data management issues

Some very interesting thoughts here, even though both these articles are from the 1970's, I found both to be very pertinent to today's issues. Is interlibrary loan a good alternative to the problems of funding a collection? Does the cost outweigh the benefit and how good is your customer service if your patrons routinely have to wait 5+ days for their material? One idea was expressed by Stencel (1979), a regional sharing plan: periodical center. Apparently this was an idea discussed back in 1977-1979. I am unclear why it was not implemented as this article reports the findings were positive. It is an intruiging concept. The patron would have to travel farther, but would have the resources of a well stocked library, and this would be in contrast to a library that no longer has half the holdings that it once did, or a library that has such limited hours of operation, that it is no longer as helpful as it once was. The article also mentions (yes, I realize this was 1979, but its still an interesting point).
Observers have also detected a marked shift in library expenditures from books to
periodicals. A survey of 79 research libraries showed that in 1970 they spent $77.9 million
for all materials and bought 7.9 million books. In 1975 the same libraries spent $106.3 million
on materials, but bought only 6.9 million books.
My college has numbers that have not moved a whole lot in the past few years. In 2004, holdings were at 89,842 and in 2007 they were at 97,531 as opposed to periodicals, which in 2004 were at 400, and in 2007, were at 445. This is a slight increase, but clearly the college I work at (Okaloosa Walton) is continuing to build its book collection. ILL numbers are also up, from 921 to 1,063. That seems pretty much on par with the periodical/book ratio. Is the way of the future ILL? It seems to me a great deal of money. Perhaps the central library regional sharing plan is a concept worth exploring. There is a great deal of talk in my area about local libraries beginning to charge. If that's my choice or having no library, then I guess I'll pay.
Any thoughts out there?

Stencel, S. (1979). Librarie's financial squeeze. Editorial reports 1979 (Vol.II). Washington: CQ Press.
Retrieved April 9, 2008 from CQ Electronic Library, CQ Researcher Online.