The second speaker at the STS discussion was Michael Leach, Physics Librarian at Harvard and President-elect of ASIS&T. He was a very dynamic speaker.
He reviewed his opinions on how open access would affect all areas of library operations. He talked about the potential fiscal models such as institutional membership and author pays. Institutional memberships could be problematic if the yearly fee is dependent on an institution's "author output" since this could fluctuate from year to year making it hard to budget.
He sees the future role of the library as facilitating the exchange of documents and money, a "middle man" between the publisher and the author. It would serve as a fiscal aggregator [e.g. author payments funneled through the library via one invoice], providing authoring tools, and metadata markup.
Institutional repositories can be linked together (similar to the LOCKSS model) and then overlaid with pre-print archives. This body of literature can then be subjected to peer review to create virtual journals.
He asked if open access journals need to be cataloged and if libraries should purchase metadata or create it themselves.
More immediate changes he sees occuring in the library include a greater emphasis on training, info literacy, and preservation. Cataloging and collection management undergoing significant changes. For example, there may be potentially large shifts in budgets from collections to digital preservation. Also, a decreased emphasis on reference and ILL. Physical libraries will still exist.
He noted that Stanford is building a new Science Library without shelves since there will no print materials.
So lots of food for thought. This was the most interesting talk I've heard so far.
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