Managing Access and Purchase

Objectives

• Examine issues of sustainability, costs and resourcing

• Examine consortia building issues

• Evaluate possible consortia approaches

Current situation

• Continuous price rises of scientific information

• Continuous library budget stagnation or cuts

• Exponential growth in the production in new scientific information and knowledge

• Rapid technological advances

Long-term access and purchase

• Electronic resources cost money

• Discounts and development funding subsidise these costs

• Will the discounts and funding always be available?

• Are the interests of publishers and libraries compatible?

Possible solutions

• Secure increased funding

• Manage demand (cut demand?)

• Maximise leverage of existing funds

• Maximise effectiveness of existing resources

• Consortia

Secure increased funding• Demonstrate demand, usage, and

effectiveness• Outcomes of access—increased

research, quality, etc.• Implications of withdrawn access• Efficiency of resource use• Relationship with institutional strategy

and additional criteria

Manage demand

• Cut demand for resources?

• Unlikely—withdrawing titles is likely to be difficult

• Never a popular move

Maximise leverage of existing funds—consortia building

Consortia building• Consortia may be the answer• Building consortia can increase individual

library’s economic influence• Electronic resources have changed the

business model for publishers and so they have been more approachable to these areas

• But they do largely rely on the use of funds• Development of philanthropic licensing and

development funding

Consortia advantages

• Stronger position in negotiation

• Better prices

• More journals accessible

• Shared expertise

» Hans Geleijnse» http://www.lib.helsinki.fi/finelib/geleijnse/index.htm

Consortia disadvantages

• Time consuming

• Difficult to share costs in a proper way

• Libraries have to pay for journals they don’t need

» Hans Geleijnse» http://www.lib.helsinki.fi/finelib/geleijnse/index.htm

Different kinds of consortia• Local

– A small number of institutions with specialist needs

• Regional– Institutions within a particular region work together

• National– Small countries (geographically or in terms of institutional

numbers)

• International– Potential with many small countries (as defined above)

• Subject specific– Cooperation on single or related disciplines, national or

international scope

Critical factors in successful consortia

• Make a legal entity

• Define decision making

• Funding arrangements should be understood and agreed by all parties

• Appropriate technical and information expertise

• Partnership» Based on presentation by Roland Dietz, Elsevier Science

Pricing models

• Electronic publishing is fundamentally different from traditional publishing

• Common pricing models for e-resources– FTE (full-time equivalent) discount model– Weighted FTE discount– Number of participating institutions– Print plus– Simultaneous users license

Steps to setting up consortia• Define what the aims and objectives of the

consortia are

• Establish the profile and membership

• Agree effective and reliable coordinators (institutional and individual)

• Agree terms of reference

• Agree the legal framework

• Agree costs and cost sharing

Activity areas• Bylaws

– Bylaws often indicate the legal status of the consortium, describe committee structures, and outline membership criteria

• Memoranda of Understanding– Outline the business relationships between the consortium and

the member libraries, including the rights and responsibilities of membership

• Resource Sharing Agreements– Describe the "rules of the game" for one of the basic functions

of many library consortia: sharing physical library resources

• Strategic Plans– Reflect the way a consortium sees itself

Case studies are available atHolland

http://www.lib.helsinki.fi/finelib/geleijnse/index.htm

India

http://www.iiap.ernet.in/library/proc.html

Turkey

http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla66/papers/117-180e.htm

Africa

Standing Conference of African University Librarians Western Area (SCAULWA) due to release a report soon

Dutch university libraries • Either a proposal of one of the libraries to start

negotiations with a vendor or an initial offer from a vendor/publisher

• A small group starts negotiating• The results will be presented to the libraries• A minimum number should agree• No governmental support• Deals with individual vendors/publishers• National licenses sort• Set of “guiding principles” developed

Summary• Electronic resources offer potential solutions

to information shortages• Sustainability of licensing fees and costs• Consortia seem to pay off• But significant effort has been put into some

consortia and resulted in little• Consortia need to be included in library

sector long term strategies

Thank youAny questions?