Transcript CONSORTIA IN ASIA

CONSORTIA IN ASIA
John Ben DeVette
Asia General Manager & Asst. Vice President
EBSCO Information Services
[email protected]
Why Libraries Cooperate
Consortias are HOT
• 2-3 years ago … accessing FULLTEXT
journals & databases ONLINE was the hot
topic
• 10 years ago … now my PC can access an
entire database thanks to CD-ROM
• NOW … CONSORTIA can license HUGE
fulltext databases and get more for less!.
3 Generations of Consortia
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1930’s
1960’s
Late 1990’s and now
The COMMON denominator is:
RESOURCE SHARING
The 1st Generation of Consortia
(Library Alliances)
• Began in 1930’s
• Main function was ILL (interlibrary loan)
• With some degree of cooperative collection
development
2nd Generation
• When major academic & research libraries
began COMPUTERIZATION in the 1960’s
• 3 main functions:
– UNION LISTS … Bibliographic Access,
shared Cataloging
– ILL & DDS
– “COOPERTATIVE COLLECTION
DEVELOPMENT”
What is COOPERTATIVE
COLLECTION
DEVELOPMENT ?
• Goal is to ensure that partner libraries build
local holdings that don’t duplicate
• Economy of Scale
3rd Generation Consortia are
primarily motivated by:
• FINANCIAL SAVINGS through BULK
ORDERING
• The DREAM of giving users access to a
HUMONGOUS VIRTUAL UNIVERSE of
Fulltext information.
Soft-linking
• Is the ability to smoothly jump back and
forth from OPAC to database to database,
and then back to the OPAC or even on to
another database.
• All WITHOUT HAVING TO LOGIN a
password or user ID.
Surfs UP!
• We all enjoy surfing the Internet
• But there seem to be more and more sites
that require a Password to get in ...
The DREAM of today’s consortia
is…
• To allow users to softlink and surf (search)
the internet at the same time
• Not just the internet, but a humongous
interlinked universe of databases
• SOFT SEARCH!!!
• Go from site to site without logging in!
What are the financial
benefits that
Consortia hope to
achieve?
Do Consortia REALLY save
Money?
• Edward Shreeves, (Chairman of the
Collection Management & Development
Section of the ALA) … I mean this guy
should know!!! …says:
• The is little evidence that cooperative
acquisition efforts have saved libraries
much money!!!
The State Univ. of New York system
(SUNY) did a study of how much
could be saved by canceling duplicate
subscriptions and using more ILL
• They concluded that the cost to set up and
maintain their consortia was MORE than
the savings they realized.
• IT COST MORE TO RUN THAN THEY
SAVED!
SUNY did not save because
• Many libraries were unwilling to cancel
(their) important titles, and then use ILL to
get the article from a fellow member.
• This is a common problem stated over and
over again by consortia … at least by the
ones that don’t save money!!!
Singapore’s SILAS did save
money
• In my opinion, SILAS has saved Singapore
hundreds of thousands of dollars
• by avoiding unnecessary duplication of
subscriptions and holdings.
China has very little unnecessary
duplication among neighbors
• Money has been so tight, they had to
cooperate
• Interestingly, most of the cooperation has
been at the library level, or even the
(acquisitions) department level
• It was not mandated from above … this is
unusual.
I feel you can SAVE MONEY
IF...
• you are willing to bite the bullet and explain
to your faculty and users why it is
absolutely necessary to cut subscriptions
and use ILL
When buying Online Databases
• Katherine Perry, Director of VIVA, says:
“We don’t talk about saving, but rather
about “financial benefits” or “cost
avoidance”
• VIVA: the Virtual Library of Virginia
From 1994 to mid-1999 VIVA
bought $34 million worth of
databases for the universities in
their State!!!
• Yet, they only spent $ 7 MILLION!!!
• They saved $27 million OFF THE LIST
PRICE!
• Spending increased, but they now have
online access to thousands of titles that they
could not access before.
OhioLINK
• Now gives its users access to ALL
JOURNALS published in ScienceDirect,
Academic Press IDEAL, and Johns Hopkins
University Press
• Before only 17% of these journals were
subscribed to in print.
• “Feedback from librarians has been positive”
Are the discounted databases
really the ones you want?
• Or are they the only ones available?
• Elsevier let Taiwan’s academic institutions
try ScienceDirect OnSite, yet some of the
libraries rarely used it, eventually most
subscribed (for 2000)
• Some probably would have liked ERIC with
FULL TEXT better!
Be a smart shopper!
• There are dozens and dozens of databases
available today
• Make sure you buy the databases most
useful to your users.
Now is a great time to buy online
databases!!!
• We are in a buyers market
• Publishers are worried about market share
• Many publishers have falling sales and
falling profits margins
• If you know how to negotiate you can get a
lower price than you could have last year.
Important Points to
Remember when
Organizing a
Consortia
The UNION LIST is the KEY
• You cannot have cooperative resource
sharing without a current union list
• If you cannot easily check the other
libraries’ holdings it is very difficult to
coordinate your collections.
OhioLINK
• Is one of the most successful and famous
consortia operating in the world today.
• The creators of OhioLINK’s first step was
the creation a statewide electronic catalog
system [online union catalog] ASAP!
SILAS was successful at saving
money
• Because it had a comprehensive national
union catalog for member libraries to
consult and use when buying or borrowing
Unfortunately, there are
bottlenecks / hurdles to jump /
obstacles to creating Union Lists
• Hong Kong’s JULAC struggled for years to
build an virtual union list of Chinese
language materials located in Taiwan, China,
and of course HK
Don’t bite off more than you can
chew
• Simply not having enough money has
slowed or stopped most projects
• When CALIS in China had its budget cut by
50%, they had to quickly scale back plans
and purchases.
DOST DOES it RIGHT!
• Philippines’ DOST-ESEP (Dept. of Science
& Technology - Engineering & Science
Education Project) STARTED SMALL
– 8 TOP UNIVERSITIES
– Emphasis is on TRAINING librarians how to
SERVE USERS
– Built its UNION LIST & ILL service first
Use one ILS for entire consortia
• Makes cooperative collection development
must easier
– automatically get a union catalog
– many have built-in ILL
– one common search engine for accessing all the
consortia’s online databases
• You can negotiate for Group savings!!!
• And you should receive better support, too.
Cross-border / INTERNATIONAL
Consortia
Cross-border INTERNATIONAL
Consortia
• PRDLA (Pacific Rim
Digital Library
Alliance) is a good
example
• Created by University
of California - San
Diego
• 13 charter members include:
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Univ. of HK
Keio University
Peking University
Seoul National Univ.
Australian National U.
Academia Sinica, Taiwan
National Univ. of Singapore
UC Berkeley
PRDLA
• Potential resources of member libraries: 50
MILLION VOLUMES!!!
• Already ILL works very smoothly. For
example: Academia Sinica (in Taiwan)
– Dedicated workstation, flatbed scanner, laser
printer, ARIEL software
– FAST usually 24 hour turnaround
– No copyright to pay (under normal conditions)
Someday it may be possible to
SURF from California to
Taiwan!!!
• SOFT SURF that is!!!