Print vs. Digital (PDF)

Libraries are currently confronted by the challenges of managing increasing amounts of electronic information. Print vs. Digital: The Future of Coexistence presents the expert perspectives of eight of America's leading library administrators on ways to effectively manage digital flow and offers strategies to provide a level of coexistence between digital and print information. This excellent overview explores how to best balance print and electronic resources, and explores important issues such as the selection of electronic resources, improving access to digital information for a larger user base, and effective management of a library's fiscal and personnel resources.

Print vs. Digital: The Future of Coexistence discusses the various challenges libraries now face from the massive influx of digital resources, including the ways that information-seeking behaviors have changed, the search for synergies between print and digital, economics of news preservation, and whether or not the end of print journals is at hand. New ideas and technological advances are explored, including the diverse ways these improvements will impact the future. This well-referenced resource includes useful tables, figures, and photographs.

Topics in Print vs. Digital: The Future of Coexistence include:

• cooperative collection development


• balance of print and electronic resources


• evolvement of digital resources in libraries


• change in research libraries


• factors influencing the selection of electronic resources


• disseminating information about scholarly collections


• impact of digital resources on research behavior and techniques


• design of digital libraries


• JSTOR


• effects of digital information on reference collections


• transition of print journals to digital formats

Print vs. Digital: The Future of Coexistence is a thought provoking, insightful resource on the future of libraries, invaluable for acquisitions, reference, and collection development librarians; and senior and mid-level administrators such as deans, directors, and department heads for public, special, and academic libraries.