* Library Journal Academic Newswire, November 11, 2004*
Notes from the 2004 Charleston Libarian Conference
24TH ANNUAL CHARLESTON CONFERENCE HITS HIGH NOTES
Once billed as a collegial, rather informal gathering, the 24th annual Charleston Conference, held from November 3-6,in Charleston, SC, was bursting at the seams. This year's conference was the largest to date, with over 900 attendees, a remarkable ascent from its modest start with about 20 attendees in 1980, and up significantly from the 734 attendees just last year. Once again, the conference displayed the recipe for its success: timely topics; the right speakers; a heady mix of librarians, publishers, and vendors; and some energetic discussion of the most pressing issues facing academic collections. The keynote speaker,
Stanford University library director Michael Keller, provocatively assailed the big deal. Keller urged more collecting of books, maps, music and other artifacts, called for the support of university presses, and raised concerns about open access .
Regarding the big deal, Keller asserted that it was again time for librarians to focus on paying "for things we select rather than for things we just settle on." He asserted that current system of purchasing STM journals was sapping the library's capacity to collect in other areas, saying that librarians were settling for access
over ownership. "Stanford doesn't have 1800 Elsevier journals available 24/7, and I think we are still a pretty good place to do research," Keller deadpanned. Keller, who also heads the innovative Highwire Press and leads a number of other cutting-edge digital initiatives, also suggested librarians should buy more books. Open Access (OA) also faced considerable heat, largely from librarians. At a panel entitled "Content Access Options: One Size Doesn't Fit All Customers," Richard Newman, associate director at Stanford's Highwire Press, urged stakeholders to tone down the heated rhetoric surrounding the current OA debate, and to use a more scientifically sound method for evaluating the potential of the model. In another session, the British Library reported on its study measuring impact through a method called "contingent valuation," which determined that the library's return was over four times the country's investment.