Managing serials in the electronic world

1. Managing serials in the electronic world Yvonne Desmond, Faculty Librarian, Dublin Institute of Technology. yvonne.desmond@dit.ie

2. Why serials? • Essential scholarly communication process..peer review, quality guarantee • Dissemination of research • Impact factor • Faculty may be involved as authors, editors, reviewers etc. • Importance varies according to academic discipline

3. Nature of serials • volatile frequencies • changes, merges, ceases • publisher may change • format • index separately or in mid issue • group titles become individual • special issues, sudden supplements

4. Managing the process • Selection • Collaboration • faculty only, library only • New sub • increased budget • sponsored purchase • cancellation

5. Ordering…DIY or Agent • DIY • numerous publishers • different invoices, different times • different payment terms • multiple currencies • different claiming periods • multiple customer service staff

6. Subscription Agent • does all the work • simplified invoicing • handle claims • can deal with e journals • shelf ready • early payment discount

7. Advantages of an Agent • pay in advance (commit early) • personal relationship • most have database accessible to customers • fast/consolidation for a price • tailored reports • reports on price increases • electronic access • back issues

8. Management concerns • all issues paid for are received • issues arrive on time • missing issues • fast/real response to claims • electronic access • fast and speedy retrieval (cataloguing)

9. Retrieval of serials • Print…catalogue record • Electronic • 856 tag to hyperlink • alphabetical list on library website • need to let user know what you have • can use lists • opac (needs MARC record)

10. Financial management • Crucial • need to control spending • currency fluctuations • vat payments • management information

11. Financial management contd • If spend over €250,000 must tender • legal process • staff commitment and time • clear about requirements • cost not the major consideration • service commitment and futurability • dependant on one agent

12. Electronic resources • Tasks involved • find out what is available (free, surcharge or extra subscription) • contact publisher/intermediary • negotiate licence • authentication issues • local and remote access • user training and education

13. Specific issues re electronic • usage statistics • reliability of site/service • user problems and queries • abstracts v full text…document delivery • duplication especially in aggregates • continuity of access if cancel in future • archiving

14. What Libraries want? • product flexibility and can buy title by title • Reasonable, realistic pricing • clearly defined licences • common interface, easy authentication • free printing, pay per view • real commitment to archiving

15. What libraries get • online version only if subscribe to print • was free with print, now charged • print & electronic becomes electronic only • different formats, different pricing, various full and part text versions • Aggregated databases..volatile, duplication, abstract to full text

16. What libraries get contd • prices may be computed according to number of users, years covered, number of ports etc. • may be extra charges for downloading/printing • varied pricing if product is stand alone or networked • may be additional access costs

17. Result • E journals complicated • eat up staff time • are very expensive • Agent

18. Additional questions for libraries • how are e journals to be catalogued? • do we have the technical infrastructure? • how do we maintain our archives? • do we move from print to electronic?

19. DIT • 6 main centres, 6 Faculties • 21,000 students • 1000 academic staff • 70 library staff • Library in each centre • Central Services Unit

20. Serials budget • €1 million (27% electronic) • 1800 subscriptions • selection by library and faculty • new subscription matched by cancellation • serials staffing, • 1 librarian and 1 library assistant shared with Acquisitions • 1 full time senior library assistant

21. Approach to Serials Management • not in Consortium • tendered for print subs in 2000 • 3 year contract (3 annual renewals) • other resources direct negotiation with publisher • claim everything not received • Millennium library system (III)

22. Key Areas • financial Management..crucial • control spending in 7 sites • provides management information on current spending and estimates for further spending.

23. Electronic infrastructure • DIT established as legal entity in 1992 • capital injection…new equipment • no equipment budget since 2002 • system aging as demands increased • printing and photocopying management outsourced in 2000 • policy to provide effective electronic delivery while budget contracts

24. Licensing • Individual negotiation • librarian as contract law expert • can only afford once-off purchase • obligation to inform users of licence details • project to produce database with main features of the licences available on staff intranet

25. User education • alphabet used to be main key to information. • level of expertise just to get online • remote users.. • Information literacy skills • increased demands on staff

26. Authentication • legal requirement, frustrating to user • passwords..insecure, easily forgotten • use Web Access Management (Proxy Server) • Athens Authentication • asked for Name, ID and Pin..lasts for whole session • IP inhouse…seamless

27. Usage statistics • how do we know what is being used? • Counter “international code of practice governing the recording and exchange of electronic data. End 2003 10 major publishers compliant, more coming www.projectCounter.org

28. Why stats • Vital to know what is being used • Need uniform standard to be able to make sense of the data. • Must be credible ,consistent,compatible • Will we like the results!

29. Catalogue as gateway • aim to provide one point of entry..convenience • catalogue all print journals • A-Z list on OPAC,Subject list • piggyback electronic by use of 856 MARC tag • catalogue individual electronic journals • Aggregates a problem

30. Serials Solutions • system to track and report full text journals in the packages • can import individual electronic journals if library provides the information • reports in many formats and MARC records • cut and paste data into 856 field

31. Millenium System • Suite of products in this area • Metafind…broadcast searching of all resources • Webbridge…linking facility. • Library defines the collection and decides the way the component resources can be best linked to suit our needs • Electronic Resources Management…still under development.

32. End result • will enable us to create our own library portal..ie a website customised for our own users • impose structure and order on huge range of information resources = old fashioned librarianship! • document delivery…may decrease ILLs or increase them

33. Open access Journals..Free! • Movement to fight back • Author pays, free to end user • Controversial area

34. Worth looking at Oaister http://oaister.umdl.umich.educ/o/oaister (over 3 million records from 282 institutions) BioMed Central http://www.biomedcentral.com/browse/journals/ Plos (Public Library of Science) (Biology/Medicine) http://www.publiclibraryofscience.org/ Directory of Open Access Journals (1096 titles) http://www.doaj.org/

35. Conclusions • serials management is changing • people have voted with their fingers • print is not going away • publishers consolidating • libraries trying to combat escalating costs • staff roles will change • training will take more time and need to happen more often

36. Conclusions contd • transition from print to electronic requires large investment at a time of budget cuts • publishers need to recognise particular requirements of libraries • rise of an intermediary to help manage the process and provide value add ons

37. Way forward • Need a collaborative process between libraries, publishers, vendors..where key players know their roles and how to support each other. • Emergence of the electronic resource will do more to stimulate real library cooperation than anything else so far.

38. The future is already here, it is just not uniformly distributed yet” (quote on t-shirt) • Thank you for your attention • yvonne.desmond@dit.ie