Collection Management of Electronic Resources for Library Consortia

1
Collection Management of Electronic Resources for
Library Consortia

• Arnold Hirshon
• Executive Director
• NELINET

2
About the Long Road We Are About to Trod

• There is a lot to cover
• Please stop me if
• You cant hear me
• You cant understand me (language)
• You need more information (comprehension)
• You need a break
• Please participate!
• Dont let me do all the talking!
• Let me know if I am not covering what you want to
  learn about!
• You will learn more if you ask questions, supply
  examples, and respond to my questions!

3
My Apologies in Advance
"Hi. I'm, I'm, I'm ... Please forgive me, but
I'm terrible with names."
4
Agenda Part 1

• Caveats and terminology
• Approaches to collection management
• What is collection management?
• Process elements
• Strategic, tactical opportunistic
• Scope types of electronic resources
• Differences in collection management
• Single institution vs. consortia
• Print vs. electronic resources
• Commercial vs. non-commercial resources

5
Agenda Part 2

• Consortium collection management factors
• Types of consortia their effect on C.M.
• Consortial relationships
• Collection analysis and assessment
• Consortium collection management planning
  processes
• Collection management process steps
• Policy creation
• Evaluation and selection criteria
• Access strategies
• Selection of resources

6
Agenda Part 3

• Special considerations for different materials
• Technology and related issues
• General issues
• Cataloging e-resources
• Portals
• Linking serials management
• E-resource funding and budgeting
• Pricing strategies and effect on purchase
  decisions
• Cost-sharing strategies
• User support issues
• New Frontiers
• De-selection of e-resources
• Alternative publishers
• Marketing of e-resources
• Final thoughts

7
Largely Not on the Agenda

• E-resource statistical analysis
• Separate workshop coming Sept.-Oct. 2003
• Licensing and legal issues (Fred will discuss)
  e.g.,
• Cost negotiation
• License terms and conditions
• Fair use, downloading, printing, etc.
• Confidentiality
• User support
• Processes to manage renewals

8
General Caveats

• Different countries may use different terms, or
  have different cultures or laws
• Not a question of right or wrong
• Must be sensitive to differences and understand
  them
• Publishers may have different perspectives given
  their point of origin
• May or may not be able to negotiate given those
  perspectives
• We will concentrate on consortial collection
  management, not institutional management
• Will discuss differences in more detail later

9
General Caveats

• We will emphasize commercial e-resources (not
  locally produced resources or institutional
  repositories)
• There are no absolute rules
• E.g., some rules may apply to some types of
  resources but not others
• This is still a period of transition between
  print and electronic
• There are not necessarily any clear-cut answers
• There are no easy answers or cookie cutter
  approaches

10
Terminology

• Content
• E-Resources
• Licensing
• AI services
• E-journals
• E-books
• Technology
• Local library system
• Consortial library system
• Linking
• Federated searching
• Serials management software

• Consortia
• Country consortium
• Regional or local consortium
• Individual (or local) institution

11
Scope What is Collection Management?

• A strategy and process for deciding what to
  purchase
• A method for selecting materials for purchase
• Evaluation of what to select or retain based upon
• Value
• Usage
• Cost effectiveness
• Support of organizational mission
• Quality of access
• Assessment of if and how selected materials are
  used
• User input and feedback
• Budget and funding strategies
• Marketing strategies
• Setting of mission, goals and objectives

12
Scope What is the difference?
Collection Management
Collection Building
Collection Development
13
Scope Elements of Collection Management Process

• Collection decisions
• Resource assessment
• Weeding
• Replacement with newer or better resources
• Withdraw or discard resources
• Storage
• Maintain access

14
Scope Elements of Collection Development Policies

• Institutional mission, goals and objectives
• Analysis of community and user needs
• Intellectual freedom and access statements
• Designation of responsibility for materials
  selection
• General subject boundaries

• Levels of collection strengths and collecting
  intensity
• Limitations (language, geography, form, etc.)
• Detailed policies by subject
• Detailed policies by form
• Gift, deaccession, retention and duplication
  policies
• Cooperative relationships

Source Broderick and Curley, p. 28
15
Scope Broad Collection Development Issues

• Strategic vs. tactical collecting
• ephemeral nature of electronic collections
• increasing amounts of the budget/resources are
  being used to build/develop electronic
  collections
• support temporary programs, temporary
  populations/faculty/students
• initial support for a program while you assess
  long term needs and issues
• distance/offsite users
• Access to resources versus owning resources
• owning physical item vs. leasing/renting, brings
  up licensing and contract issues
• Need to respond to external demands
• Space versus technology requirements
• Effect of electronic collections
• Budget and financing
• Consortium and local library interaction
• Effect of consortium on local institution (e.g.,
  OhioLINK)
• Effect of local institution on consortium (e.g.,
  NELINET)

16
Different Approaches to Collection
DevelopmentStrategicTacticalOpportunistic
17
Strategic Collection Management
Collection management is more than just book
selection Among the reasons for formulating a
written collection development policy, not the
least is the opportunity presented by the
formulation process itself to address the issues
in a constructive framework and to clarify
aspects of the institutional mission and their
implications for goals and objectives of
collection development.
Source Curley and Broderick, p.27
18
Relationship of Collection Development Policy to
Organizational Mission Vision
By formulating library mission statements that
evaluate purpose, embody all formats of
technology, state goals in conjunction to
realities, restrictions and desires of collection
building, we begin to build a basis for an
effective library development.
Source Svenningsen and Cherepon, p.19
19
Strategic Collection Management

• Where do you want the organization to be 3-5
  years from now?
• Is the goal for e-resources to be a supplemental
  or the dominant medium?
• Will there be sufficient funding to make a
  difference?
• Will there be new central funding?
• Will there be significant reallocation of
  existing funding?

20
Strategic Collection Development in a Consortial
Environment

• Time span covered by plan
• Usually a 3-5 year time span
• Value Context
• What values is the organization trying to
  advance?
• Determining factors
• How does resource advance the core collection of
  the whole organization?
• What is the effect of the consortium on local
  institutions (e.g., OhioLINK)
• What is the effect of local institutional
  decisions on the consortium (e.g., NELINET)
• Different goals for each of the different
  categories of resources, e.g., e-journals versus
  AI services

21
Tactical Collection Management

• User-oriented
• How will user needs, abilities, and expectations
  affect decisions (e.g., remote access)
• Technology-dependent
• How good is the current IT infrastructure, and
  what will need to be done to enable it to support
  widespread electronic access?
• Determining factors
• What are the immediate needs of our members?
• Upon what basis should we decide among competing
  immediate needs?

22
Opportunistic Collection Management

• Opportunity-generated
• is there a great deal available to us right
  now, and should we pursue it even if it does not
  necessarily fit our plan?
• Determining factor
• What do we need to do to be able to afford it?
• Can we afford not to purchase this resource?

23
Which Method is Best?

• All of the above!
• A good collection management plan and program
  does not choose only one method
• You must combine strategy, tactics, and
  opportunities to have an effective collection
  management system
• Use different methods at different times to get
  maximum effects

24
Scope of Resourcesand Differences in Purposes
of Collection Management
25
Scope Types of Electronic Resources

• Formats and types of publications
• AI
• E-journals
• E-books
• Discovery tools and e-reference
• Static Images
• Sounds (streaming)
• Video (streaming)
• Each format brings opportunities and problems
• Key variables
• bandwidth requirements
• funding requirements

26
Differences Single Institution vs. Consortium
Development

• Single institution
• Concentrate on building a collection customized
  to the need of particular institution
• Consortium
• Must consider and compromise among competing
  needs of consortium members
• May or may not have a core collection
• Publisher and vendor negotiation is more
  complicated

27
Differences Print vs. E-Resource
Development

• Ways in which they are the same
• Need a collection management policy and plan
• Need funding to make purchases
• Evaluation of resources
• Put purchases (or deselection of items) into a
  priority order
• Monitor usage
• Renew (serials) or expand purchases (one-time or
  monographic)

28
Differences Print vs. E-Resource Development

• Ways in which they are the different
• Not just content must evaluate access and
  interface quality
• Consortial purchasing never an option for print
  resources
• Can collectivize content, funding, and technology
• Many resources freely available at no charge for
  content
• More data available to monitor the use of the
  resources
• Print resources access building based only
• E-resource has remote access issues
• Differences in selection process, decisionmakers,
  and negotiation. (Rarely negotiated for print.)

29
Differences Print vs. E-Resource Development

• For many libraries, e-resources are rapidly
  becoming the norm, and print resources almost the
  exception
• Factors of more importance today
• Timeliness
• Breadth and depth of content
• Interface functionality
• Levels and extent of access

30
Differences Commercial vs. Non-Commercial
E-Resources

• Commercial
• Materials purchased from sources outside of the
  institution or consortium
• Commercial publishers (e.g., Elsevier)
• Non-commercial
• Digitized locally held materially
• Alternative publishers (SPARC, etc.)
• Free resources
• Open Access Initiative materials

31
Consortium Collection ManagementFactors to
Consider
32
Consortium Collection Management Plan

• Plans may vary
• Must be based upon the nature of the consortium
• Purpose of the Plan
• To help the consortium predict and cope with
  higher user expectations, rapid change, and
  competitive pressures
• Essential elements of a plan
• Outline general needs of the institution (e.g.,
  programs to be supported in a university)
• Assess current collection strengths and
  weaknesses
• Outline user needs
• Establish what types of materials will or will
  not be collected
• Establish the funding priority for each
  collection area

33
Consortium Model Taxonomy
Operational and Practical
34
Strategic Issues

• Purchasing
• Education
• Fundraising
• Lobbying
• Share technology

• Research
• University
• College
• Public
• School
• Special

• Government
• Multi-government
• Membership
• Other

• Multi-national
• National
• Multi-state
• Single state
• Regional
• City or local

• Government
• Grants, foundations
• Dues service fees
• Institutions
• No funding (volunteer)

35
Tactical Issues

• E-resource purchasing
• Resource sharing
• Union catalog/patron circ
• Core collection creation
• Digital library development
• Preservation management
• Shared storage

• Shared infrastructure
• Shared library systems
• Portal management
• Intellectual property and royalty management

• Consulting
• Education
• Production
• Cataloging
• Digitization
• Technical support

.
36
Practical/Operational Issues

• Governing board
• Members council
• Committees
• Advisory groups
• Task forces
• Interest groups

• Full external funding (no bills)
• Deposit accounts
• Billing and invoice consolidation

• Permanent staff
• professional
• support
• Volunteers

37
Taxonomy Matrix Exploit Your Core Strengths for
Collection Management
38
Consortial Collection Management Factors

• Type and nature of the consortium
• Central funding, institutional funding, or both?
• Each institution making its own purchase decision
  or is group working together?
• eIFL is there a multi-country license?
• Governance
• Who makes the decisions?
• Technology infrastructure
• Institutional only or consortium-provided?

39
Library and Consortial Relationships and Services
Country Consortium Services
Access System Service Providers
Union Catalog
Library
Consortium 1
Library
Delivery
Library
Country Consortium
eIFL
Library
E-Resources
Library
Consortium 2
Library
Standards
Other Services
40
Consortial Relationships
Consortium
Local Institution
Collection Management
Collection Management
E-resources
E-resources
Authentication
Consortium Catalog Access
Local Catalog Access
41
Consortial Relations Sometimes Institutional and
Consortium Collection Goals Conflict!
Consortium
Institution
What might be some of the causes of the conflict?
42
Collection Management Processes
43
Collection Management Processes

• Effective processes
• Must customize to the needs of the consortium
• The reality
• Many individual institutions have formal policies
• Few consortia have written policies
• Often chaos-management i.e., selection by
  opportunity and look backward to see the pattern
• Share Plans with Stakeholders
• Consortium members, to ensure
• that the policy is complete and accurate
• There is buy-in and general agreement
• User community (e.g., university faculty)

44
Process Steps for Consortia 1

• Identify decision group
• Engage in general education of the decision group
• Licensing issues
• Best practices
• Statistical analysis
• Identify e-resources for potential purchase
• Establish selection criteria
• Determine policy strategy, tactics, and
  opportunities
• Survey users (librarians and end users)
• Develop process to place desired resources into
  priority order

45
Process Steps for Consortia 2

• Develop effective communications mechanisms
• Establish electronic listservs
• Create and maintain a working group web site
• Hold meetings or conference calls (if practical
  to do so)
• Establish the consortium budget for purchasing
• Note the worst way to purchase and negotiate is
  to chase after every offer, and to decide only
  after the price is known whether you can or will
  afford to purchase

46
Process Steps for Consortia 3

• Establish the general consortium purchase
  parameters
• Identify the types of materials that the
  consortium concentrate on (e.g., AI, e-ref,
  e-journals)
• Identify the subject areas on which to
  concentrate
• Identify sub-group needs (e.g., small public
  libraries and research universities), and how
  will you balance and compromise on a list
• Solicit consortium member interest
• Create surveys (including web-based surveys)
• Collect information about which e-resources are
  currently available within the consortium
• Identify a list of resources for future
  consideration
• Continuously monitor market for timely
  opportunities

47
Process Steps for Consortia 4

• Rank order interest
• Generate rank-ordered lists of resources for
  further consideration
• Schedule vendor demonstrations and free trials
• Generate an action plan and timetable for each
  resource that is to be pursued
• Establish membership profiles (database)
• Create and continuously update a database of your
  member institution profile, e.g., IP address
  ranges, user populations, subject specialties,
  current e-resources offered, institutional
  contact information, etc.

48
Process Steps for Consortia 5

• Negotiate Agreement
• Identify target price for the product
• Negotiate the best price, terms and conditions
• Generate Orders
• Collect subscriber information
• Handle all invoicing and billing
• Provide support to members concerning terms of
  the agreement

49
Process Steps for Consortia 6

• Product Training and Product Support
• Arrange vendor or publisher product training
• Serve as a conduit to the publisher/vendor about
  specific issues
• Reporting and analysis
• Provide working group and members with progress
  reports and analysis

50
Initial Assessment of Current Print and
Electronic Collections

• SWOT
• Gap analysis to determine consortial collection
  strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats
  
• Survey users
• Analyze statistical data
• Benchmark
• Compare to peer organizations
• Recommend changes

51
Collection Development Creating the Policy
52
Creating the Policy Caveats

• Part of a whole
• An e-resource collection management policy
  should be a subset of the general collection
  policy
• Consortium policies differ from an individual
  library policies
• Will the consortium purchase resources for the
  entire group?
• Will individual institutions have the opportunity
  to opt-in or opt-out of each offer separately?

53
Policy Creation Typical Issues

• Licensing
• Who is negotiating the license (institution or
  consortium)?
• What are the key terms and conditions (other than
  price)?
• Fair Use
• What are the limits of the allowance?
• Analysis
• What quantitative information does the publisher
  or vendor supply?
• How will consortial statistical analysis differ
  from institutional analysis?
• Archiving
• How will long-term access be guaranteed when the
  vendor controls both content and the means of
  access?

54
Policy Creation More Issues

• Non-Content Costs
• What is the cost to acquire and process
  resources?
• What are the technology costs to provide access
  (e.g., network requirements, local portal
  interface, workstations, bandwidth)?
• User Support
• Are e-journals really intuitive and require no
  user instruction?
• Is there a value in teaching users how to use
  e-resources?
• How does support change if the library employs
  virtual reference to support virtual resources?
• Scholarly Publishing
• Does the e-resource advance or hinder the
  development of alternative services? Does or
  should this matter? Why?

55
E-Resource Evaluation, Selection Assessment
56
Evaluation Selection Criteria - 1

• Trials
• Are they available?
• Note trials usually last weeks, not months
• Note dont do a trial if you arent serious
  about a potential purchase
• Audience
• What is the target audience or potential users
  (e.g., faculty, students, general community)?
• Does the product intended to meet the needs of a
  broad audience, or is it a niche product?
• For niche products, is there a strong secondary
  clientele?

57
Evaluation Selection Criteria - 2

• Content
• Is the content of high quality?
• Is the content complete (breadth and depth)?
• Is there adequate coverage (backfiles, etc.)?
• Is the frequency of updating acceptable?
• Is the content considered to be reliable?
• Does the database include the most frequently
  cited sources?

58
Evaluation Selection Criteria - 3

• Collection Value
• Does the product augment or replace existing
  resources?
• Does it fill a gap in a core subject area?
• Does the resource significantly overlap with
  other current resources?
• What is the extent of duplication of other
  resources?
• Does the resource provide the user with the
  ability to gain easy remote access?
• Currency of material included
• Frequency of updating

59
Evaluation Selection Criteria - 4

• Functionality
• Is the interface effective and intuitive?
• Does it pass the Librarian Test?
• Is the product highly usable?
• What is the quality of the search and limit
  functions?
• Does the system provide effective options for
  linking?

60
Evaluation Selection Criteria - 5

• Technology
• Can the consortium accommodate any special
  hardware and software requirements?
• Are there any web browser compatibility problems?
• Is remote access supported and allowed?
• Are there any plug-in requirements?
• Is there an adequate authentication system?
• What archiving options are available?

61
Selection Evaluation Criteria - 6

• User Support
• Is there adequate documentation for librarians
  and for users?
• Does the product require any special staff
  training needs? If so, will the publisher/vendor
  provide the training?
• Cost
• Is the price fair relative to the competition?
• Is there sufficient room to negotiate the price?
  (Consider consortium overhead costs!)
• Licensing and Business Arrangements
• Are all terms and conditions acceptable?

62
Access Strategies

• Web-based resources
• Readily available
• Does not require local technology expertise to
  implement
• Local loading
• Local search engine, interface, and statistics
• puts some of the bargaining power back in the
  hands of libraries
• addresses strategic archiving issues
• gains control over the number and functioning of
  user interfaces
• provides customized and normalized statistical
  usage measurements

63
Consortium Selection Criteria

• Does resource meet the needs of
• Large and small institutions?
• All types of member libraries?
• Is there an agreement on the priority?
• Are institutions willing to share in the cost?

64
Consortium Purchasing Strategies and Decisions

• Journal and/or book aggregation
• Consortial purchasing
• Country-wide programs and services
• Cooperative group purchasing
• Last copy or single copy collection management
• Group archives

65
Collection Assessment Methods

• Collection analysis tools
• User recommendations
• Usage statistics (circulation, shelving,
  electronic resources)
• ILL statistics
• Checklists
• User consortium surveys
• Subjects covered subject gaps
• Satisfaction

66
Special Selection Issues for Different Types of
Materials
67
Special Collection Management Concerns
Abstracting Indexing (AI) Services

• Redundancy of coverage
• E.g., Proquest and EBSCO how to avoid paying for
  the same thing twice
• New tools are available for analyzing redundant
  content (e.g., Gold Mine)
• Determine which resources are indexed
• Determine which resources include full text
• Determine if full text is complete (e.g., all
  images)
• How do services such as Ingenta differ from
  Proquest or Ebsco?

68
Special Collection Management Concerns
E-Journals

• Types of E-journals
• General Aggregator (e.g., EBSCO, Proquest, Ovid)
• Proprietary
• Single publisher, e.g., Elsevier ScienceDirect)
• Usually large commercial publishers
• Small publisher aggregators (e.g, HighWire, Muse)
• Alternative publishers
• Not-for-profit publishers (e.g., ACS, APA,
  Science)
• Can be more difficult to deal with than
  commercial publishers

69
Special Collection Management Concerns
E-Journals

• Advantages
• Distributed access anytime, anyplace, anywhere
• Unlimited simultaneous use
• Timeliness of content
• Quick searching
• Live cross-linking
• Ability to download and/or print
• Usually at least as complete as print counterpart
• May have supplementary materials not in print
  version
• No shelf space required
• Reduced claiming necessary

70
Special Collection Management Concerns
E-Journals

• Disadvantages
• Not always complete
• Missing issues can be hard to identify
• E-only web-based services lack a live archive if
  consortium discontinues subscription
• Premium placed on journals with highest impact
  factor (most cited journals)
• Faculty want to publish in high impact journals

71
Special Collection Management Concerns
E-Journals

• Pricing purchase variables eligible for
  negotiation
• print subscription basis (note for countries in
  transition with few print subscriptions this may
  not a meaningful variable)
• electronic access fee (based upon print
  subscription base or if subscription is e-only)
• cancellation allowance
• cross access to titles held within the consortial
  collection
• per article cost for non-subscribed titles
• Other terms and conditions (e.g., ILL fair usage,
  limits on ability to print or download)
• Inflation factor
• Try to predict so you dont subscribe for a year
  and not be able to purchase later
• For countries in transition willingness of the
  publisher to subsidize access (i.e., reduce
  price) because the market will not bear the full
  price

72
Special Collection Management Concerns E-Books

• Types of e-books
• General, e.g., netLibrary or ebrary
• Specialized, e.g., Books 24X7, Knovel
• Advantages
• Timeliness
• Always available
• Cannot be multilated or stolen
• No space required
• Disadvantages
• Not generally amenable for reading an entire book
• Limited technology (e.g., there are no good CD
  ROM options web is the only true choice for
  delivery)
• Some limits based upon purchasing model

73
Special Collection Management Concerns E-Books

• Options for purchasing e-books
• Shared versus institutionally-unique collections
• One user at a time (with loan periods) versus
  unlimited access
• User-driven collection management
• Type of books general monographs, scholarly
  texts/university press, e-reference, etc.
• Timeliness of the collection
• Depth of coverage
• Subject coverage
• Reader equipment capabilities and requirements
• Printing and downloading allowances
• Availability of cataloging records

74
Special Collection Management Concerns Other
Types of Materials

• E-Reference
• Images
• Sound and video files

75
Technology Considerations
76
Technology Requirements Overview

• Bandwidth
• Authentication
• Workstations
• Remote access
• Software
• System integration
• Usage data output

• Preservation and Archiving
• Specific issues
• Cataloging of E-Resources
• Portal Development
• Linking and Serials Management

77
TechnologyCataloging E-Resources

• Source of cataloging records
• Batch loading
• Authority control
• Loading into local systems
• Batch de-selection of materials and cataloging
  records
• Consortium union catalog access

78
TechnologyPortal Development

• Portal components
• the search interface (or presentation) format,
  including a system to enable federated searching
• the content that is accessible through the portal
  
• the technology infrastructure to support the
  interface functions
• Value of portal
• Use of specific resources can increase based upon
  gateway placement and visibility
• Consortium role
• Does the consortium need to provide a portal?
• What role should the local online catalog or the
  consortium union catalog play?
• Integrate resources into the whole
• Provide broadcast search functions
• Enable federated searching
• Integration of full-text content within indexing
  and abstracting services

79
Technology Linking Serials Management

• Article-level links within a single service
• PubMed's LinkOut, Silverplatter Silverlinker, ISI
  Web of Science, OCLC Electronic Collections
  Online, Cambridge Scientific, EBSCO, etc.
• Limitations may offer links only to content from
  publishers with which these companies have
  agreements, or that a library accesses within a
  specific service
• Cross-Ref
• A publisher industry initiative to enable article
  linkages across participating publishers
• Federated searching
• Multiple vendor implementations, e.g., Ex Libris
  SFX and Endeavor Encompass
• Metadata harvesting
• e.g., being developed through the Open Archives
  Initiative
• Serials Management
• TDNet and SerialsSolutions fulltext list
  generation, URL generation to load MARC-like
  catalog records into local catalog

80
Budgeting and Funding for Consortium Collection
Development
81
Budget Issues

• How are e-resources priced?

82
Budgeting Pricing Options - 1
83
Budgeting Pricing Options - 2
84
Budgeting Pricing Options - 3
85
Budgeting Pricing Options - 4
86
Budgets and Consortial Collection Management

• Institutional versus consortial purchasing
• How are the funding needs different?
• Pricing issues
• Is the resource reasonably priced?
• Will purchase through a consortium make the
  product less costly?
• Is the resource affordable?
• What is the availability of funds, e.g.,
• Does the consortium have central funds or is
  everything negotiated for individual
  institutional purchase?
• Are additional institutional funds a available
  for e-resource purchases or is a reallocation
  required?
• Will institutional funds be used to leverage
  central funds, or only to make purely local
  decisions?
• How does the availability of central funding
  affect the negotiation with the publisher or
  vendor?

87
Funding Consortium Cost-Sharing Strategies

• Each institution pays according to its size
• Fair-share (each pays according to its ability or
  budget)
• Variation based upon current print-based
  equivalents
• Equal-share (each pays an identical amount
  regardless of budget or size)

88
User Support Issues
89
User Support Issues

• Relationship to Collection Management
• Not strictly a collection management but a
  related concern
• If users dont use the resources because they
  cant then there is no reason to purchase the
  resources
• User Expectations
• Users expect e-services to be usable with minimal
  help
• When users need support, expectations for quality
  of service may be high
• Major support issues
• Slow or unresponsive service
• Web browser configuration problems
• Connectivity issues

90
New Frontiers for Library Consortia in Collection
Management
91
New Frontiers De-selecting E-Resources

• Drivers for de-selection
• A bad economy
• Availability of statistical data on actual use
• Changing publisher pricing
• A response to the changes in the Big Deal
• High-cost packages of e-journals from for-profit
  publishers
• May provide added content to all consortium
  members
• Problem electronic only subscriptions
• Publishers are attempting to force libraries to
  surrender their ability to negotiate terms when
  they enter such agreements
• No archival backup

92
De-selection Making It Effective

• Gathered cost-per-use data
• Do not just cancel big ticket packages just
  because large purchases are easy targets
• Explore whether a valued resource is now
  available from another vendor at a lower cost
• Use the competition, especially in the aggregator
  databases, to maximize opportunities

93
New Frontiers Alternative Providers

• Non-commercial, subscription based efforts
• ARL SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Resources
  Coalition) sponsored programs, e.g., Columbia
  Universitys Earthscape, Cornell's Project
  Euclid, and California Digital Librarys
  e-scholarship initiative
• Numerous free resources
• Many can be valuable
• Los Alamos National Laboratories Physics server
  contained the fourth, eighth, and sixteenth
  most-cited sources in Chemical Abstracts
• Doubtful that highly reliable sources (e.g.,
  newspapers) will remain free indefinitely
• Cannot build a well-balanced or complete
  collection only with free resources

94
New Frontiers Alternative Providers

• Perceived problems with alternative providers
• Scholars may not accept the cancellation of
  established but expensive titles
• Scholars want to publish in the most-cited
  journals
• Simultaneous demand for both the commercial and
  non-commercial packages increases total costs
  rather than being a replacement that helps
  stabilize costs
• Consortia are generally poorly equipped to handle
  small number of titles
• Bundling (e.g., SPARC BioOne) provides good
  economies of scale, but forces libraries to
  subsidize products that they may not need

95
Marketing of E-Resources

• Marketing is essential
• An e-resource is only valuable if users know it
  exists and can use it effectively
• First need to get the resource out of the hands
  of the librarians
• Librarians often dont want users to have access
  to resources that the librarians themselves dont
  understand
• Next need to integrate resources throughout the
  web site/portal
• Need to publicize availability to the user
  community
• What are some effective ways for doing this?
• Need to conduct training for the user community
  on how to make best use of the resource

96
Final Thoughts and Best Practices
97
Final Thoughts Essential Elements for Success

• Need a collection management team that represents
  the needs of the library functions, the library
  services and the communities of library users.
• Need a plan and a methodology to pull together
  the disparate data, to make it meaningful and
  useful.

98
Bibliography

• The bibliography is forthcoming

99
Contact Information

• Arnold Hirshon
• ahirshon_at_nelinet.net
• http//www.nelinet.net/ahirshon
• 508-597-1934

100
Publisher Expectations for Rate of Adoption of
E-Resources by Libraries
Publisher expectations
Library reality
New England reality