Many thanks to everyone who submitted a written response, commented via this blog or attended a meeting or focus group session during the last fortnight.

The written submissions are available from the main Information Futures web site.

Over the next 10 days we will revise the strategy and seek further input from the University’s senior executives and from the Information Futures Commission’s Steering Committee.

The completed strategy will be presented to the 26 June meeting of Academic Board for endorsement, then to the 14 July meeting of University Council.

An implementation plan will be presented to the Planning and Budget Conference at the end of July.

1. Progress Report from the Commission’s Steering Committee
2. Melbourne’s Information Future: one possible strategy

The documents outline the Commission’s work to date and describe some long-term options for the University’s library, archive and cultural collections; research data management; IT support for research activities; collections of information created for learning and teaching purposes; scholarly outputs such as theses and journal articles; and the support services and human capabilities required to create, acquire, use and manage all of these.

The documents are available for downloading from the main Information Futures web site, or in a ‘commentable’ format on this weblog (see the “Progress Report” and “Draft Strategy” links in the navigation bar at the top of this page.)

We encourage you to read and comment on the documents.

Of particular interest are the five “strategic questions and difficult choices” identified in the Progress Report:

1. What type of library or libraries should we have?
2. What should be in the libraries?
3. Who can use our libraries?
4. How ‘open’ do we want to be?
5. How should we organise ourselves to achieve our aspirations?

Ways to respond

• Read the Draft Strategy on this blog and leave your comment/s on the relevant pages
• Download the documents from the main Information Futures web site (where you will also find lots of background information about the initial consultation phase and its results)
• Send your comments to the Commission’s project team
• Invite a member of the project team to speak to your committee or group meeting

Deadline for comments

The review period ends on Friday 6 June.

What happens after 6 June

Your feedback will be used to refine a 10-year strategy for the University’s scholarly information and technologies.

The revised strategy will be presented at the June meeting of Academic Board and the July meeting of University Council.

A funding proposal will be submitted to the Planning and Budget Committee’s mid-year conference.

“Scholars in all fields are taking advantage of the wealth of online information, tools, and services to ask new questions, create new kinds of scholarly products, and reach new audiences. The Internet lies at the core of an advanced scholarly information-intensive collaborative research. These developments exist within a rapidly evolving social and policy environment, as relationships shift among scholars, publishers, librarians, universities, funding agencies, businesses, and other stakeholders. Scholarship in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities is evolving, but at different rates and in different ways… This is an opportune moment to think about what we should be building.” (Borgman, preface, page xvii)

This quote from Professor Christine L Borgman, Professor and Presidential Chair in Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles is from the preface of her work on scholarship in a digital age.

The Information Futures Commission was formed to explore this very notion: what should we be building? The work of the Commission is to develop a strategy that positions the University as a leader in the application of scholarly information and technologies to underpin next-generation research, teaching, learning and knowledge transfer, binding the strands to achieve the Growing Esteem vision.

We began by asking many questions — questions for which we knew there would not always be an obvious answer. Through the consultation process we heard many exceptional, thoughtful responses that reflect the diversity of our University community. That community has acknowledged the importance of this conversation, but also struggled with the complexity of the issues.

We begin this report by briefly describing the environment in which we operate. We follow with a summary of what we have learned from our community and from assessments of the world in which we operate and our place within that world.

We conclude with an analysis of the key points of agreement and, more importantly, the strategic questions and difficult choices. These are the matters where no clear consensus has emerged, where there will need to be informed debate and discussion, where trade-offs must be made, where the University will ultimately have to make some perhaps challenging decisions.

Attached to the Progress Report is an initial Draft Information Future Strategy. This has been developed to assist and inform the debate, drawing on all we have learned so far. The draft strategy is a starting point. Its final form will be determined by the choices we make, based upon your advice and involvement. The draft document proposes some principles to guide to the development and implementation of the ultimate strategy. The principles are followed by an example strategy for Melbourne’s information future – a strategy that seeks to ensure Melbourne can compete in a global knowledge economy by building upon its unique strengths.

This Progress Report and Draft Information Future Strategy are presented to elicit your comments, which will help to shape the final strategy that will be presented to Academic Board in June and University Council in July.

How to respond

Following its presentation to Academic Board in May this Progress Report and the attached Draft Strategy will be released for comment by the University community.

These documents and further relevant information will be available on the Information Futures web site.

During the two-week review period following the Academic Board meeting, the Information Futures Commission will convene a series of focus group sessions and host an open consultation forum for students and staff.

The review period will close on Friday 6 June 2008.

Your response to this report would be appreciated. Please leave a comment on this weblog or contact the project team directly.

The Vice-Chancellor launched the Commission in late January 2008 at an event attended by over 200 people. A month later the Commission published a Consultation Paper and issued an open call for submissions. Over 900 copies of the Consultation Paper were downloaded from the web site and 450 printed copies were distributed.

During March and April we sought ideas and input from the University community and from external stakeholders. We hosted two open consultation forums. Four Information Futures Forums featured international and national expert speakers and attracted hundreds of attendees both in person and online.

The Commission’s web site and weblog have attracted almost 7000 visits and 14,000 pageviews. Students and staff offered comments on the blog and sent emails via the web site. An online survey asked individuals to describe their information seeking and management strategies and their view of an ideal future state. The survey attracted more than 130 responses, mainly from academic staff and graduate students.

We consulted widely with individuals and discipline-related groups. Deans and senior faculty staff were interviewed and presentations were delivered at meetings of 15 faculty and University committees. Discussions were held with representatives of several external organisations and special-interest groups, including the Council of Australian University Librarians and the Council of Australian Directors of IT.

In late April six exploratory workshops involved more than 30 volunteer students and staff.

We received 72 written submissions from faculties, groups, individuals and external organisations, including a submission from University College London’s Director of Library Services, who was a recent visitor. Written submissions are published on the Information Futures web site.

The internal Expert Panel met weekly throughout this process, providing invaluable guidance, encouragement and critical feedback. We also benefited from regular contributions by Richard Katz, Vice-President of EDUCAUSE and an External Reviewer for the Commission, and early feedback from Dame Lynne Brindley, CEO of the British Library.
In total, more than 300 people participated in the initial consultation phase.

This report heralds the second stage of the Commission’s work, in which we synthesise what we have learned and offer an initial draft of an Information Future Strategy. This report and the draft strategy will be released for comment by the University community following the May meeting of Academic Board. In May and June 2008 we will hold focus groups and other meetings to review and test the draft strategy. Input from this review process will be used to further refine the strategy.

The improved strategy will be presented to the Commission’s Steering Committee, Academic Board and University Council for final review. An implementation plan will be submitted to the Planning and Budget Committee’s mid-year conference.

The amount of information published each year continues to grow. The digital universe in 2007 was about 281 billion gigabytes in size, and predicted to double by 2011. Two-thirds of the 23,000 active, refereed scholarly journals available globally are now published online. In this digital world, printed works are produced at a greater rate than ever before. More than three thousand new books are published daily, with an estimated three billion books published in 2006, an increase of 0.5 per cent on 2005 figures. The cost of editing and refereeing scholarly works remains relatively high and publishers’ prices have increased markedly in the last decade. Most universities are able to acquire only a small fraction of the world’s scholarly works, though cooperative partnerships can extend an institution’s access to academic materials.

In this digital networked world there are few barriers to self-publishing and almost anyone can access this published material. There is an illusion that information is free. Public search engines, user-generated content and the increasing ubiquity of Internet-enabled computing are challenging the traditional sources and notions of authority.

Scholarship is changing in many ways, in the quotidian practice if not in the intellectual substance. The Internet is an important research tool, with a rapid increase in the use of data, databases and datasets as both inputs to and outputs from research. Massive computing capacity enables researchers to tackle massively complex problems in new ways. Collaborations spanning disciplinary, organisational and national boundaries are becoming commonplace. There is increasing pressure from funding agencies to ensure that research outputs and research data are made as widely available as possible through initiatives like Open Access repositories.

Researchers can now download and use original data created by others, and teachers can repurpose objects created by others, far more easily and quickly than in the past. Digital information can be copied, transmitted and manipulated, transformed and combined cheaply from almost anywhere in the world, and the price of transmission is usually independent of the destination. Just as libraries have been regarded as essential research infrastructure, so now are high-bandwidth networks, large data stores and high performance computer infrastructure.

Researchers, teachers and students can be co-creators of new and synthesised knowledge in ways not previously possible, raising interesting questions about the structure of academic work. The digital world has changed what we can do with information. Copyright and other intellectual property rights are about what we may do with information and increasingly these concepts are being challenged by what is possible. It seems likely the regulatory environment will become more complex, at least in the medium term.

Teaching spaces can now enable more than a one-way lecture, and are equipped with multimedia equipment and furniture designed for interaction and group work. Learning spaces and libraries are no longer reserved for solo endeavours: increasingly, students prefer and are encouraged to work collaboratively, requiring a mix of spaces that enable silent, quiet or loud study modes and that are flexible enough to adapt to different purposes as needed.

Many universities are grappling with these issues. Few have taken an holistic view of the scholarly information and communication process, instead looking through a particular lens at the disruptive changes that are occurring. Some are questioning what their library future should be, others what approach they wish to take to Open Access, many are beginning to worry about the emerging challenges of research data management and curation, and others are questioning what level of investment to make in information infrastructure, in buildings or how to structure their services. Each institution is crafting its own solution based upon its own research and teaching priorities, its history, its current state, its values and philosophy. The familiar and constant models of the past are changing irrevocably, with no consistency emerging thus far.

For example Harvard, across both its Faculty of Arts and Sciences and its Law School, has mandated Open Access publishing. MIT has its Open CourseWare initiative. University College London is creating a new building to house its special collections of early printed books, manuscripts and archives, relieving pressure on current library spaces. ANU is moving 800,000 items into leased off-site storage to manage its space pressures. UC Berkeley has built a new Music Library and East Asian Studies Library through US$60 million in philanthropy. Stanford University is reducing its Engineering Library to almost a third of its previous size: in the new library all reference works and journals will be digital, 40,000 books will be replaced by 40,000 e-books and 12,000 print books, study spaces are smaller and the number of subject specialist information professionals will more than double.

It seems reasonably certain that the increasing pace of change in scholarly practices will demand in response a high degree of flexibility — in spaces, in services, in technology, in the structure and essence of information itself. The University of Melbourne is unlikely to influence most of the ways in which the information infrastructure is created and interacts globally with society, but we are in a position to choose which of these changes require our response, either in advance or as they arise.

People and capabilities

In general Melbourne students have good access to technologies such as personal computers, mobile phones, MP3 players and the Internet. While the use of such technologies for learning is reasonably well accepted at Melbourne, high overall levels of technology ownership and use do not necessarily mean that all students have the same level of access or capability. Equity will continue to be an important consideration in our planning.

Library staffing levels at Melbourne are below par for Group of Eight (Go8) universities, and declining, though it is becoming more difficult to benchmark as there is increasing divergence in what constitutes library services. In 2006 Monash, Queensland and Sydney had between 28 and 46 more library staff than Melbourne, with library staff per campus population member placing Melbourne below Sydney, Queensland and ANU. These staffing levels, coupled with the large number of libraries we currently sustain (19), are evidenced in lower library opening hours (almost 20 hours per week less than Monash).

Compared with other institutions, our library expenditure per user is below par (about 2.65 per cent of total university expenditure in 2006 compared with 3.16 per cent at Sydney, 3.76 per cent at Queensland and 3.81 per cent at Monash) although Melbourne’s libraries are among the most heavily used. Primarily we are delivering a high volume of transactional or commodity services: loans, physical spaces, online catalogue and search. We lent more than 1 million items in 2006 and had more than 3 million visitors to our libraries. Most use our libraries daily or 2-4 times per week, in person or online, and Melbourne scholars borrowed almost 40 items per full time equivalent scholar in 2006 compared to 36 at Sydney and Monash, 33 at Queensland and 25 at ANU. Almost all Melbourne’s libraries are open to the public.

External trends indicate the need for higher-level ‘new media literacy’ competency — knowledge and skills in areas such as copyright, privacy, ethical behavior, personal identity management, evaluation of source quality, synthesis of ideas and information. Harvard and MIT are (collaboratively) exploring information literacy education for undergraduates in terms of privacy, authorship and ownership, credibility and participation in scholarship. Postgraduate students are currently the most frequent users of information literacy and reference enquiry services at Melbourne.

The overall quality of our library services this year slipped from the top 50 per cent band for Australian universities (we now rank slightly below the median). Our library staff are regarded positively by library users, who would like to see improvements in the availability of computer workstations, the quality of the physical environment and availability of seating.

In 2006 University IT staffing levels at Melbourne were generally equivalent to those at peer institutions. Whilst we appear to be lagging in provision of IT support for students this is likely to change over the next few years as learning precincts are redeveloped and the Melbourne Student Services Model takes effect.

In the emerging area of e-research it is clear that Monash, Queensland and ANU have invested much more heavily in the relevant information professionals and infrastructure. At Monash there are approximately 60 library and information professionals across the e research group, the library and the IT division, specifically to support e-research initiatives (and they plan to grow this in the near term) compared with fewer than 10 staff at Melbourne. Monash hopes to co-locate these professional staff and grow the numbers to one hundred.

Information

Our library collections are acquired primarily through the Materials Vote which is indexed against CPI and enhanced through bequests and trust funds. The Materials Vote’s purchasing power is declining. We have $3-5 million less buying power than major Australian competitors, and we are slipping further behind. Library acquisition patterns are changing: for example, many journals are now only available digitally. Open Access publishing to date has not removed the need to purchase commercial digital titles. External studies have shown that people who use digital sources heavily are also likely to be heavy users of print materials. Our scholarly collections need to enable this mixed-media approach to scholarship.

Unlike most of our Australian competitors we have collections which remain unavailable through our online catalogue. We also have significant collections in need of appropriate curation. Funding is needed for cataloguing and preservation of archives, special collections and cultural collections. Active management and development of the University’s library collections, special collections and cultural collections could result in higher usage rates and greater value to scholars and the University. For example, library collections could be better leveraged in curriculum design; and improvements in the extent and quality of our catalogue records could help to expose little-used but significant collections to the scholars who need them.

Physical space is a constraining factor in the storage, use and management of all our collections. Our shelves on campus are filled to capacity so each new purchase requires that we place items into storage.

A significant amount of Melbourne’s research output is listed in public-access databases such as the Australian Digital Theses project and the ARROW catalogue, which link to source documents held in our own ePrints repository, other Melbourne systems or elsewhere.

Compared to other universities we tend to have more records in these cooperative databases. The current strategy of providing bibliographic data (regardless of whether the full text is available) remains sound, providing a public profile for Melbourne scholars in multiple environments that are highly searchable.

Like many of our competitors we have yet to grapple with the challenges of research data management, though this is an area in which we have particular expertise that could be applied.

The University participates in several inter-library lending schemes and shared repositories. There is demonstrable value in continuing these cooperative arrangements, as we are a net borrower from other institutions.

Infrastructure

This is the area which has been most neglected. Spaces for student collaborative and quiet study have been eroded as the University has grown its staffing numbers, as increasing print collections have replaced student space with shelving. Recently we have seen the creation of exciting, contemporary technology-enriched learning spaces, yet our ageing library spaces have remained inflexible and inadequate. The Eastern Precinct development provides the first opportunity to redress this in many years.

We have insufficient space for collections to be housed and managed effectively. Availability in our libraries of computer workstations and lendable laptops has repeatedly been identified by our students as something they highly value but we struggle to meet demand.

Some of the emerging student centres and learning space developments, such as that in Engineering, may relieve pressure on libraries to provide basic information services and learning spaces, but other changes to the campus will also be required in order to meet student needs. Each new staffed Student Service Point on campus increases our costs, potentially eroding the hours that the Service Point may be open. Each un-staffed facility requires thought be given to managing any security and safety matters.

There will need to be a balance struck between the types of services and spaces we wish to provide for our students. At some universities (Engineering at Stanford for example) libraries are being created that are largely technology-enriched learning spaces, with extensive digital collections, limited print collections and library and information professionals on hand to assist. The relationships between library spaces, learning spaces, computer laboratories and social spaces must be considered.

E-research is an emerging and rapidly developing field. The University has invested in our network to raise it to an appropriate standard but has made limited investment to date in provision of the necessary infrastructure to support e-research more broadly, specifically in data storage and management services for researchers, high performance compute (HPC) facilities and associated services. Other Australian universities are investing heavily, as are international competitors (particularly in life sciences and physical sciences).

We are the only Go8 university which does not have an appropriate identity and access management system to effectively participate in the emerging Australian Access Federation, an initiative designed to enable our researchers to participate effectively in international research collaboration. A robust, flexible identity management system would also enable the implementation of other collaboration tools. It is reasonably clear that Melbourne must invest soon or be left behind in research prestige, competitive grants, commercialisation and other opportunities. This requires a whole-of-University approach coupled with collaboration with external partners.

Melbourne has relied largely on a single commercial vendor for provision of its campus-wide learning management system. Recently we have begun to leverage our membership of the SAKAI initiative and added internally-developed tools to create an extended “LMS+” environment. This brings our LMS technology strategy into line with similar institutions in Australian and North America.

Videoconferencing is well supported in teaching spaces; competitor universities are enabling VOIP and videoconferencing at desktop level and Melbourne will be doing so over the next two years. We have recently acquired an OptiPortal capable of high bandwidth videoconferencing.

Wireless access on campus is currently being improved, bringing Melbourne up to the standard most Australian universities have enjoyed for some time.

The hundreds of participants in this process expressed diverse opinions and experiences, confirming the Commission’s expectation that there is no single correct answer to the complex, interlinked questions posed in the Consultation Paper. A long-term University strategy for scholarly information will need to accommodate discipline-related differences and a range of sometimes conflicting priorities.

Arising from the various consultation activities some broad themes and tensions are outlined in this report.

The written submissions and other information are available from the Commission’s web site. They will provide valuable background to the development of more detailed plans as the Information Futures process continues.

People

While a significant proportion of scholars assume that online access to information will be ubiquitous, cheap and desirable in the future, many today feel overwhelmed by the volume of information available. There is some demand for services that assist with filtering new information and with organising one’s personal collection of information and records.

Students as well as researchers feel they needed skills in this type of scholarly literacy, though there is some divergence of opinion about who should provide such training.

“Students come to the University skilled in manipulating technology but these skills do not always translate into the ability to navigate their way thorough the world of refereed knowledge. The role of the Library and its staff is crucial in this area.” (Friends of the Baillieu)

“…in 2003-2004, Academic Board had supported the embedding of information literacy in course offerings and this may need to be re-examined as some students struggle with navigating their way through the online materials, finding it difficult to evaluate and synthesise the relevant information. It was important to avoid making assumptions about the competence and confidence of students in accessing the University’s vast resources. It was suggested that this information literacy skill could be built into breadth subjects.” (Melbourne Experience Committee)

To support e-research, the concept of creating a cadre of ‘information professional’ staff found some support. These specialists would have expertise in various aspects of research data management and could work in partnership with researchers to effectively manage and store data produced by research activities. This was expressed in several faculty submissions and through comments in workshops, interviews and the survey.

Many written submissions described the role of ‘information professionals’ in providing links in a world where research is increasingly conducted across disciplines.

“The increasingly important role of information specialists in providing education and training in health information tools and applications was noted. There is considerable value in including ‘librarians’ more directly in advising on information needs associated with curriculum development initiatives…” (Faculty of Medicine Dentistry and Health Sciences)

Research data management was mentioned in many written submissions, particularly referring to the need for policy, guidelines and tools to be available to assist in managing research data.

Collaboration, both local and global, and face-to-face contact with colleagues are seen as important to the practice of research. Survey respondents cited these interactions as sources of inspiration, current information and critical feedback about ideas. Some survey respondents noted that regular interaction must be balanced by having a quiet, private space for thinking and writing.

Written submissions from groups and individuals stressed the need for quiet study space and argued that the provision of such space on campus should not be sacrificed in order to provide collaborative or social spaces. Some contributors questioned whether libraries should provide collaborative spaces at all.

“Ten years is a long time in this rapidly expanding field and the key messages are to be ready for change, to develop a fluency and agility in our thinking that can then be enabled by the technology. This is a human endeavour before anything else.” (Faculty of the VCA)

Information

Much comment was made about whether it is more desirable to acquire physical or digital assets for our libraries, museums, archives and cultural collections.

Clearly the University cannot make a single ‘either/or’ choice that applies to all academic disciplines and scholarly works.

Rather, we require a collection development strategy that takes into account the differences in research practice, teaching practice, usage of existing collections, type of collections, availability of source material and the usefulness and cost-effectiveness of different formats.

“Unless a technological break-through makes digital the preferred format for books consulted for their sustained argument or narrative, the demand for physical books, we believe, will long continue.” (Libraries Subcommittee, Committee of Convocation)

Most written submissions made the point that at this stage it is impossible to choose between print and digital formats — both are required. There were clear differences between the disciplines in their dependence on print.

Open Access was mentioned in multiple submissions. There were differences in the level of acceptance of this new avenue for publishing scholarly works. Questions of quality assurance, copyright and intellectual property were raised and it was suggested that the University of Melbourne lead a national discussion on the latter topics.

Digitisation of content was suggested by a number of submissions and a University-wide approach was proposed.

Infrastructure

There is demand for high-performance computing facilities for mathematics, physical sciences, earth sciences, biological sciences and medical disciplines. Several written submissions emphasised the need for increased bandwidth to enable videoconferencing, the exchange of data and other collaborative activities. Ubiquitous high-bandwidth network access was seen as important. Many survey respondents predicted that in 10 years they would use desktop videoconferencing for collaboration as easily as they currently use email and web browsers.

“There are some common collaborative services and infrastructure that are often built by researchers where centralised service provision could occur. These include data storage (across the university there will be an increase from the existing hundreds of terabytes of research data to hundreds of petabytes, over the next ten years), computational power, wikis, blogs, webpages and virtual organisations.” (eResearch Coffee Network)

The need to increase the amount of data storage available to researchers was made clear in written submissions, although there was no broad agreement about whether the storage should be centralised.

Several different versions of ‘library’ were offered: one big central library; several discipline-specific libraries; a new library to house rare and special collections, research collections and display space. There was no clear agreement across submissions, other than an underlying acknowledgement that library and study spaces on campus need improvement.

“I think the biggest single barrier to scholarly activity in Melbourne University is the plethora of separate libraries… [that] discourage people from exploring the world outside their own narrow mind space. For those of us who work in a more interdisciplinary way, our resource materials are spread across the campus and all the way out to Bundoora.” (academic researcher, geography)

“As a separate issue, the Baillieu Library is in great need of refurbishment. Its approaching Jubilee year provides an opportunity for the University to seek funding and undertake the necessary works as well as the long-term planning to construct or create such library facilities as befit a great University of the future.” (Libraries Subcommittee, Committee of Convocation)

“There is a pressing need for a newly commissioned building to stand as an iconic architectural statement highlighting and ensuring adequate provision for this priceless cultural legacy, a legacy that could moreover play an increasingly important role in the processes of knowledge transfer and in marketing the University to a wider and increasingly international audience.” (Library Users Committee, Faculty of Arts)

Into the future

More than one written submission suggested the Information Futures Commission was only the start of a long-term conversation supported by policy development, further research and continuing change.

“To some extent we can plan for the unexpected, but the more we plan, the less adaptable we will be. Maintaining a permanent think-tank and an open, public debate on information and communication futures should be integral to the future life of the University.” (Library Users Committee, Faculty of Arts)

“The FMDHS group sees these plans in the context of a continuum of information and knowledge and encourages the University to adopt a more unified approach including establishing a Centre for Information Science Research and Education (Informatics) and developing a University-wide knowledge management plan.” (Faculty of Medicine Dentistry and Health Sciences)

“The data deluge is affecting scholarship and learning in ways both subtle and profound.” (Borgman p8)

In shaping a strategy for the next decade we must reflect upon some key strategic questions to inform our choices.

In a decade’s time how do we believe:

• researchers across different disciplines will access, analyse, create and disseminate research data, research outputs, creative works?
• teachers will create, synthesise and use scholarly information and scholarly works in their teaching?
• learners will access, analyse, use, synthesize and create scholarly information and scholarly works?
• the broader community will seek to engage with and be part of the University’s scholarship?

What will our University community look like? What will the mix of students be? How will they seek to access our services, to participate in learning, to do research? What technologies will they bring to the campus? How will our physical campus have changed?

The answers to these questions must shape the way in which we address the difficult choices below. In reality it may not be possible to answer these questions — it may be that the assumptions we each make now are at the foundations of the difficult choices we must make.

From the consultation process there have emerged some clear areas of agreement about what is important, but strong divergence about how each should be addressed:

• Ongoing development of scholarly literacy for students (embedded within the curriculum) and for staff (mentioned positively in 19 submissions)
• Mix of physical and digital collections (mentioned in 31 submissions: 19 mentioned physical collections positively, 12 mentioned digital and 10 expressed a need for both)
• Research data management services (17 submissions)
• The need to have/to develop a new type of staff member, the ’scholar librarian for a digital age’ or informatics professional to work closely with researchers (17 submissions)
• Infrastructure for research and collaboration (17 submissions on data storage, 7 on identity management, 9 on high bandwidth network, 8 on collaboration tools)

Some choices are less clear. The questions below are interdependent, and the answer to one question may constrain the possibilities for another. We invite your thoughts on these difficult decisions.

The difficulty is that we want it all.

The reality is that we must make choices and set priorities.

Difficult choices:

1. What type of library/libraries should we have?
2. What should be in the libraries?
3. Who can use our libraries?
4. How ‘open’ do we want to be?
5. How should we organise ourselves?