Consortial Purchasing: One model of many
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Transcript Consortial Purchasing: One model of many
Consortial Purchasing
One model out of many ….
Diane Costello
Overview
CAUL/CEIRC
CEIRC administrative model
Some principles
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 -> web site
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 - name change to “Council”;
1995 - full-time executive officer, office staff now 2fte
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 (38+25 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)
Percentage discount by volume
# Institutions
# Databases
# Titles
EFTSU / FTE - all or discipline-specific
Carnegie Classification
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 199655 agreements, 36 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 (28)
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)
For the new consortium:
content - find a product that many own/want
coordinate - volunteer, employee
contribute - to the cost of running the group
confide - know your starting point by sharing
information about current expenditure
communicate - web, lists
Issues (4)
(The New Consortium - cont.)
knowledge about your group members physical sites
# staff (professional & total)
access mechanism eg IP addresses, intranet
requirements
government/department legal/purchasing
requirements
consider - whether an agent can assist, act as a
broker eg DA, EBSCO, Swets etc
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