CEIRC Aggregator SurveyCEIRC Aggregator Survey

October 2000October 2000

Sherrey Quinn & Ian McCallum

23 October 2000, # 2

The Brief

• Electronic journal aggregation

• Survey of trends & industry developments

• Overview of mix of products & services

• Comment on characteristics and trends

23 October 2000, # 3

Methodology, 1

• Read background documentation

• Noted comments from CEIRC members

• Devised a set of questions, refined with CEIRC representatives (6 Oct)

• Questions to participants, from 9 Oct

23 October 2000, # 4

Methodology, 2

• Telephone discussions, from 10th Oct• Reviewed data from publications &

recent projects• Observations on:

– Pricing– Competitive differentiators– Issues & trends

• Presentation, report

23 October 2000, # 5

Sources, 1

• Input from CEIRC members

• Discussions with representatives of aggregators

• Aggregators’ websites and publicity material

• Knowledge base from previousLibraries Alive! projects

23 October 2000, # 6

Sources, 2

• Tenopir & King, Towards electronic journals: realities for scientists, librarians and publishers. (SLA, 2000)

• Other publications, eg:– Houghton, Economics of scholarly communication

(CSES, 1999)– ALIA/FLIN Digital Libraries Seminar Nov ’99– AIMA/EBSCO Managing Electronic Serials

Workshop, 2000

23 October 2000, # 7

Stakeholders: 1. Users

• Need the product

• Increasingly reliant on libraries for access to scholarly journals

• Fewer individual subscriptions

• Time pressure

23 October 2000, # 8

Stakeholders: 2. Libraries

• Deliver the users/readers

• Need the product to meet users’ needs

• Demonstrate value to parent body

• Cost effective expenditure

• Purchasing power declining

• Explosion in ILLs/doc delivery of articles

23 October 2000, # 9

Stakeholders: 3. Publishers

• Subscription prices increase by factor of 7.3, 1975 to 1995 (T&K)

• Personal subs dropping

• Rate of price increases rising

• Publishers need to stay in business

23 October 2000, # 10

Stakeholders: 4. Aggregators

• Single access point for library users

• Uniform interface and search engine across resources

• Single management point for librarians

• Uniform licensing for ‘bundled’ journals

• Support – training, help desk, usage reports

23 October 2000, # 11

Terminology

• Journal, electronic journal, online journal

• Aggregator, vendor, gateway, subscription agent

• Full-text, full content

• Aggregation, integration, navigation

23 October 2000, # 12

Definitions & Labels• Aggregator

– An entity that licenses content to be maintained on its own server, or that wishes to present its own version of the content directly to end users, either from its own website or in another fixed medium, such as CD ROM.

Gateway– An entity that provides consolidated access and

searching across titles to a variety of journals. Content may or may not be housed on the gateway provider’s server, but the gateway does not seek to present its own version of the content to the end users.

Source: M. Spinella, editor of Science (from AIMA/EBSCO Managing Electronic Serials Workshop)

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Survey Coverage, 1

• Who are you?

• What’s offered?

• How is it accessed?

• Pricing policies

• Competitive differentiators

23 October 2000, # 14

Survey Coverage, 2

• Archiving, continuity of access

• Support & training

• Perceived industry trends

23 October 2000, # 15

CEIRC Issues

• Access

• Content

• Negotiation on customers behalf

• Pricing

• Licence restrictions

• Exclusive arrangements

• Administrative and usage reports

23 October 2000, # 16

Observations on Responses, 1

• Vertical integration

• Products – a bewildering array

• Market place in flux

• Partnerships between traditional competitors

• Article delivery (pay per view)

23 October 2000, # 17

Observations on Responses, 2

• Content issues

• Content format

• Choices

• Aggregators gathering content

23 October 2000, # 18

Observations on Responses, 3

• Exclusivity – exclusive titles

• Stability of content

• Linking

23 October 2000, # 19

Observations on Responses, 4

• Access

• Archival & continuing access

• Pricing

23 October 2000, # 20

Observations on Responses, 5

• Licensing

• Consortia issues

• Administrative & usage data

23 October 2000, # 21

Observations on Responses, 6

• Confusion over terminology

• Publishers looking for new markets

• Publishers said to be “doing all sorts of things”

• Core business will be print subs for some time to come

23 October 2000, # 22

Competitive differentiators, 1

• Integration/inclusion of electronic content other than journals

• Linking solutions/technologies

• ‘Unbundled’ for flexibility

• ‘Bundles’ for common access, administrative ease

• Content

23 October 2000, # 23

Competitive differentiators, 2

• Intuitive interface/ease of use

• Powerful search software, rich in features

• Customer/service orientation

• Good relations with publishers

23 October 2000, # 24

Trends, 1

• Publishers concern about loss of subs

• Fewer publishers in academic publishing

• Publisher aggregations

• ‘Exclusivity’ and content instability

23 October 2000, # 25

Trends, 2

• Pay-per-view

• Integrated databases

• Remote access

• Consortia deals

23 October 2000, # 26

Trends, 3

• ‘Linking’ technologies

• Seamless access

23 October 2000, # 27

Conclusions

• Pricing

• Substitutability

• Linking

• Confusion

23 October 2000, # 28

Acknowledgements

Libraries Alive! gratefully acknowledges

the cooperation of those people to whom

we have spoken during the course of this

assignment.