Measuring and Sustaining the Impact of Area Studies Collections in a Research Library: Balancing the Eco-system to Manage Scarce Resources

Abstract

For decades, the community of research libraries and funding agencies quietly implemented a process of aggregating or concentrating collections of difficult to acquire international and area studies materials at research universities that could provide access and service on a regional, national and international level. The discovery and use of library resources constitute one way to assess the impact of these collections and whether the founding assumptions behind this aggregation—namely, that institutions could serve broad constituencies—were correct. This study compares five years of resource sharing data from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), focusing on interlibrary lending data for those materials published in Less Commonly Taught Languages (LCTL) and those materials published with a foreign imprint. The analysis generated by this study sheds light on the resource sharing network of academic libraries and provides a snapshot of one element within the network of libraries that supports the needs of area studies scholars.