Five Year Information Format Trends

Intro:
Market Trends:
librarians faced with tons of content and several formats.
new information dissemination technologies
new technologies are shaping the way we access info
tighter budgets, smaller workforces--how to deal?
government/university budgeting

Popular Materials:
--Print on demand seen as the future of popular materials, as worldwide book sales go down (I found this surprising!)
--Ebooks are performing as expected/fell short of 2001 expectations. (This is definitely something I expected. Ebooks are tiring to read--looking at a computer screen is much harsher than reading a book, and there's something about the familiarity of a book that I prefer.)
--More journals are becoming available online; decline in newspapers.
--A/V expected to increase over the next few years/videos doing well, a/v circulation increasing. (In the year I've worked in a library, I have seen the amount of a/v material circulation increase, so I expect that this will continue as we become more reliant on technology to provide us with information.)

Scholarly Materials
--Looked @ books, scholarly journals, articles, eprint archives, theses, etc.
Books:
--Similar trends as for other formats
--Book Spending down
--University Press spending down
--ex: Stanford cutting workforce and # of books published. (Although I expected this to be the case, it's still slightly surprising, especially since Stanford generally publishes well regarded, high quality materials.)
Journals:
--Primary titles moving to an online status
--Researchers prefer electronic format. (I love searching for journals electronically. I think it's very convenient and a definite time saver, so I can understand why this is such a popular trend.)
Scholarly Articles:
--Idea of an "issue" is going out of date
--Move from traditional formats to eprint archives, etc.
Eprint archives:
--expanding! 135 per workday (estimated)
--Open access contributing to the popularity of this format (imo)
Theses and Dissertations
--Shift to electronic formats, # of paper theses/dissertations decreasing moderately.
--digital is increasing.
Electronic Course Management Materials
--Econtent increasing, expected to double by 2007. (does anyone know if it HAS actually doubled, being it's 2008 and all??)
--I am pretty sure at least 50% of college courses are available via course management systems at this point.

Digitization Projects:
--Many agencies are providing the $$ (yeehaw!) to assist with these projects.
Commercial:
Gale Group and ProQuest
National:
gov't funded, ex: Gallica 2000 and the British Library
State/Local:
Colorado Digitization Project/Everett Public Library Everett Massacre Project (go WA!)

Web Resources:
--Library usage down
--Internet= #1 choice, most internet users believe they will find reliable info online
Surface Web:
--readily available web sites/accessible through open search engines
--web site growth slowing (I didn't expect this to be the case at all! I expected it just to keep growing, and growing, and growing...but I guess it has to plateau at some point.)
--Mary Ellen Bates says "The question is whether their online searching skills are linmited to finding MP3 files and pictures of Britney Spears..." I think this quote underestimates the ability of students to utilize the internet.
Deep Web:
--not accessible through open search engines
--includes: library catalogues, other databases, non-textual web pages (interesting!), and document repositories and ejournals

Summary:

Info format is changing and expanding.
--Popular/Scholarly papers aren't just paper only now; they include paper, POD, and electronic versions
--POD "bears watching" (this still doesn't seem like it's growing all that much to me.)
--websites slowing down, # of stuff on them expected to grow exponentially.
--Digitization as the most significant new format by 2007.