A New paradigm for “getting”

1. A New paradigm for  “getting” A proposal to improve access to the information resources of librariesKent Fitch, NLA

2. Topics • Background • NLA Direction Statement • Wake-up calls: statistics and commentary • Increasing the "gravitational pull" of library hosted resources • Better content, searching, exposure • Better delivery • The Rethinking Resource Sharing Initiative (USA) • Analysis of current fulfilment • Proposals for better delivery • Becoming a parasite on the rump of e-commerce

3. Background NLA Direction Statement, 2003-2005:“Our major undertaking in 2003–2005 will be to provide rapid and easy access to the wealth of information resources that reside in libraries and other cultural institutions and to break down barriers that work against this. Services supporting access to library information will be simplified and made more user-friendly, and will be widely promoted.” 2006-2008: • explore technologies that aid interrogation of our collections and simplify and improve processes for requesting and receiving resources • enable the collections of Australian libraries and cultural institutions to be searched online and easily obtained

4. Background Wake-up calls: statistics and commentary • Lorcan Dempsey's ILL stats • ILLs account for 1.7% of overall circulations“What this suggests is that we are not doing a very good job of aggregating supply (making it easy to find and obtain materials of interest wherever they are). The flow of materials from one library to another is very low when compared to the overall flow of materials within libraries.”blog • Australian ILL stats • 2002-3 loans: ~200m (Public Lib & CAUL) • ILL: ~800k in total of these CAUL supplied 93K original items, 212K photocopy/electronic items • ILLs account for 0.4% of overall circulationsexcluding school libraries

5. Background Wake-up calls: statistics and commentary • “The concept of self-sufficiency has long been abandoned by University libraries.” • Schmidt, National Interlending and Document Delivery Summit in 1995 • Dempsey: “We have done some work looking at circulation data in two research libraries across several years. In each case, about 20% of books (we limited the investigation to English books) accounted for about 90% of circulations. What does this say about the aggregation of demand. Materials are not being united with users who might be interested in them. 'Just-in-case' collection development policies, at individual institutions, do not lead to optimal system wide allocation of resources.”blog

6. Background Wake-up calls: statistics and commentary • Dempsey, again: “So, Netflix, for example, aggregates supply as discussed here. It makes the long tail available for inspection. However, importantly, it also aggregates demand: a larger pool of potential users is available to inspect any particular item, increasing the chances that it will be borrowed by somebody.”blog • Aggregation of supply • Transaction costs • Consolidated statistics, intentional data • Consolidated and distributed “inventory” • Aggregation of demand • “gravitational pull” of Google, ITunes, Amazon

7. Increasing the "gravitational pull" of library hosted resources • Better content • subject guides • journal articles • Better searching • Relevance ranking • Clustering • Expert and community help • User interface • Better exposure • LA Results on Google • “insertion” of LA contents on Amazon • Better delivery • Seamless • Faster, cheaper

8. Rethinking Resource Sharing InitiativeGET-IT • “There has been a shift of models in the resource sharing world from “discover, locate, request and deliver” to “find and get”. We are herewith proposing a further shift to a very simple “get” model.” • A browser plugin which annotates web pages with links to “getting” options for published resources held by libraries

9. Analysis of current fulfilment • Search, Find then… • “Resource sharing”? • Little used outside university and specialist libraries and local arrangements • Each ILL: • “charged” $13.20 • “total cost” $49 (2001 study) • 2001 benchmark study: 11.5 days from request to receive • 2006 follow up: 83 of 157 respondents recorded requesting turnaround time; of these: 58% reported 5 or fewer days from request to receive • greater proportion of copy requests (average loan ILL transactions supplied per library fell from 2909 (2001) to 737 (2006), copy requests from 3703 (2001) to2395 (2006) (see also Question 25 b)

10. Analysis of current fulfilment • ILL: Strong disincentives to participate • Expensive • Slow • Loss of control of assets • ILL: Strong disincentives to use • Expensive • Slow • Inconvenient / impossible

11. Great at Finding..But “getting” needs work!

12. Fulfilment For the lucky few “Borrow Direct: impact of an innovative reader-initiated borrowing mechanism on service quality”, Nitecki and Jones http://www.nla.gov.au/ilds/abstracts/NiteckiD.pdf

13. Fulfilment

14. Fulfilment Borrow Direct • Columbia, Pennsylvania, Yale, Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Princeton

15. Fulfilment Making “Search, find, get” seamless • Not just “Unmediated ILL”, not “ILL” at all • Lend direct from library to reader • mediated by a NLA system layered on top of the NBD • Readers request • Libraries bid to fulfil • Resources delivered to reader by post, returned in reply-paid envelope

16. Fulfilment • How can a library trust the reader? • 50% of Australians are a member of a pubic library • what extra % are members of Uni/TAFE/school library? • Legal infrastructure provides the mechanisms enabling commerce: parties don’t have to trust each other

17. Fulfilment MORE ^ Bidding system

18. Fulfilment NetBooks, operationally modelled on NetFlix • Lend direct from library to reader (credit-card holder) • Mediated by NLA system built on top of the NBD • Readers request, libraries bid to fulfil • Resources delivered to reader by post, returned in reply-paid envelope • $? per item - $5? $10? • Security: • $50 bond per item • System running costs funded by income from targeted advertising from booksellers on website and inserts in envelopes

19. Fulfilment • Costs: • Credit card processing ~ $0.50? • Postal costs (inbound/outbound) ~ $2.00? • Library handling (bid to loan, pick, checkout, package then unpackage, checkin, reshelve) ~ $2.50 - $5? • Library handling costs • NLA estimate $5 to round-trip book from stacks to reading room • Hennen's American Public Library Ratings analyses performance of 9000 public libraries in the US http://www.haplr-index.com/Operating expenditure per circulation: • 50th percentile: ~$4 • 95th percentile: ~$2(all operating costs, not marginal cost of a circulation)

20. Fulfilment • Benefits • For readers • the convenience of home/office delivery • especially time-poor families, students • For libraries • some income (borrowing charge plus late fees) • For the nation • better utilisation of library assets, smarter, better informed, happier people

21. Fulfilment • $5 - $10 for a book? • Woolies Home-shop • deliver 10 bags of groceries to most of Sydney for $7.95 • Wine retailers/couriers • Dispatch/deliver a dozen bottles (~12kg) nationwide for $10 • NetFlix • $9.99/month, unlimited DVD’s/month (1 at a time) • $5.99/month, 2 DVD’s/month (1 at a time) • covers 2-way postage, handling, royalties • 5 million subscribers, ship 1.4M disks per day • BooksFree • $8.49/month, unlimited paperbacks (2 at a time) • Covers 2-way postage, handling • Can libraries make money from $2.50-$5 per book? • How many books can a $16/hr casual collect from a shelf and put into an envelope per hour? • How much do they make from currrent circulations? • Is a $50 bond reasonable? • What about people without credit cards?

22. Becoming a parasite on the rump of e-commerce

23. Conclusion • The ultimate motivation for using a discovery service is “getting” • Without efficient “getting” there is little point in providing even the best discovery service • Libraries, through the NBD, are in an ideal position to aggregate reader demand and book supply • Exploring new ways to better utilize the resources of Australian libraries is ofbenefit to all

24. “Libraries – Throw off your practices! And expose your holdings!” “Most memorable slogan” from Rethinking Resource Sharing Forum II Denver, Colorado, February 28 – March 1, 2006