Collections have always been at the core of library services. Yet librarians are devoting extraordinary attention to collection development these days, and for good reason. In fact, TS/SIS and ALL/SIS are co-sponsoring a roundtable discussion on collection development at the AALL Annual Meeting, Monday, July 19, 1999, from 4:45 - 6 p.m.; Rachel Pergament of University of Southern California Law Library, and Frank Lee of Latham & Watkins, will introduce key collection development topics, and set the stage for an exciting conversation among attendees.

We are witnessing today a startling transformation in the nature of our library collections and in the ways in which we build and maintain them. A number of factors inform this transformation: the rise of the digital legal information market, a surge in the number of information products on the market, the internationalization of legal practice, the trend toward monopolization in the publishing industry, unprecedented price inflation, farreaching organizational change in law firms and law libraries, and the unyielding pace of technological development. A survey of recent library science literature and recent conversations with colleagues suggest that librarians have a discernible set of collection development issues on their minds — and their desktops.¹

Integrating Electronic Resources into Our Collections
First, librarians have worked remarkably hard to prepare themselves for selecting electronic resources. They have devoted time and resources to training themselves about electronic technology. They have had to learn the criteria for evaluating electronic resources, which include usability and functionality, compatibility with existing local technology, impacts on library services, permitted users and uses, security and authentication, longterm access, and the need for technical staff support. Librarians then have had to integrate these criteria into their existing collection policies. Yet electronic resources also require a reorganization of selection processes, since most digital products call for collective decision-making: subject specialists, public services staff, catalogers, serials/acquisitions staff, attorneys, and technology personnel all need to contribute in order for an electronic selection choice to be successful. Clearly, the preparation for and implementation of electronic selection harbor great personnel and time costs. Moreover, once a selection decision has been made, libraries have to decide how to provide bibliographic access to the resource. This entails developing special bibliographic control policies and procedures. Intellectual control over electronic resources frequently involves new tasks — and labor costs — for cataloging departments, such as verifying URLs.

Choosing the Appropriate Format for an Information Resource
Given a range of media and format choices for many legal information products, librarians need to be able choose the right medium and format for their library context. Librarians must train themselves in the selection criteria for several information formats. Multiformat choices often involve a collective decision-making process, which entails high personnel costs. In addition, such choices can require librarians very carefully to consider economic factors — such as cost-peruse — that played a less significant role in the predominantly print environment.

Meeting the Needs of Remote Patrons
As more and more library patrons require access to information resources from outside the physical walls of the library, librarians need to build collections that meet these patrons' needs. Licensing electronic resources is often an important part of the answer, but licensing entails many challenges, including pricing, security, technology, and access. Negotiating access to remote physical library collections is often part of the solution, as well.

The Transformation of Librarians' and Vendors' Tools
Not only the composition of the collection, but the tools librarians and vendors use to build and maintain the collection, are being altered by technology and other factors. Most publishers offer electronic catalogs or publications lists on their Web sites. Listservs, electronic news sources, and e-mail notification services such as that provided by Amazon.com facilitate title discovery. Via the Internet, libraries can access massive bibliographic databases such as OCLC, RLIN, Books in Print, or Amazon.com, or search other libraries' online catalogs. New tools such as IndexMaster offer desktop access to specialized bibliographic information. Vendors, too, offer electronic versions of catalogs, as well as approval slip services. Internetbased approval services broaden the collection development conversation in intriguing ways: for example, they permit library patrons to take a more active role in collection development, by allowing them to flag and annotate desired titles. E-mail communication also helps more stakeholders participate in collection building.

Coping with Price Inflation and Cost Consciousness
Law firms, courts, and law schools are all more business-like than ever before. Librarians must justify all of their expenditure decisions, especially those regarding collections. Yet traditional ways of evaluating library collection quality — such as the number of tangible volumes — have less meaning as our electronic "holdings" grow in number and significance. A great challenge for librarians is, as Gloriana St. Clair contends, to create "new assessment measures that reflect concerns and outcomes, rather than inputs."² Severe price inflation also poses difficulties for librarians. The movements toward monopolization and digitization in the legal information market result in unprecedented cost increases for many resources. Such inflation presents librarians with very difficult choices, especially as the number of print versions — which are in certain cases more cost effective than electronic formats — dwindles.

Cooperative Collection Building and Consortial Subscriptions
Two ways that librarians cope with price pressures are by pursuing cooperative development of collections in all formats, and by collectively subscribing to electronic products. Regional catalogs and interlibrary loan systems support cooperation between institutions to achieve many cost savings in collection development, for example through contracts with jobbers and approval vendors, and the division of subject-based collection responsibilities among institutions. In addition, consortial licensing can make electronic resources affordable to many libraries that could not support individual subscriptions. Yet access through a consortium frequently means a loss of control over the selection process, and the necessity of accepting features that do not accommodate the needs of one's local clientele.

Licensing Issues
Along with the loss of physical control over information products, libraries are increasingly relinquishing the legal control that copyright afforded to purchasers of tangible information resources. Nearly all commercial electronic resources are licensed and not sold. Librarians know well that the rights of subscribers provided by the terms of a licensing agreement can be much narrower than their rights under copyright law. Librarians are training themselves to scrutinize licenses, and to negotiate the most favorable licensing terms with vendors.

Preservation and Archiving Concerns
Long-term access to electronic resources is a signal concern of librarians. CD-ROM technology will likely be superceded in a few years, and electronic resources in proprietary formats have limited lifespans. Given the lack of revenue potential and the high costs of reliable electronic preservation, few commercial publishers or vendors will commit to providing long-term access to their digital products. Library organizations are working diligently to develop standards, policies and procedures for electronic preservation, but they face great obstacles, including intellectual property restrictions and a lack of cooperation from publishers.

The Growing Importance of Foreign & International Resources
In addition to technological innovation, the internationalization of legal practice is contributing mightily to the transformation of law library collections. Attorneys, public patrons, and law school faculty and students increasingly find that their work requires access to legal materials of non-U.S. jurisdictions. Law library collections therefore embrace more foreign and international materials. The price of non-U.S. information resources frequently surpasses that of domestic resources, however. The vast store of free or low-cost non-U.S. legal information available on the Internet represents an invaluable complement to local legal collections, though it also evokes concerns about current and long-term access and intellectual control.

The Interdisciplinarity of Legal Practice
Just as legal collections are growing multi-jurisdictional, so too are they becoming more interdisciplinary. An evermore integrated economy forces attorneys and legal scholars to refer continually to information in subjects such as business, the natural sciences, engineering, and medicine. Librarians must consequently devote scarce funds to adding non-legal resources to their collections. Again, free and low-cost Internet resources expand the boundaries of the legal collection, but also possess the drawbacks mentioned above.

Physical Space Constraints
Expanding print and microform holdings and the downsizing of law firms compel law librarians frequently to consider space in selection and collection planning decisions. In some cases, format selection may be driven primarily by the space constraints of the physical library.

These challenges seem daunting indeed. Yet the law library community has employed cooperation and information sharing to meet these challenges astonishingly well in these early days of technological transition. We must continue to share our efforts and our knowledge in order to safeguard our collections, and our role in building and maintaining them, into the new millennium.

Notes

^1. Some recent works on collection development that treat the issues discussed in this article include: Thomas E. Nisonger, "Playing the Game While Writing the Rules: The Impact of Electronic Technology on Collection Development Planning", 23 Libr. Collections, Acquisitions & Technical Services 116 (1999); Rob Richards, "Licensing Agreements: Contracts, the Eclipse of Copyright, and the Promise of Cooperation", The Acquisitions Librarian, forthcoming in 1999; Towards a New Vision of Reference: Kaleidoscopic Collections and Real Librarians. American Library Association, Reference & User Services Association Occasional Papers no. 23 (Rob Richards and Kathleen M. Kluegel eds., 1998); Law Library Collection Development Policies: Policy Documents and Resources (Rob Richards comp., last modified Oct. 9, 1998) http://www.colorado.edu/Law/lawlib/ts/aall/policies.htm; Robert P. Holley, Cooperative Collection Development: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, Collection Mgmt, 23:4, 1998, at 19; Milton T. Wolf & Marjorie E. Bloss, Without Walls Means Collaboration, 17 Info. Tech. & Libr. 212 (1998); Milton T. Wolf, Cooperative Collection Management: Online Discussion, Collection Mgmt., 23:4, 1998, at 59; John Webb, Managing Licensed Networked Electronic Resources in a University Library, 17 Info. Tech. & Libr. 198 (1998); Peggy Johnson, A Primer on Collection Management, Technicalities, Oct. 1998, at 1; Monica Fusich, Collectiondevelopment.com: Using Amazon.com and Other Online Bookstores for Collection Development, 59 College & Research Libr. News 659; Gloria Miccioli, Using the Internet as a Selection Tool - Amazon.com and Beyond, L. Libr. Resource Xchange (last modified Nov. 19, 1998) http://www.llrx.com/features/selection.htm; Barbara Buckner Higginbotham, Who's Responsible for the Preservation of Electronic Information?, Technicalities, June 1998, at 1; Peter S. Graham, Long-Term Intellectual Preservation, Collection Mgmt, 22:3/4, 1998, at 81; Peggy Johnson, Collection Policies for Electronic Resources, Technicalities, June 1998, at 10; Maureen Pastine, What Library Directors Want Collection Development Librarians to Know, Against the Grain, Apr. 1998, at 20; Curt Holleman, From Field of Dreams to The Godfather: Collection Development Today, Against the Grain, Apr. 1998, at 1; Rob Richards, A Feast of Formats: Challenges to Choosing the Right Medium for Legal Information, Against the Grain, Sept. 1997, at 52. I must also acknowledge Margie Axtmann's vital insights on collection development, which are incorporated in our presentation, The Internet and Its Impact on Technical Services: Marvelous Prospects, Mixed Results, at the South Western Association of Law Libraries' Annual Meeting, Denver, Colorado (Apr. 8, 1999) http://www.Colorado.EDU/Law/lawlib/ts/tsnet/.