First let me make very clear that I am speaking today from a personal point of view, and my comments are not to be construed as those of the National Commission on Libraries. I am delighted to be here, and the subject of this conference is of great interest to me from policy and political points of view. Understand, I am not an academic librarian, even though some 50 years ago I started my career at the Baker Memorial Library, Dartmouth College.

Basically I am a retired director of a small urban county library system, a former library lobbyist for my state library association and county government, and much of my career has been in management and administration of public libraries. Somehow I managed to become a presidential appointee to the National Commission. I mention the latter, as it has much to do with political acumen. I am and have always been a political animal.

This is a skill that everyone here should acquire. Not just in terms of university or association politics, but to influence funding authorities and legislative bodies. Testimony is the only part of the political process. Being a member of your institution's legislative committee in determining priorities and working one-on-one with elected officials is very important for both private and publicly funded institutions. I am curious as to how many here, after reading an ALAWON, or even testifying before Congress on, say, intellectual property, have followed up with a letter or visit to your Senator or Congressman? Not an e-mail, but an actual letter hand-delivered to their local office with a request that it is sent to the Senator or Congressman. And the same can be said for dealing with state funding authorities, and your own academic hierarchy.

Preaching to the Converted

I have read with great fascination the papers for this conference. They are interesting, scholarly, and would probably bore finance directors and politicians to death. While you may be making sense, and I happen to think in many instances you are, you are still only talking to each other. Certainly, based on the rationale for this conference, you are not talking to those who control funding, those in Congress who control legislation, and lastly, the publishers. In addition I do not see where you are in negotiation with scholarly and scientific associations whose journals have been bought up by or sold to publishers.

From my reading of the conference papers, you all are still talking to yourselves, good ideas, good examples of cooperative programs, but somehow no one has really taken that leap from talk to a strategic plan and then to implementation.

In looking over the list of participants today, I see only one university president and one professor. No representatives of scholarly or scientific associations and no representatives of the scientific publishing field. Before you all rise up and stone me in the market place, please remember that I am a view from the outside, a voice not of the choir, and if my impressions are incorrect, then you have failed to make your case outside of your own peer group.

Information has become a valuable commodity. Until you begin to think like the private sector in how to address the issue of collection development and management in the digital era, you will never get beyond the talking stage. Not everyone can be king of the mountain. Once you are willing to compromise, establishing cooperative and collaborative endeavors can be achieved.

Several suggestions: Develop partnerships. Whoever said it is the sole responsibility of librarians to save the world of scientific research and publishing? So you are going to have to learn to think out of the box. The problem facing research libraries is not just a library problem; it is a societal problem. To address this you must look at the issue from the other side of the table, hone your negotiating skills, and learn how to write contracts. You may well want to remember that publishers have to sell products, and if you go beyond just talk, give up territorial imperatives, and be willing to develop partnerships with non-academic organizations, maybe, just maybe you will be on your way to solving your problems of increasing costs and decreasing funding. Publishing in the digital age can and will make for some strange bedfellows.

Many years ago, I had a very young and arrogant budget analyst who told me that he had lost much respect for me because I was willing to get down into the muck and the mire of politics in budget fights. First of all, I resent and will always resent the comment about the muck and the mire of politics because the majority of elected officials really want to do what is best for their constituents, sometimes under very difficult conditions. But they cannot if you, as a constituent cannot make your case. Speaking in platitudes about societal good, public good, etc., is just so much verbiage. On the other hand, if you can tie your needs to economic development or quality of life issues, you will have a stronger justification.

To do this you also will have to know the priorities of your institutions. If you cannot make a case that the library's need for additional funding will benefit both "town and gown", or that your need for additional funding will benefit the mission of the institution, you're dead in the water.

The Hinge Period

We are at what I call the hinge period, the hinge swinging between how we have done collection development in the past, and how we must do collection development and management in an electronic future. At this point I want to digress for a moment. In what I see as our mad rush to technology, we seem to have forgotten that the vast majority of the world's collective knowledge is maintained in print, and will probably never be digitized. And the techniques for permanent access, preservation, and archiving are still wedded to the printed word. Who is going to be responsible for maintaining permanent access, and for the archiving of information? What is the cost? Where is the strategic planning for orderly migration to as yet unknown technologies? Are our institutions spending scarce dollars for hardward and wiring when wireless is around the corner as a viable technology.

If we as librarians are morphing ourselves into information specialists, what is happening to such basics as reference advisory services and content knowledge? In fact, what is happening to our professional as a whole? Librarians bring the ability to evaluate information sources, print or electronic, and to direct the user to that which meets a specific need. If we just collect information in electronic format without the human interface between information and the user, we will go the way of the dodo bird. Considering the number of library schools that have disappeared, we may well be an endangered species.

Is it possible that the very specialized scientific or academic journals exist because of the need to publish or perish? What would happen if in being considered for tenure, publication of papers for conferences, etc., were given the same stature as publication in a peer reviewed journal? For that matter, adapt peer review to electronic publications. If faculty were your allies, could you not begin to change your institution's tenure policies? Instead of associations doing the peer reviews, have it done within the author's own institution by his or her peers and published by that institution either in print or online, bypassing the need to go to a for-profit publisher.

If the policies of an institution change, then how researchers publish electronically will also change and, of course, how peer review is done in the digital environment. You talk about it, but as yet I do not see anyone taking a leadership role in starting to implement needed changes.

I would like you to think about natural allies: faculty, students, and other types of libraries. Why have collection development or management librarians from public libraries not been invited? They also have the same concerns in terms of cost of online periodicals, and many collect and maintain the same journals as the academic research libraries.

Importance of Strategic Planning

A number of papers at this conference talk about cooperation, and there are some specific examples, but not one of the papers has gone into the strategic planning that created the contracts that established such cooperative programs, nor has there been any substantive description of organizational structures. We learn of the what and they why but not of the how.

For that matter, is it time that the Center for Research Libraries takes the lead in establishing a national archive for electronically published materials, both monographs and journals, as well as print materials? University of Kansas Provost David E. Shulenburger stated and I quote "It is time we … focus on panaceas, for this crisis is growing to the point that scholarship and education will be damaged significantly if we do nothing." This statement prefaced his proposal for a National Electronic Article Repository. Is this possibly the new role for CRL? Also, has anyone thought about the future role of OCLC, aside from OCLC?

In looking to the future, it is necessary to evaluate what is the most cost-beneficial way to archive and collection materials. Last week, the National Commission met with ASIS and after one of the sessions, I overheard a participant say never has microfilm looked better. In terms of permanent access, high tech may not be the best answer or the most economically feasible. For your institution, will the mad rush to technology provide better service to both faculty and students?

Initiating Change

I teach a certification class, distance education class, on library administration. I devote three sessions to the politics of budgets. Understanding how your institution functions, who sets the priorities, and the revenue and funding base for the institution is vital in any strategic planning. I also have my students read two books, The Art of War by Sun Tzu and The Prince by Machiavelli.

In The Prince Machiavelli states, "It should be borne in mind that there is nothing more difficulty to handle, more doubtful of success, and more dangerous to carry through than initiating changes in a state's constitution. The innovator makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old order and only lukewarm support is forthcoming from those who would prosper under the new. … To discuss this subject thoroughly, we must distinguish between innovators who stand alone and those who depend on others, that is between those who achieve their purposes can force the issue and those who must use persuasion. In the second case, they always come to grief, having achieved nothing; when, howsoever, they depend on their own resources and can force the issue, then they are seldom endangered."

In The Art of War there are five essentials for victory.

1. You will win when you know when to fight and when not to fight.
2. You will win when you know how to handle both superior and inferior forces.
3. You will win if your forces are animated by the same spirit throughout all ranks.
4. You will win if prepared, and wait to take your enemy unprepared.
5. If you know your enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of the battle. If you know yourself and not the enemy for every victory there will be a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

These are elements of the art of war and also of the art of politics.

I am sure that the reading I did for this short talk, as someone who is not a member of the choir, consists of the same articles you have either produced or read. It is just that, as a neo-Luddite, I am not necessarily wedded to technology. Technology is only a new tool we can use to do our business, but it is a tool that has forever changed how we will do our business, provide our services, and preserve our history. That is why you must be wedded to the absolute need to plan, develop new ways of doing business, reach out to non-traditional allies, and take a long and careful examination of what your mission really is, and then implement the necessary changes. Please, less talk and a little more action.

I would like to suggest an action plan template.

1. What is it you really want to accomplish?
2. How can you best achieve your goal?
3. What other organizations are working toward this same goal, and can you cooperate?
4. Who will benefit?
5. What funding and resources are required? Are they available and, if not, where can you obtain them?
6. How can you determine when you have accomplished your goal?

While my comments are personal, I plan on learning from this conference and will take back to the National Commission's Committee on Journal Pricing my notes and suggestions for possible future policy recommendations.

In looking at the assembled group I believe I may be the oldest, and my career of more than 50 years predates technology and predates the MLS and/or the MIS. So I will leave you on a cautionary note. Technology is just fine and dandy until the power goes out. Therefore, I suggest you go to your library and borrow a book titled Alas Babylon.