Washington, D.C.
October 14-16, 1998

Confronting the Challenges of the Digital Era

Library leaders today confront an unprecedented situation. Not only must they make difficult choices for maintaining their investment in print-based materials, they must also move aggressively to support expanded access to electronic resources. The reality of maintaining parallel systems requires leaders to respond creatively to challenges such as leveraging scarce resources, redesigning jobs, and influencing the marketplace to contain exploding costs. This program explored strategies for confronting these critical challenges and for fostering understanding from university leaders and supporters regarding the resources needed to perform successfully in this print plus digital environment.

The program opened with comments by C. D. (Dan) Mote, Jr., President of the University of Maryland, College Park. President Mote presented the Chief Executive's perspective on university fundraising. Dwight Burlingame, Associate Executive Director, Indiana University Center on Philanthropy, followed with remarks on successful strategies for raising funds to support infrastructure and collections of electronic resources. In the second session, Mark McCabe, formerly an economist with the Department of Justice, reported the preliminary findings of his ongoing study on the competitive impact of publishing mergers on the market for academic journals.

The Federal Relations luncheon program, sponsored by the Information Policies Committee, was a presentation by Arnold P. Lutzker, Lutzker and Lutzker LLP, on recent copyright legislation and current intellectual property issues.

Following lunch, a panel of experts addressed how to attract and retain staff who have the technical skills needed in the digital environment. The program concluded with a presentation of the perspectives of Provosts Charles E. Phelps, University of Rochester, and David Shulenburger, University of Kansas, on the emerging challenges in scholarly communication.