March of the Consortia: thoughts from “the far side”

1. March of the Consortia: thoughts from “the far side” Ann Okerson Association of Subscription Agents February 27, 2007

3. Consortia in the US • Consortium, consortia, consortial! • Numbers: • American Library Directory: lists 407 US “Networks, Consortia, and Other Cooperative Library Organizations" • ICOLC: lists about 100 academically based US consortia • Wide variety of types and sizes • This presentation based on an informal poll of 11 groups and also review of Web sites • Private, public; broadly based agendas, focused agendas

5. Example: NERL (NorthEast Research Libraries consortium) • Est. 1996, 27 academic research libraries • Mostly private institutions; very large research libraries • Share the common objective of access and cost containment, joint licensing, and possible joint deployment of electronic resources. • Also provides licensing services for 40 smaller affiliates • Offers a forum in which members share information about management and budgeting for electronic resources. • Focuses on expensive (over $10K) scholarly e-resources of importance to research institutions. • Occasionally forms task forces or study groups • Staff of 2; annual dues-funded operations of $125,000 approx • Billing turnover of ~$15M last year • 80-90% of work is licensing e-resources

6. Example: CDL (California Digital Library) • Est. 1997, 11 libraries of the University of California system • Supports creation and use of the world's scholarship and knowledge for the UC libraries • Six areas of focus: • Collections: Acquire, host digitized materials • Services: Discover, share, manipulate, and integrate content • eScholarship: Foster innovation and experimentation in digital scholarly communication and publishing • Digital Preservation: Persistent management of digital information. • Communication, Outreach, and Assessment; Furthering understanding of the digital library domain; discovering needs, testing usability, and evaluating the use of digital collections and services. • CDL Technologies: Support application of technology for the development of scholarly digital collections and services. • 70+ staff (headcount) • Licensing is a minority of its very broad-based activities

7. Example: OhioLINK • Est. 1989, Consortium of Ohio’s college and university libraries; 85 institutions, incl 17 public universities, 23 community colleges, 44 private colleges and the State Library of Ohio • Serves faculty, students, staff and researchers via campus-based electronic library systems, the OhioLINK central site, and Internet resources. • Goal: to provide easy access to information and rapid delivery of library materials throughout the state. • Six main e-services: a library catalog, research databases, a multi-publisher electronic journal center, a digital media center, a growing collection of e-books, and an electronic theses and dissertations center • Staff = 16 + 2 on grants • Lots of licensing activity

8. Example: NELINET (New England Library Network) • Est. 1966; Member-owned, member-governed cooperative of over 625 academic, public, and special libraries in the six New England states • Largest & most diverse of the 4 mentioned here • Goals: • Promote the advancement of libraries and • Facilitate the ongoing sharing of library and information resources and services. • Programs: • premier New England regional network for OCLC services; • Broad variety of non-OCLC-related services, such as educational programs, consulting services, and consortium purchasing, New England Regional Repository, NECOL • Staff: 21 • Licensing a minority activity

9. What do consortia want? • Six general areas: • Functionality • Publishing/distribution • Managing print and analog materials • “Age of Googe” issues • Open access and related topics • New pricing concerns

10. Functionality: effectively deliver, integrate, evaluate resources • Plan for next generation of ILS and systems architecture in a consortial environment, beyond 2nd generation • Federated Searching: Ability to search as many consortial and library resources at a time as possible • Interfaces: Access to resources via familiar Web tools • Integration: Of all formats into discovery and delivery systems; into the teaching and learning environment • Customization: Meet individual needs, activated by users, options that can respond to specific actions • Platforms: Deliver services to many platforms (PC, PDA, tablets, etc.) • User statistics: Via SUSHI and COUNTER, local Web logs, other techniques, to assist in training, marketing to users, telling story to funders

11. Publishing & dissemination: repositories • Deploy and support a consortial or shared institutional repository (technical pieces and beyond); integrate materials local into local and consortium-wide missions • Develop shared infrastructure for ingesting, archiving and delivering digital content • Promote these opportunities for faculty to disseminate their intellectual content • Coordinate digitization efforts to create a critical mass of thematic material (special or regional collections, images, etc., such as women’s studies, New England history) • Develop digitized media, such as audio, video for data streaming • Make available requisite authentication and IP systems

12. Manage print: offsite shelving, de-dup, last copy, preservation • Develop and/or construct shared or decentralized storage for lesser used, print collections • Build rational, shared collections (rationalize dups) • Reduce duplication of print collections and develop last copy repository at existing shared storage facilities – across multiple consortia • Develop efficient shared print collections, optimized where possible through electronic delivery – Borrow Direct example • Manage print and digital collections (both licensed and 'built,' including MD) in an integrated fashion • Actively participate in or support digital preservation initiatives, locally (LOCKSS) or third party (Portico, etc.)

14. “Age of Google” issues • How to define the new role of the library – local, consortial, global? • How to evolve and adapt collection development aspirations in 'the age of Google' How to advocate for effectively reliable preservation of digital materials? • How to fund the analog library in a time of emphasis on the digital; to provide seed money to experiment with many new tools, services, ideas being advocated? • How to think about MD projects and values? • How to address the demand for change when there is no clear consensus on what to change or change into – at a time when change is frequent?

15. Open access & related issues • Consortia are very much interested in: • Advocating for wider access via legislation & policy changes • Securing grants/funds to accelerate ability to digitize the intellectual assets of member institutions • Assuring that consortial research remains available to scholars in the group, regardless of whether that scholar's institution can afford to buy the published research. • Maximizing accessibility of relevant freely available resources (eg growing array of OA journals) in concert with licensed content • Fully developing their consortial “resource commons” or repositories • Working with other consortia to support high-value OA products and proposing sustainable business models

16. Open access & new pricing issues • Sustainability in Open Access models • Grant funding – will come to an end • Rattle the tin cup • Endowment: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy • DOAJ? • Page charges? Membership? • The internal dilemma of transferring resources from library to researcher • PLoS, BioMed Central • Three questions: • What is fair? • What is sustainable? • What will the market decide?

17. Subscription Agent Role • For the Individual Library • Very useful for titles from smaller publishers, whatever format -- continues to serve the consolidator role • Less useful for aggregations such as ProQuest, IAC, etc. • Or huge bundles of journals, with one large subscription price • Utility varies for individual library packages such as Wiley, Sage, T&F, Elsevier, etc. • Most helpful in cases where libraries continue to think of their package as a collection of single titles and need individual pricing to be distributed among many funds • If the package is viewed as one large resource, then dealing direct is easier or at least more affordable • Low value for consortial package deals • Easier to deal directly with publishers for high volume business • Challenging to introduce yet another middleman to the mix • Doesn’t work for OA activities, so far

18. We’ll keep dancing

19. International Coalition of Library Consortia http://www.library.yale.edu/consortia