Transcript The CAUL Experience in Consortial Purchasing

The CAUL Experience in
Consortial Purchasing
Nordic Federation of Research Libraries Association (NVBF)
Study Tour of Australia - June, 2002
Diane Costello
Why form a Consortium?
Reduce costs - Discount for volume
Increase access - To all titles owned by
the consortium; to publisher’s list; to
aggregator’s packages
Reduce work
Information gathering
Trial coordination
Licence negotiation
Price negotiation
Principles
Better price and/or conditions than
possible as a single institution
Entry level which allows the largest
number to participate
Advantages for larger institutions
Information gathering
http://www.caul.edu.au/datasets/offers.htm
http://www.caul.edu.au/datasets/ip.htm
Simplify administration
… and the Publishers?
Single point for wide distribution of
information
Single point of contact for negotiations
Single invoice
… but
Maintain (or increase) bottom line
CAUL
38 AVCC member libraries;
 1965 - Committee formed;
 1992 - Council named;
 1995 - full-time executive officer
 CEIRC Committee (election/nomination)
 Office staff 2 FTE (5/95, 6/98, 4/01)
Secretariat, Committee Support, Cooperative
Activities (Statistics, ULA, Performance
Indicators, CISC), Liaison/Representation,
Current awareness, Web site, CEIRC program.
CEIRC
(CAUL Electronic
Information Resources Committee)
NPRF funds $2m 1993-1996 for datasets
“Trials” of ISI Current Contents, Academic Press
IDEAL, IAC Expanded Academic ASAP, etc
Evolved into consortial purchasing
Committee recommends policy to CAUL
CAUL Office handles day-to-day
Now includes CSIRO, CONZUL (+24 total)
CEIRC Levy
CEIRC (2)
Guidelines for external participants
Guidelines for licences - no strict model
Checklist for “negotiations”
but
No preferred pricing model
No minimum participation
No schedule of negotiations
CAUL Office
Instigation via member, publisher or office
Distribution of information re product,
licence, price & trial via email list
Negotiation/liaison re price & conditions
Maintenance of details on web site
http://www.caul.edu.au/datasets/
Participation list, IP addresses, contacts
Invoicing & payments
Decision-Making
Self-selected consortium vs National Site
Licence
“Buying club”
National Site Licence - an ideal which
requires either
top-sliced or additional funding
or
internal agreement about what is wanted
and how much the individual institutions are
prepared to pay for it
Decision-Making (2)
Changing environment
--> Changing decision-making processes
Each product assessed independently
Licence conditions
Overlap between products
Choice of interfaces
Datasets Coordinator - coordinates
communication & decision by given date!
Cost-Sharing
Determined by Publisher & passed on to
group eg
Subscription history (current spend)
Carnegie Classification
Percentage discount by volume
# Institutions
# Databases
# Titles
EFTSU / FTE - all or discipline-specific
Cost-Sharing (2)
Determined within Consortium eg
Equal share
FTE-based
Usage-based
Resources budget, or
… a combination of the above eg 50% equal
share (entry level) + 50% FTE-based
… or what it is worth to the institution eg
NAAL (Alabama)
Cost-Sharing (3)
Gaining consensus
Current Contents - 50% fixed + 4 tiers based
on FTE (+ choice of interface)
MathSciNet - Costs of current subscribers
reducing with added subscribers
ProQuest5000 - Minimum entry cost per
institution + Minimum total cost
CAUL Agreements 199649 agreements, 20 full-text, 4 factual databases,
the rest bibliographic
Half commenced in 2000 or later
burgeoning of available electronic products
increasing willingness of publishers to deal with
consortia
Billing handled centrally (24)
local office or agent
Average number of participants 20
Highest number 40 (ProQuest5000, PsycINFO)
Issues
Publishers
Site definition (16 Oz single-campus univ)
Bundling print with online (mainly UK)
Maintaining bottom line
Premium for electronic and/or enhanced
product eg WoS
Access to “purchased” data & archiving
Issues (2)
Members
Variation in size / wealth / research emphasis
/ discipline base
Cost-sharing parameters
Competition
“Subsidy” of less well-resourced institutions
Relative gain, rather than the NAAL ideal
Agreement on priorities
Issues (3)
Subscription Agents
Publishers dealing directly
Overlap with consortia
Invoicing members
Paying publisher
Finding new roles
Agent for consortia
Collections management and support
Pause ....
Very similar deals being done by a wide
variety of consortia internationally
Value in sharing information
Value in clubbing together in disciplinebased groups
Value in a group facilitator
not distracted by “regular job”
knowledge base
Pitfalls ….
Setting unachievable deadlines
rolling start-dates possible
Creating unnecessary legal obstacles
with the publisher or with each other
Shift in cost centres - from personal &
laboratory subscriptions to Library
Unsustainability - the “big deal” leaves
little room for flexibility
… and progress
Cheaper than list prices
Access to more titles
Shift in licence conditions eg ILL, course
packs, single institution vs multi-site etc
Unbundling of print from electronic
More trust --> Simpler licences