GEOG 207 - Introduction to Biogeography

OCtopus is the OC Library's federated search engine. It allows you to search for books, ebooks, print and e-journals, videos, streaming videos, periodicals (magazines and newspapers).

This content has either been purchased by the library (this is typically the case with print books and e-books); or the Library has subscriptions to this content with the publishers, or through licensing agreements with third-party companies known as aggregators, that provide services to libraries through business arrangments they have established with various publishers to access their e-journals content and e-book collections. These aggregators then value-add this content by importing this content into their computer database systems and indexing this content so that it is searchable through systems such as OCtopus. 

Over the last 30-years, academic library collections have been transformed from predominantly print to digital collections. This process was dubbed "doing the digital flip."

The Library Collection is composed of the following types of content:

Council of Post Secondary Library Directors (CPSLD), British Columbia. (2021). CPSLD Statistics Report 2017-2018 https://cpsld.ca/ld.php?content_id=34599089

A big part of what Librarians do at OC is in the area of  "library collection development" which is guided by the OC Library Collection Development Policy. 

In the 2017/18 fiscal year the OC library spent $546,818.45 purchasing or licensing content for students to use. In comparison, the University of British Columbia (Vancouver and Okanagan campus combined) the largest research library in B.C. spent $18,868,828.13 during the same time period.

While the size of the OC Library collection is quite small compared to large research university's collections, through Interlibrary Loan agreements with other academic libraries in Canada, including the large research university libraries, OC Library is able to arrange access for you to much of their collections. There are also built in links to the Interliibrary loan service within OCtopus.

The cost of acquiring or licensing library materials has always been a balancing act. Making decisions on which type of material to acquire or license and which ones cannot be acquired or licensed, and ultimately what content can no longer be sustained as part of the library collection.

The scholarly journal publishing industry is a multi-billion dollar industry. Outsell a marketing research company that monitors the scholar publishing industry, in 2017 reported the total size of the Science Medical and Technology sector of the industry at $25.7 Billion (USD). See The STM Report: An overview of the scientific and scholarly publishing page 22.

Cost increases at a rate that typically exceeds inflation.

2010 Per Journal Title (USD)

2021 Costs per Title

A 55.88 percent increase in 11 years.  During the same time period, inflation of the USD increased by 24 percent.

The authors that create the journal articles that are published in scholarly journals receive no financial compensation for creating these scholarly works. They receive indirect benefits such as promotion and tenure, enhanced recognition and reputation within their professional community, speaking and lecture fees, and increase funding from research funding agencies.