival finding aids, and of course reference librarians.

While many of these services are provided directly by the library or at least paid for by the library, in other cases they are provided by outside organizations. If the discovery tool was provided by Google, the NLM, RePec, or another outside entity to which the library pays nothing, then it would be reasonable for some faculty members to see the importance of the library’s gateway functions to be in decline - even while they recognize the library’s ongoing importance in purchasing resources for their use.

And there is much strategic relevance to these “gateway” services. Even to the extent that faculty members underestimate the resources and expertise that the library actually invests in providing search and discovery services, their perceptions here may still matter.
High-quality, individually-tailored gateway services are desperately needed but extraordinarily difficult and expensive to provide. If the faculty believe that the library provision of these services is declining in importance to them, the library will find it harder to argue successfully that it should be provided with resources to invest in such services. And of course, if in fact others have successfully competed with the library in providing these services to faculty members, then the library’s dilemma of whether to compete more aggressively or concede in some cases to outside competitors is very much before us.

I hope this helps to clarify our interpretation of the survey findings.
Thank you for the opportunity to have such a fruitful exchange on these important topics.

Best,

Roger

Thanks for commenting. First, let me apologize - in attempting to dispute some of the phrasing of the quote in the Chronicle article (specifically, the idea that resources are being “bypassed”), I unfairly conflated the report and that quote. Compounding this is the fact that I overlooked the definition section of that footnote (or didn’t internalize it, at the very least), and subsequently mischaracterized what “library research” means in the context of your study. I do apologize for that. However, you pose good questions, so I will still attempt to address the remainder of your comment.

To address your second question, regarding the distinction between purchaser and gateway, as I said I simply felt that the distinction felt somewhat artificial (noting, however, that your respondents evidently clearly saw a difference).If I can try to boil down this notion of mine into something resembling coherence: the issue as I see it is that the act of purchasing or licensing the resources is the gateway service, without which there is no access (or no access the researcher really wants to arrange for, as it would be expensive to them).

As an example, in my experience, requests for new resources carry the implicit assumption that the library will also act as the gateway for their use. For example, when I am asked to acquire a database for, say, geological sciences, the implication is also that we will provide access to that resource (or perhaps more specifically, it’s access-limited content).

I suppose in the simplest terms: if a science researcher (for the sake of argument) begins his research in a science-focused electronic resource paid for by the library, even if he did not get there by way of the library’s website, how is the library not the starting point for his research? This material is a library resource and would probably not be accessible without the library’s acquisition (or would pose a financial barrier to access that the researcher would not want to surmount). In that sense, I think that regardless of how seamless the researcher’s experience is, it starts with the library. He may not think of it that way - which is part of the communication/visibility issue that I think is so central - but it is mediated by the library nonetheless.

Again, I don’t think the results of the report or its methodology are flawed - I’ve seen the same things, anecdotally, that the report confirms. I think it’s fascinating that that the respondents valued the library’s financial role more highly than its access/gateway role. However, to me, separating the gateway function and the financial function conceptually was not so easily done.

Thanks again for your comment - I appreciate you challenging me to clarify my thoughts.

-Chris

Thanks for your interest in our study. A couple of reactions.

You are right to point out that we do not directly address “devotion” to the library among faculty, but rather we used the following approach to reach the findings in question. Our questionnaire asked faculty members, “How important is it to you that your college or university library provides each of the functions below or serves in
the capacity listed below?” We then provided three functions, one of which was “The library is a starting point or ‘gateway’ for locating
information for my research.” In no way was the language of this question, or our interpretation of it, restricted to the physical library building or print-related services.

As we have observed, the faculty responses to this function differ starkly by discipline, with scientists and economists valuing the “gateway” function as much less important than do most humanists. Many observers believe that the gateway function is at the core of the value that libraries add to the faculty experience as a user. If they are correct, then our findings may raise important questions about whether for these disciplines the gateway service is valuable but not perceived as valued - in which case there is a communications problem - or whether the services themselves are declining in importance for the work of these faculty members - in which case we should be asking how libraries should better direct their limited resources.

I would like to learn a little bit more about your statements: “However, faculty do wish to enjoy library-mediated access to those resources (and they get it, often no matter where their search actually starts). To me, this blurs the (somewhat artificial) distinction between ‘gateway’ and ‘purchaser.’” Elsewhere you mention the importance of faculty receiving “seamless access” to resources that are purchased. That would seem to me to suggest that the distinction between the buyer and gateway function is actually quite clear. Can you explain what you mean here, in particular about the blur between the buyer and gateway functions?

Thank you again for your interest in our work.

Best,
Roger

You can’t. There isn’t enough there to sell, with most repositories.

What you need to be able to sell are services, keeping in mind that “preservation” and “increased citations” are just not services that faculty have been shown to value. The best advice I have is to figure out what services you want to offer that faculty would bite on, figure out the gaps between those services and what you actually can offer, plug them, and then go forth and market.

This is hard. A lot of libraries got into this business thinking that repos would more or less run and fill themselves without much intervention. That didn’t pan out, so some of us are going around for Round 2. For a good example of a Round 2 repository, look at Ohio State.

This isn’t just a problem, it’s THE problem when talking to many antsy faculty. They would love to have storage for in-progress work, but they’re hyper-competitive and hyper-paranoid. And if you don’t give them storage for the in-progress work (which is when they actually perceive they need it), they don’t care about storage for the final result, which is obviously a problem for an IR!

I think the trick is convincing people the workflow should change! But if there’s real value in the new workflow we present, then I think that trick is a little easier to pull off. Your point is well taken.