Transcript Taipe11-09-09

Consortia, Libraries, and
Managing in the
Downturn
Ann Okerson
Electronic Resources & Consortia
11 November 2009
[email protected]
Outline for today’s talk
• I. Overview of consortia
– History & purpose
– Types, services, issues, priorities
• II. The downturn
– Review ICOLC Statement on the Global
Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Consortial
Licenses (January 2009)
– NERL in the downturn
– Actions
• III. Yale Situation: a case study
– Collaborations
• IV. Other collaborative initiatives
I. Consortia Overview
Definition of a library
consortium
• "A ‘library consortium’ is any local,
regional, or national cooperative
association of libraries that provides for
the systematic and effective coordination
of the resources of schools, public,
academic, and special libraries and
information centers, for improving
services to the clientele of such libraries.”
(US Federal Communications Commission)
Many different shapes & sizes
• Some very large, complex (such as JISC); tiny
(LALC)
• Some have broad programs; others mainly
license electronic resources
• Can be restricted:
– to specific library types (special libraries, academic
libraries, etc.) or government agencies
• Can be open:
– To all local, or regional, or country wide group libraries;
some consortia include all libraries in their region
including elementary school and public
• Libraries often belong to several at once!
Types of consortia: a continuum
From decentralized
To centralized








Loosely affiliated
Volunteer staff
No formal organization
Small range of programs
Tightly affiliated
Permanent staff
Formal organization
Ambitious programs
Central organization
Tightly knit federations
Loose federations
Source: Arnold Hirshon
Funding consortia: a continuum
From centrally funded
To self-funded
 Typically state funding
 Consultative governance
 Consortium decides for all
 Institutional funds
 Individualized menus
 Customized resources
And everything in between!
All $$ from contributions,
distributed decisions
Hybrid of membership types
Hybrid of central and contributory $$
Central $$ and decisions
Source: Arnold Hirshon
How many consortia?
• ICOLC: http://www.library.yale.edu/consortia
• In 2000: 135 consortia listed
– 90 in USA
– 45 in 21 other countries
• In 2009: 211 consortia listed
– 129 in North America
– 82 in 41 other countries
• American Library Directory: lists 407 US
“Networks, Consortia, and Other Cooperative
Library Organizations“
• ALA 2007 Survey: lists about 200 in US
211 Consortia in ICOLC in 2009
129
47
13
8
3
8
+3 multinational
Consortia: timelines
• Library Cooperation in the US since 1876?
• Consortia in the U.S. have been around since
the 1930s (North Carolina)
• 1960s and 70s: Shared cataloging through
OCLC and RLG was born
• 1980s+: Focus moved to fast delivery for books
and articles, requested by libraries’ end-users
• 1990s+: Large-scale licensing of electronic
resources began, launched by publishers such
as Encyclopedia Britannica and Academic Press
• NOTE: The availability of electronic online
information resources expanded immensely the
role and presence of library consortia
Adding services over time: OhioLINK
Vendor images
Off-site
Digital
Media
Center
On-site
E-Journal
Center
Chat
Reference
On-Site
Central
Catalog
Subject
Clusters
On-site
E-books &
full text
literature
Inst. AV
E- Theses
& Diss.
Reference
&
Research
Databases
Electronic
Journals
E-books:
vendor
systems
Electronic
Books
Source: Tom Sanville, OhioLINK
ICOLC survey – top priorities
(March 2009)
• Budget Management
• Licensing & re-negotiation
• Digital initiatives & digital
preservation
• Next generation catalog
• Interlibrary lending
• Print – shared storage
• Scholarly Communications/ OA
• Union Catalog
• Training
• Etc.
• 80%
• 61.5
• 60.7
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
57.6
54.5
45.8
42.9
40.
39.1
35.0
II. Downturn:
ICOLC and NERL
International Coalition of Library Consortia
http://www.library.yale.edu/consortia
ICOLC statement
• January 2009 “Global Economic Crisis”
• There are & will be: significant cuts,
prolonged cuts, a permanent reduction
in base budgets (a lower plateau)
• Two principles:
– 1: Flexible pricing that offers customers
real options, including the ability to reduce
expenditures without disproportionate loss
of content, will be the most successful.
– 2: It is in the best interest of both publishers
and consortia to seek creative solutions
that allow licenses to remain as intact as
possible, without major content or access
reductions.
ICOLC statement (2)
• Purchasers will trade features for price; that is,
we can do without costly new interfaces and
features. This is not a time for new products.
• Putting price first will help all parties, because
budget pressures will drive decisions in a way
never seen before. Real price reductions will be
welcomed and can help to sustain relationships
through the hard times.
• Multi-year contracts will be possible only with
clear opt-out and/or reduction clauses.
• Options will be needed for semi-annual or
quarterly payment schedules, in combination
with more flexible opt-out/reduction clauses and
renewal cycles.
Example: NERL
• Membership:
– Full members: 27 large academic research libraries
– Affiliates: 70+ smaller academic
• Organization & Governance:
–
–
–
–
–
–
Voluntary consortium with shared goals: non-bureaucratic
Letter of agreement, with decisions made by full members
Review organization every 3 years (founded 1996)
Staff of 2+; annual dues-funded operations of $120,000
Each contract is optional for each and every member
Yale the organizational and fiscal home
• Programs:
– Focus on access to expensive (over $10K) scholarly eresources of importance to research institutions
– Billing turnover of ~$30M annually
NERL situation
• Makes available over 10,000 Journal titles
• Makes available nearly 300 databases
– Members can pick and choose from the
databases and packages
• Works with over 60 publishers
• Collects numerous data regarding usage and
cost per use for publisher packages
• Generates annual Savings Reports for members
– Payments for 2009 centrally made = $23M
– Total payments including members = ~$35M
– Estimated savings off list = ~29%
NERL situation (2)
• For 2010 - 3 with moderate increases; 2 are “flat”;
rest cut for 2009-2010 fiscal year
• April 2009 letter sent re. e-resources contracts
with ~60 publishers/providers
• http://www.library.yale.edu/NERLpublic/ 2009
NERL Budget Letter to Vendors
– Cuts range from 1% - 15% (5-20% in actual
dollars)
– Average dollar cuts around 4-5%
– Average buying power cuts around 8-10%
– Not able to sustain payments at previous levels
– Reviewing contracts with major suppliers
– Looking for partnerships and stability
– Can we strike new pricing models?
NERL situation (3)
Responses to NERL letter so far - 53:
• Not-for-profits are trying to hold prices flat for 1 –
2 years; a few reductions
• Creators of large historical databases are
increasing incentives (more customers = price
reductions); know that sales will be way down;
also capping or eliminating annual access fees
• A few for-profits (Lexis-Nexis) also freezing
prices for general subscription products
• For-profit journal publishers appear to expect to
reduce content, treat different consortial
members differently (“divide & conquer”), make
reduction terms conditional upon “buying back
up” in future years to pre-downturn spends
III. Yale: a case study
Yale case study
•
•
•
•
December 2008 – President’s letter: 5% reduction
January 2009 – raised to 6.75%
February 2009 – raised to 7.5%
March 2009 – library must further reduce:
– 65 staff positions (38 vacancies eliminated)
– $1.93M collections
– Travel and operations slashed
• April 2009 – no carryovers to new FY
• June 2009 – expect further cuts in the fall and in
next fiscal year
• 44% of Yale income from endowments; sliding
further?
• 5% additional collections cuts mandated 11/09
• Flat pricing will take us only so far (not very)
Yale case study (2)
• Yale has 20+ libraries in different discipline
areas; choices will vary; in 2009-2010 FY:
– Limited or zero new subscriptions
– Reduce print book purchases (foreign exchange factor)
– Cancel less-used, more specialized, or somewhat
overlapping databases
– Downsize reference collections
– Significantly reduce retrospective database purchases
(backfiles, historical collections)
– Begin systematic serials cancellations
– Future of journal packages rigorously examined
• 2010-2011 Strategy:
– Retain staff as much as possible
– More of the above cuts PLUS
– Systematically “un-do” high-spend journal packages
Yale case study (3)
• We buy most major resources through
NERL
• Savings for Yale around 20% off list price
• Journal package analysis shows:
– Cost per use ranges from $.65 to $2.94 per
download (discipline dependent)
– Packages based on “historic spend”
– “Historic” titles still account for 2/3 – 80% of
actual use
– Pareto’s Law applies: 1% of journals = 10% of
use; 2-3% account for 20% of use; about 2530% account for 80% of use; and about 40%
account for 90% of use
– Lots of high use resources
BorrowDirect – a regional
collaboration
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•
•
•
•
•
•
What Enables partner university students, faculty, and staff to
borrow books directly from the libraries of Brown University,
Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, the
University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and Yale.
Scope All printed books (monographs) and music scores that are
lent by the owning library with the following exceptions:
– Books that are non-circulating, or on reserve
– Books assigned to reference, or rare book collections by the
owning library
– Bound journals or journal articles
Response Time Within 4 business days after requested.
Notification Email notice sent when requested book arrives.
Pick-Up Location Can be specified, during scheduled library
hours.
Loan Period 6 weeks. Recalled books within 3 days.
Cost Effective Automated via special software. Handled as a
circulation rather than ILL transaction; costs around $8/transaction
BorrowDirect collective
collection
• 50 Million Volumes
• 500,000 Monographs Added Annually
• 40 Million Microforms
• 125,000 Videos
• 715,000 Audio Files
• $120M in Library Material Expenditures
• $40M for Monographs
Source: Estimated from 2006-07 ARL Statistics
BorrowDirect people &
programs
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•
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•
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95,000 students
42,000 graduate students
9,000 faculty
2,500 Ph.Ds awarded
425 Ph.D fields
Source: Estimated from 2006-07 ARL Statistics
BorrowDirect collections
officers
• We are exploring opportunities in a time of $$
constraint (and plenty of materials to buy)
– ADs for Collections met at 3 ALA conferences
– 3 conference calls (recently on October 30th)
– Brainstorming and exploration
• Re-energeize old agreements (film studies)
• Create new ones (perhaps e-book approval
plan sharing one day?)
• Identify “dead ends” (little more can be done
– example)
• Are there new downstream opportunities
(new disciplines)
YBP BorrowDirect consortial
view, 2008-2009
Trade Presses
• YBP treated 43,836 discrete
titles.
• BD institutions purchased
55% of YBP’s inventory or
24,144 titles of which 9,814
were unique, single
institution purchases.
• BD acquired 52,701 copies
with an overlap of 28,557
copies.
• This constitutes an
estimated 3 copies per title.
University Presses
• YBP treated 10,057 discrete
titles.
• BD institutions purchased 79.4%
of YBP’s inventory or 7,981 titles
of which 1,367 were unique,
single institution purchases.
• BD acquired 25,291 copies with
an overlap of 17,310 copies.
• This constitutes an estimated 3.7
copies per title.
• Given that BD members also
acquire their own university
press’ titles outside of YBP,
redundancy is even higher.
Ways to divide responsibility?
• Identify which schools have earmarked funds for
substantial disciplines and let them carry heavier load
• Document current subjects & programmatic shifts at the
BD institutions
– Steady-state
– Renewed interest
– Interdisciplinary growth
– Areas for exploration:
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Music (recent-ish)
German Studies (Cornell and
Princeton will explore)
Environmental (Dartmouth
leading)
Nanotechology (Brown leading)
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Native Americans (Brown and
Dartmouth will explore)
Korean Studies (Yale
investigation)
Small press contemporary
poetry (Columbia & Yale)
Ways to divide responsibility
• P-books: could we agree to think of our
printed books as a BD community
resource?
• E-books: could we acquire as a
consortium for sharing?
– Alternative (possible) Scenarios:
• When 4 of 7 BD members own an e-book title, it
becomes available to other members.
• After a title is requested via BD for the 3rd time,
another “copy” is purchased for the system.
• Agree to share (reduce) purchase of print copies as
we transition to more e-books.
The next generation?
• Can we augment the formats available to include
videos, audio recordings, and microforms?
• Can we open collections currently closed for
borrowing, through flexible loan periods, digitizal
delivery, or other methods?
• Do we need a more formalized approach to our
agreements?
• How can we foster closer communication and
productive networking among our subject
specialists? Our faculty?
• Are there other research libraries which we would
recommend as BD partners?
Discussion?
• When does BorrowDirect make sense as a
collections strategy? When not?
• How to hold conversations?
• Any differences in potential for sharing between
undergraduate and professional materials?
• To what extent can group collection agreements
override local needs?
• How do we stay with changing priorities, landscape?
• How do patron-driven requests fit here?
• How to think about inequities among collections
budgets of different libraries?
IV. Other collaborations
Some other (ambitious)
sharing strategies
• Inter-institutional Mandates
– 2CUL: http://www.library.cornell.edu/news/091012/2cul
– The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded
$385,000 to support the development of an innovative
partnership dubbed “2CUL.” This new relationship has the
potential to become the most expansive collaboration to
date between major research libraries.
– Starting this fall, Cornell and Columbia will plan significant
partnerships in collaborative collection development,
acquisitions and processing.
– The two universities will form a separate service entity to
facilitate the collaboration.
– Initial work will focus on several global collecting areas, as
well as collaborative funding and support of technical
infrastructure in various areas.
Connecting, reproducing, linking . . .
Building the global library
We’ll keep dancing
“Happy Feet”