Libraries are integrating Web 2.0 services into work practices, positioning themselves in online social environments, and deploying enhanced search and discovery tools. Collections conversely are not progressing to the same degree. Like many public services today, library budgets are stained. User-pay options are appearing in library systems, suggesting that one day answering a reference question with “You can buy it here” will not be taboo. Though libraries have been successful in pushing traditional content suppliers to innovate with interoperability in mind, retail direct-to-consumer vendors do not have libraries on their radar. Price/demand curves are unknown, and libraries are not talking to direct-to-consumer vendors. A user-pay collection development path may destroy our brand image, develop a knowledge divide, speed up the commercialization of information, result in library funding cuts, and undermine the open-access movement. Easy-pay downloads are going to challenge our definition of collections—sooner than we can imagine.
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