Search results

Academic library consortia activity has become an integral part of academic libraries’ operations. Consortia have come to assert considerable bargaining power over publishers and have provided libraries with considerable economic advantage. They interact with publishers both as consumers of publishers’ products, with much stronger bargaining power than individual libraries hold, and, increasingly, as rival publishers themselves. Are consortia changing the relationship between academic libraries and publishers? Is the role of academic library consortia placing academic libraries in a position that should and will attract the attention of competition policy regulators? Competition policy prohibits buying and selling cartels that can negatively impact the free market on which the Canadian economic system, like other Western economies, depends. Competition policy as part of economic policy is, however, only relevant where we are concerned with aspects of the market economy. Traditionally, public goods for the greater social and cultural benefit of society are not considered part of the market economic system. If the activities of academic library consortia are part of that public good perspective, competition policy may not be a relevant concern. Using evidence gained from in-depth interviews from a national sample of university librarians and from interviews with the relevant federal government policy makers, this research establishes whether library consortia are viewed as participating in the market economy of Canada or not. Are consortia viewed by librarians and government as serving a public good role of providing information for a greater social and cultural benefit or are they seen from a market-economic perspective of changing power relations with publishers? Findings show government has little in-depth understanding of academic library consortia activity, but would most likely consider such activity predominantly from a market economic perspective. University librarians view consortia from a public good perspective but also as having an important future role in library operations and in changing the existing scholarly publishing paradigm. One-third of librarian respondents felt that future consortia could compete with publishers by becoming publishers and through initiatives such as open source institutional repositories. Librarians also felt that consortia have had a positive effect on librarians’ professional roles through the facilitation of knowledge building and collaboration opportunities outside of the home institution.

The purpose of this paper is to report on research that examined the potential affects of academic library consortia activity on the scholarly publishing cycle.

Semi‐structured interviews of 30 university librarians from across Canada and representatives from six federal government agencies involved in university funding, copyright and competition policy, were used to examine consortia activity in the broad context of the scholarly publishing cycle from the competing perspectives of the market economy and the public good. The principles of competition and copyright were used to define the theoretical premise of the research.

University librarians primarily see consortia activity as supporting academic libraries' public good role of providing access to information as equitably and as barrier‐free as possible. They saw consortia as more than just buying clubs, but also as a means for libraries to share resources and expertise. Federal government agency representatives saw consortia activity firmly anchored in the market economy, levelling the playing field between libraries and publishers, and providing libraries opportunities to leverage their budgets.

This research was unique to the Canadian situation of federal funding of universities and only a sampling of university librarians was feasible.

The results show a need to educate librarians and government funding bodies and policy makers as to the goals and outcomes of consortia activity.

At the time of the defence of the thesis this work had not been done before.

Stephen H. Aby is professor and education bibliographer at The University of Akron. He has an MLS from Kent State University, a Ph.D. in Foundations of Education from SUNY-Buffalo, and a B.A. and M.A. in Sociology from the University of Texas and the University of Houston, respectively. He is past president of the University of Akron chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), chair of the Ohio Conference AAUP Committee A on Academic Freedom, and a current member of the AAUP national Council. His books include The Academic Bill of Rights Debate: A Handbook (Praeger, 2007).

From the beginning, Advances in Library Administration and Organization has sought to develop a body of research literature that could, at once, contribute to the base of organizational theory upon which library administrators rely. The intention is to bring to light good scholarship that strengthens and reinforces the base of knowledge library administrators have on hand. Librarians are very good at working pragmatically to solve difficult problems, but they have been less good at explaining to themselves and to others how and why they do what they do and what they contribute to the common good. That was why I jumped at the chance to provide an article for Volume 2 of the series, agreed to help edit ALAO beginning with Volume 13, and now, along with my co-editors, present to you Volume 28. Through these many years, I have enjoyed the opportunity to help make this series what it has become, in addressing the challenge it has presented to find people who think about how libraries and library administrators work and to bring their ideas to the public. This volume follows a pattern to which you have become accustomed. It includes seven studies from the United States and Canada on topics relating to problems library managers face and strategies that might be of value in addressing those challenges. As always, we the editors hope that you find them interesting and as thought-provoking as we have.

Many companies have found that the presumed benefits of organizational change initiatives, such as TQM or team working, have not been forthcoming because managers have failed to support those developments through the simultaneous adaptation of the company’s performance evaluation and control systems. This paper reports new research sponsored by the EPSRC which has developed a prototype practitioner methodology to help managers in their role as organizational designers to critically appraise and diagnose current organizational control practices and, where appropriate, intervene.

This paper reports on research currently being undertaken into change in performance evaluation and control systems. Case study research involving the use of repertory grids, in‐depth interviews and observation has been undertaken to examine the impact of these systems on behaviour and the potentially problematic nature of change in performance evaluation and control systems. This contrasts with previous research which has often assumed that such systems can be treated almost as easily manipulable independent variables. The case study illustrates the ways in which performance evaluation and control systems provide a formative context which means that change can be difficult to achieve and requires an understanding of the cultural assumptions underpinning both current and desired systems.

An emerging stream of literature has observed that project-based organizations rely increasingly on a network of collaborations originating from the ongoing process of creating and dissolving relationships that bring new project opportunities. Project-based networks are widespread in knowledge-intensive and creative industries, such as life-science and biotechnology, nanotechnology, and software, film, and music industry. This chapter examines the structural characteristics of project-based network-ties in German biotech. We focus on the consequences of local versus international network ties for the innovative success of German biotechnology firms. The findings of our longitudinal event history analysis indicate that the most valuable learning drivers are international research alliances and centrality within the international research network. Surprisingly, we do not find any local effects: neither the density of a local research cluster, nor its diversity or age is of significance. Our results shed new light on the relevance of international linkages for firms that are engaged in project-based learning networks.

For the past 20 years, the field of production and operations management (POM) has tried to establish itself as a discipline distinct from operations research (OR), management science (MS) and industrial engineering (IE). Sceptics argue that POM has failed to develop its own body of literature, lacks a distinct intellectual structure and that there is little appreciation of what it stands for. In this paper we use bibliometric techniques (a factor analysis of co‐citations) to investigate the intellectual pillars of the POM literature and explore whether these are distinct from those commonly associated with its rival fields. We also use simple non‐parametric techniques to show that the research agenda of European POM scholars differs substantially from that of their North American counterparts, and argue that such transatlantic differences may have exacerbated the difficulties POM has experienced in developing as a respected academic discipline.