The Status of the Irish Research eLibrary — Mary Pat Fallon
Abstract
The Irish Research eLibrary (IReL) is an admirable and ambitious national attempt to provide increased information access to scholars that was previously unattainable. This paper traces the development of the IReL and its impact on scholarly work in Ireland. It concludes with issues challenging the program today.
Introduction: Background and Rationale
Academic libraries have always operated in a fairly economically disadvantaged environment and are frequently the first to suffer budget cutbacks in times of difficult financial circumstances. Ireland today is experiencing such difficult circumstances after nearly two decades as Europe’s fastest growing economy. Always proud of its mythic, if clichéd, status of “the isle of saints and scholars,” Ireland since the 1990s has pushed a political agenda of expanding education as a means of both spurring and providing research and development for a private sector that was offering employment to the Irish labor force and investing in a highly technologically developed information infrastructure. But in the face of a near economic collapse and a €100 billion bailout by the European Union, Irish budgeting for higher education spending has been greatly reduced. Spending for academic libraries will, of course, be reduced.
High–level research during Ireland’s “Celtic Tiger” years was seen as both an objective academic good and a national economic imperative, and was part of a strategy to wrest Ireland from its agrarian past and its legacy of emigration and to develop a modern knowledge–based economy. Ireland aspired to be a world leader in information technology education as an adjunct to economic activity. With the lowest corporate tax rate in Europe and one of the EU’s best–educated workforces, the development of the “knowledge society” in a global economy has been one of the great successes of recent Irish Governments, and its policy on investment in research and graduate education has been central to that development [1].
It was within this political context that Irish universities between 2004 and 2008 faced a sudden and dramatic increase in the research resources available to them electronically, unprecedented in the history of Irish libraries, because of the IReL initiative. IReL — the Irish Research eLibrary — is a consortium of university research libraries funded by €2.471 billion of Irish Government money through two major agencies: the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and the Higher Education Authority/An tÚdarás um Ard–Oideachas (HEA). It was initially instituted to support research in Biotechnology and Information Technology in 2004 (funded by both SFI and HEA), and was expanded in 2006 to support research in the Humanities and Social Sciences (funded entirely by HEA). Since its inception, IReL has made available over 28,000 e–journals and other information resources (more than 40 million articles in full–text to researchers in all seven universities, with access to an additional 42,000 electronic books), at lower subscription costs than individual institutions could possibly afford, and has provided significant support for research and teaching [2].
Discussion: Successes
Since its genesis, IReL has been studied fairly closely, by both government and the academy measuring both cost efficiency and information outcomes, to judge the benefits of the consortium. The judgments have been fairly positive. Among the findings of several reports are the following descriptions of the impact of IReL:
Increased availability (and, as a result, use) of information while spreading the cost of information among seven member universities, thereby decreasing the cost per access.
The average cost per journal article accessed decreased by 6 percent from in 2005 to €1.94to €1.82 in 2006 [3].
The average cost per database search fell by 12 percent from €2.16 in 2005 to €1.90 in 2006 [4].
The number of downloads of articles accessed on individual journals increased by 50 percent, from 57 journals with downloads of 3,000 articles or more in 2005, to 84 individual journals with downloads of 3000 or more in 2006 [5].
User downloads of e–books increased more than twentyfold between 2005 and 2009, from 4,596 to 1,161,249 [6].
User database searches increased ten times in the same time frame, from 240,207 to 2,479,532 [7].
User downloads of full–text e–journals increased nearly fivefold, from 1,455,568 to 7,272,944 [8].
Overall usage of resources increased more than 600 percent between 2005 and 2009, from 1,700,371 to 10,913,724 downloads and searches [9].
5,424 surveyed IReL users indicated a positive impact on research, including:
80 percent cite easier and faster access to research information [10];
80 percent cite access to a wider range of literature than before IReL [11];
55 percent reported their own increased research activity [12];
37 percent believed that IReL opened up new areas for research [13];
87 percent believed that IReL has allowed for enhanced multidisciplinary research [14];
58 percent reported greater collaboration between institutions [15];
73 percent believe that IReL contributed to increased competitiveness of Irish research internationally [16].
And the impact of IReL could not be lost on either the Irish Government or the European Commission:
As of 2007, Ireland ranked sixth among European countries in scientists and engineers as a proportion of labor force (7.9 percent) [17].
Ireland ranked third among European countries in high–tech exports as a proportion of total exports (29 percent) [18].
There is very little question that IReL has been an unqualified success, as reflected not only in these data, but in the subjective statements of IReL users:
“Essential that this access is maintained if Ireland is to be a SMART economy!” “Access to the most up to date scientific research is a necessity not a perk in modern day academic research.” “IReL has transformed the way in which I do research. It has meant that I have the same access as researchers in larger, better funded universities.” “IReL has transformed research support in Ireland. It is indispensable.” “IREL keeps my research in Ireland, without access to literature I would leave the country.” “Electronic access has revolutionised my research capacity [19].” |
Challenges
Too much information? The increased number of e–journals and the amount of new information accruing as a result of the establishment of IReL has precipitated something of a crisis in library staffing. Identification, negotiation and acquisition of new electronic resources for IReL member institutions is carried out as a consortium. But it is up to each individual library within the consortium to process, make public, and promote these resources to their patrons. Crump reported that it would take the current cataloguing staff at the National University of Ireland at Galway 23 months to catalogue a single year of the resources made available by IReL in its first year online [20] (and this before the information resources budget at NUI Galway was reduced by 15 percent in September 2008). And even before IReL went online, Banush, Kurth, and Pajurek reported that e–journal publishing in general had “outstripped the library’s ability to keep up with it using traditional cataloguing methods” [21]. As Gotwals points out, “for most (university) libraries, needs go beyond the capacity of the operating budget provided by the institution” [22].
Utility versus timelessness? While Irish Government agencies have given due rhetorical respect to the Humanities and Social Sciences, there is a danger that the current (or future) economic viability of non–technical fields relative to their potential to make profit will fade in the face of research and development in industrial and information technologies. The Irish Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation proclaims “a belief in the intrinsic value of scholarship, both to democratic society and to the effective functioning of universities as communities of knowledge and discourse” [23]. Yet they also look upon the higher–education sector, rather than government or private institutions, as the major driver of public–sector research to the extent that a national research policy, of which IReL was and remains a major component, was seen as central to the economic development of Ireland. The Higher Education Authority, one of the two major government funding sources for IReL, notes that “there is an increasing need to develop a higher education research infrastructure which is open to industrial collaboration and is, to some extent at least, aligned with industrial development needs. Industry has very few other options to turn to, within Ireland, for assistance with technological problems” [24]. The Department of Trade, Enterprise, and Innovation makes a similar observation: “Talented, educated people are central to the knowledge society and the higher education system is the wellspring of advanced skills and learning … A higher education system which is strongly research and innovation oriented has the potential for mutually beneficial interaction with the enterprise sector” [25].
The potential for bias toward industrial research and development and toward education in general as adjuncts to industry is further exacerbated by the broadening of the free market. “Ireland is facing major challenges as its cost base rises and other lower cost, high–quality locations develop — China and Eastern Europe for manufacturing, and East–Asia and Eastern Europe for software. Recognition is now universal that we need to move to higher added–value activities, R&D in particular, if industry is to survive and develop here” [26].
At the same time, and as a result of the economic crisis plaguing Ireland and the rest of the developed world, reductions in public spending have presented the inevitable negative effects on academic library budgets. The information resources budget at NUI, Galway, for instance, has been reduced by 15 percent since September 2008 [27], with serious implications for non–industry–related collection development. The IReL is itself facing a potentially substantial reduction in its financial support by the Irish Government due to budgetary cuts affecting its two national funding agencies, one of which could soon withdraw completely from support of the IReL [28]. It is not inconceivable that the “privatization” of innovative consortia like IReL might, at some point, become necessary as governments, like Ireland’s, enact draconian budget cuts and populations demand fiscal responsibility and lower tax burdens. In such a case, it is equally conceivable that major stakeholders in the “higher education research infrastructure” — contributor’s to the HEA’s report “Building for Tomorrow” such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Intel, Lucent Technologies, Bristol–Myers/Squibb, Boston Scientific, Diageo, and many others — could have a major impact on the future definition of information. Professor Richard O’Kennedy of Dublin City University said of IReL that “the availability of this reference tool is vital for our research, for writing reviews and papers and for the development of concepts for new research initiatives” [29]. He was, it should be noted, speaking from the perspective of biotechnology. But he might have been talking from the perspective of philosophy, or history, or anthropology, or political science, or Irish literature.
Conclusion
The objectives of IReL are ambitious. The future of IReL is ambiguous.
On the one hand, IReL faces major challenges in both the economy and in its response to economic pressures. It has already been forced to cut back on some of its holdings and resources, and while it still enjoys some 105 electronic journal collections and databases, it has cancelled 21 databases and 91 journals [30]. The very ambition that drove the creation of IReL is difficult to sustain in periods of economic instability or downturn.
By the same token, the technologically–developed nations of the world recognize the value (in both the social and economic sense) of developing and sustaining research and development tools — and researchers and students who know how to use them — in countries like Ireland, barely a generation removed from widespread poverty and high unemployment. International bodies such as the Organization for Economic Co–operation and Development (OECD) have called for greater investment by industry in sustaining the information infrastructure that will keep Ireland on the road to building an “innovation economy” [31]. It is unlikely that Ireland will allow IReL to fall by the wayside, especially when the need for higher education has never been greater.
On the other hand, the proposition that “it is unlikely that Ireland will allow IReL to fall by the wayside” is not a guarantee that the Irish Government, saddled with the debt of an enormous European bailout, will be willing or able to fund higher education — and schemes like IReL — to the extent it did in the days of the “Celtic Tiger.” It may fall upon other stakeholders and beneficiaries — private sector and industrial funding sources — to “pick up the slack” and offset whatever budget cuts the Irish Government is forced to make.
There is very little question that the Irish Research Electronic Library has provided excellent service at relatively low cost to its members and their faculties and students and, by extension, companies doing business in Ireland and the Irish economy as a whole. In its two phases, Biotechnology and Information Technology and Humanities and Social Sciences, it has made more information available at lower costs, increased the use of information, spurred research activity and enhanced multidisciplinary research, facilitated greater collaboration among institutions of higher education, made Irish higher education more competitive with the rest of the world, and contributed to the pre–recession growth of the Irish economy.
What happens next? Future research should focus on the continued development of IReL with particular attention paid to funding, collection/resource management, and a fair distribution of resources among the technology disciplines and those of humanities and social sciences.
Notes
1. Avril Patterson, “Research support through resource sharing: challenges and opportunities for Irish academic libraries,” Interlending & Document Supply, 37/2 (2009): 87.
2. IReL (2007), IReL Impact Survey: Report and Analysis, IreL, Dublin, available at: www.irelibrary.ie/docs/IReL_Survey_Report.pdf (accessed November 27, 2010).
3. Robin Adams, “IReL: Irish Research electronic Library” (PowerPoint presentation), http://www.sconul.ac.uk/events/agm2008/presentations/adams.ppt (accessed January 12, 2011).
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. “IReL usage 2005–2009,” Irish Research electronic Library Web site, http://www.irelibrary.ie/images/IReL-Usage_2005-2009_linechart.JPG (accessed October 27, 2010).
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. John Cox, “IReL Impact Survey: summary of findings, April 2009,” p. 3, http://www.irelibrary.ie/files/IReLImpact09.pdf on the Web site of the Irish Research electronic Library, http://www.irelibrary.ie/about.aspx (accessed November 23, 2010).
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid., p. 6.
15. Ibid., p. 7.
16. Ibid.
17. European Commission. European Research Area, “Ireland: Major EU Achievements in Science and Research, 2002–2009,” p. 4, http://www.fp7ireland.com/cms/Documents/eu_research_2004-2009_irl_909.pdf (accessed January 12, 2011).
18. Ibid.
19. Cox (2009), op. cit., p. 4.
20. Monica Crump, “Portals, A to Z, OPAC: how best to provide access to our resources,” SCONUL Focus 43 (Spring 2008): 22.
21. D. Banush, M. Kurth and J. Pajarek, “Rehabilitating killer serials: an automated strategy for maintaining e–journal metadata,” Library Resources & Technical Services 49, no. 3 (2005): 194.
22. J. Gotwals, “Growing needs and limited budgets: the challenge of supporting print and electronic resources,” College & Research Libraries News 66, no. 4 (2005): 294–6, 300.
23. “Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation: 2006–2013,” Government of Ireland, Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation, 2006, p. 30, http://www.deti.ie/publications/science/2006/sciencestrategy.pdf (accessed December 28, 2010).
24. “Research infrastructure in Ireland — building for tomorrow,” The Higher Education Authority/An tUdaras um Ard-Oideachas (Ireland), 2007, p. 46, http://www.hea.ie/webfm_send/1639 (accessed January 1, 2011).
25. Government of Ireland, Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation: 26.
26. Ibid.
27. John Cox, “Sharing the pain, striving for gain,” Serials 23, no. 1 (March 2010): 12.
28. Ibid., p. 14.
29. “What do researchers think of IReL,” http://www.irelibrary.ie/files/What percent20do percent20researchers percent20think percent20of percent20IReL.doc (MS Word document), linked on “About IReL,” http://www.irelibrary.ie/about.aspx#doc (Accessed January 12, 2011).
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About the author
Mary Pat Fallon teaches at Dominican University’s Graduate School of Information Science. She has been at Dominican University since 1997, working as a librarian before joining the graduate school in 2006.