University expenditures on libraries have been stagnant at best for decades. This includes those "various learning platforms and knowledge hubs." The digitization of collections and repurposing of facilities is driven by cost cutting as well as hampered by it. Archival storage is not cheap (the conditions for special collections drive many librarians to drink) and renovating century old stacks into usable people space requires capital expenditures few libraries can scrape together.

At the same time, Elsevier et al take larger and larger bites out of the budget for those digitized collections. The failure to invest in University presses will only exacerbate this in the long term. Attempts to provide an alternative to the for-profit parasites, e.g. open access platforms, wallow in grant funded misery with budgets considered laughable in the private sector.

Let's take nanohub.org as an example. It's funded by an NSF grant and everyone can access it for free. A university doesn't need to make any expenditures for their students to benefit from it.

Researchers choose to publish in Elsevier's journals, not for lack of a university press. I don't see how that's relevant.

Former academic librarian and archivist here. It's true that university libraries are changing their shape, as you say. More study space, fewer physical collections and book purchases (and, in some areas, universities moving toward sharing their physical collections in remote offsite storage and only calling back materials when requested), and much more investment in electronic resources like journal and database access.

It's a complicated issue, but in general library budgets have been consistently shrinking for years/decades, even as the subscription costs for journal access from big for-profit like Elsevier skyrockets. It's even gotten to the point where universities with endowments larger than many nations' GDPs are struggling to afford publisher prices (see https://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/apr/24/harvard-univ...).

Decreasing library budgets plays into this, but at its heart I think that there's a crisis of purpose as well. By not investing in open access publishing infrastructure themselves and not modifying the incentives for faculty review and tenure, universities have put themselves at the mercy of these for-profit publishers and are suffering for it. It's hard to blame faculty who are vying for one of the ever-diminishing tenured spots for publishing their articles in the best journals they can, regardless of whether they'll be behind a paywall, especially when the bar for tenure keeps getting higher and higher.

So we find ourselves in a situation where universities and public funding agencies are paying academics to conduct research and do peer review, then faculty are giving the results to a for-profit publisher, who then sells access to the work right back to them at an astronomical fee.

I'm hopeful if not optimistic that at some point, universities might choose to break out of the cat-and-mouse game they're in by investing in open access publishing and incentivizing their faculty to use it rather than continuing to feed for-profit publishers' wild profits. I've seen some (too limited) action on the first part of that but pretty much none on incentivization part. Certain funding agencies are starting to require open access publication as a condition of some grants, but the change has been slow.

For open access journals, why don't professional associations (e.g., of history/physics/etc researchers/professors/etc) organize it, and declare that starting 01 Jan 2026, the Open Journal of Nanoscience will be the prestige publication, and Open Nanoscience Letters will be the second rank (or whatever roles are needed). Would anyone in the professional assocation have reason to object? Would support be widespread?

University presses could handle the implementation (I know, more easily said than done, but they have the expertise). Cost reduction would appeal to university administrations.

People do organize themselves and accomplish things, and with (guaranteed?) savings, (no?) opposition, (wide?) support, this one seems like low-hanging fruit - from my very outside perspective.

Professional associations often do organize themselves and then proceed to engage in the same, hideous forms of profit seeking that the big names do, especially if their journals are high impact. The incentives are just wildly misaligned and an attitude of “if they get away with it, why shouldn’t we do the same” is pervasive.

Which associations did that?

I think the challenge is that a university press is not interchangeable with a journal.

I have spent a lot of time in university libraries and the disinvestment is often difficult to see unless you are doing deep research or in the weeds.

I should note that I am writing this response as somebody who is a professional researcher and scientist, not as an undergraduate student who needs to find a few references for a term paper. My needs are quite different than others and the library needs to cater to a wide range of people at all levels of research.

Many universities are in fact repurposing libraries as "study spaces" or as "learning centers". This often means dedicating more space to meeting rooms and desks, etc. To get that space, libraries either put the books in storage or quite frankly sell the books, especially books that are not checked out that often. Many of the technical books that I own are former library books. Moreover, even well-resourced government labs (like DOE national laboratories) are selling their books. I know because I have bought some (albeit through a third party). Putting books in storage is the better option, because at least the books are available, but it removes the ability to browse the shelf for adjacent books (a highly underrated research method) and often requires preparation to request books and then wait for them to arrive in a reading room. That said, it is far better to put the books in storage.

The availability of reference librarians is often greatly overstated. A library like the Library of Congress still has excellent reference librarians who often can perform apparent miracles to find difficult to locate information, but at university libraries, if I ask for a reference librarian, I often end up with an undergraduate assistant who does not really know much and cannot help you if you have a specific question to ask about locating something in a particular collection or how to use certain equipment like microfilm readers. Perhaps the undergrad can help other undergrads out, but when I was in grad school I never found this practice helpful when I needed specific information that I was already having difficulty finding.

To summarize, this trend may benefit some people, but it comes at the expense of in-depth researchers and their needs.

I will end by quibbling with that notion that "most of the information is digitized". The problem is that the Internet is so large that you can easily spend your whole life without ever realizing how shallow it really is in a single subject. Only once you go deep in that subject do you realize how much is not yet digitized in the first place. Yes, much information is digitized, but based on my experience, it is not "most". Some day that may change, but for the time being, physical libraries still play an important role here.

With respect, I think I already addressed your quibble. I acknowledged the backlog of materials yet to be digitized and explained how to expedite it on an as-needed basis.

It's no more burdensome than it would be with more library funding. Storage is always necessary because big universities own several times more books than they could ever hope to shelve in their increasingly crowded campuses. Digging deep into a subject's history can require materials that don't exist in sufficient quantities for every interested library to have one, necessitating inter-library loans at a minimum.

FYI Every online library catalog I've seen has a "browse shelf" feature.

And how many times do you need to be shown how to use the microfilm machine?

Fair points, I was just trying to give an alternative perspective, especially since my needs are likely different than others on here. I appreciate the feedback.

I tend to agree that storage is not a bad option, but so many libraries just cannot be bothered and would rather discard or sell materials.

Fair point about the "browse shelf" feature of online catalogs, but I was talking about the ability to just open an adjacent book and just browse through the book itself. Instant access in other words. This is much more difficult if requesting things from storage, though the trick is to request several dozen books at once from storage. That is reasonable at some libraries but others will be greatly annoyed if you do that, due to limited shelf space for holds/requests.

You are right that I do not need to be shown how to use a microfilm machine, but often different libraries or archives have different practices and conventions about how to use their machines, especially for the purpose of preserving the microfilm. Being shown how to use it is more about learning their conventions and practices so that you can continue to have access to their collections later, and also to learn any issues with the machines themselves. For example, some institutions like the Smithsonian require you to wear special gloves when handling microfilm and limits where you can save any scans. Other places are completely free-form, but different machines have different quirks or could be down at the moment. Quirks include blurry images, need to wind the reels in a certain way, slow fast-forward (problem for longer reels), missing parts, susceptibility to nearby vibration, etc. If the undergrad helping you doesn't even know what a microfilm machine is, I doubt they can truly help you figure out how to get this particular machine working right. I ended up figuring this stuff out myself, but I would have preferred some assistance from a professional to be honest.

> FYI Every online library catalog I've seen has a "browse shelf" feature.

As someone who works in the field, I'm not actually sure what you mean, and am curious. can you point me to an example of a "browse shelf feature" in a library catalog you have used and found helpful? I'm just curious to see what you are finding, and liking.

This is a feature of some online catalogs where it lists adjacent books on the shelf. This is usually done by the call number, so it basically just lets you see what the previous and next call numbers are. Given that the call numbers are usually within some sort of classification scheme, this is a quick way to find related material.

For example, consider this book at the University of Maryland's library:

https://umaryland.on.worldcat.org/oclc/1594752

Scroll down to the bottom to see "Browse the Shelf". Notice that the call numbers are sequential.

The Library of Congress has a similar feature even though only librarians are able to access the stacks:

https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/searchBrowse

I don't mean to come off as dismissive of the feature. It is pretty useful! But I also value shelf access and just being able to dig into a book at a moment's notice.

Thank you for explaining it so well. Some libraries also have digital versions, allowing you to effectively browse the stacks from anywhere. The feature can and should be improved as it's a bit clunky. Digitization is a slow process, but we'll get there eventually. For now, we have growing pains.

Thanks!

The library of congress version is currently unavailable, perhaps it's gotten too much traffic from HN!

the umaryland version, @sheepshear do you personally find this feature useful, you use this feature? Or you were just giving it as an example for others who might want it?

Either way, this is a good example of the kind of "browse shelf" feature you were speaking of, looking more or less like this?

I suggested it because I've used it.

> Most of the information is digitized, which has better reach.

Previously, when university libraries had books and paper journals, anyone could read them. Now, members of the general public are not licensed to read electronic content there.

So digitization has reduced the reach of the content, not increased it.

Many libraries have computers for accessing the catalog, which now includes all the digital media. You make a good argument for why they should if they don't already.