WORKING WITH eBooks:THE CONSORTIAL PERSPECTIVE

University & Research Libraries (ACT) and AGLINEBOOKS – TURNING THE PAGE

Sept 27, 2012

Outline

• Types of eBooks• Acquisition options• Consortial options• International perspective

Types of eBooks • Reference works

– editions or continuous updating– subscriptions amortised over life of edition– purchase plus update fee

• Scholarly monographs– single “copies” only– not frequently revised– research– not always DRM

• Textbooks– multiple copies– frequently revised– learning & teaching– user-funded now but likely to change with T&L platforms– DRM

Acquisition options

• Subscription – package or title• Purchase – package or title• Patron driven acquisition (PDA)

– profile (discipline, publisher), trigger #

• via publisher– approval plan

• via aggregator / agent• via consortium

Consortial options• Packages

– subscription or purchase– discounts

• # subscribers• # packages per subscriber• # $$$ per subscriber• direct consortial discount (sales channel)

• PDA, but generally done locally • title-by-title, but generally directly with

vendor

CAUL operations

• Liaise with publisher or their agent– negotiate pricing model, licence

• Make available to CEIRC members– website (pull) & email (push)– publisher page + current offers page

• Collate responses or send to vendor• Handle invoice or leave with vendor• Repeat ….

International consortial approaches• Shared collections and/or consortial PDA options – need to agree

on:– multiplier i.e. how many “copies” – reflect usage and purchasing

patterns– trigger to purchase– cost-sharing

• Orbis Cascade – EBL trial – short-term loans – triggers at 5/10 then purchase at 5 x price – 2011 imprints only

• BLC (Boston Library Consortium)– ebrary trial – no short-term loans– triggers by any member – first copy is consortium copy – 2012 imprints only

Challenges of Consortial DDA (Greg Doyle, Orbis Cascade)

• Discovery is a huge challenge with 37 local catalogs III, Evergreen, Endeavor), an OCLC group catalog, and multiple discovery systems

• No real way to generalize use by library type (2-yr, 4-yr liberal arts, 4-yr public, ARL)

• Mass removal of catalog records without creating public services problems

• MARC record quality, especially with publication dates, continues to be a problem

• Reliance on OCLC Knowledge Base is a problem when we add records weekly, KB updated monthly

• Dealing with budget shortfall is tricky; we can’t shift money from one fund to another. Need to monitor closely and have a process to make decisions quickly

but• March 2012: Council approves transitioning from a Pilot to an

Alliance program • Funding increased from $462,000 to $750,000 in FY 13

More reading …

• Two Consortial Ebook Projects Move Deeper Into Demand-Driven Acquisitions (includes Orbis Cascade)

• E-Book Acquisition as a Shared Service in M25 (E-BASS25) (JISC, just beginning)

• TRLN: Beyond Print: Consortial E-book Acquisitions

or • just Google “consortial acquisition of eBooks”

Thank-you ….

Diane Costello

Executive Officer, CAUL

diane.costello@caul.edu.au