The CAUL Experience in Consortial Purchasing

1. The CAUL Experience in Consortial Purchasing Nordic Federation of Research Libraries Association (NVBF) Study Tour of Australia - June, 2002 Diane Costello

2. Why form a Consortium? • Reduce costs - Discount for volume • Increase access - To all titles owned by the consortium; to publisher’s list; to aggregator’s packages • Reduce work • Information gathering • Trial coordination • Licence negotiation • Price negotiation

3. Principles • Better price and/or conditions than possible as a single institution • Entry level which allows the largest number to participate • Advantages for larger institutions • Information gatheringhttp://www.caul.edu.au/datasets/offers.htm http://www.caul.edu.au/datasets/ip.htm • Simplify administration

4. … and the Publishers? • Single point for wide distribution of information • Single point of contact for negotiations • Single invoice … but • Maintain (or increase) bottom line

5. CAUL • 38 AVCC member libraries; • 1965 - Committee formed; • 1992 - Council named; • 1995 - full-time executive officer • CEIRC Committee (election/nomination) • Office staff 2 FTE (5/95, 6/98, 4/01) • Secretariat, Committee Support, Cooperative Activities (Statistics, ULA, Performance Indicators, CISC), Liaison/Representation, Current awareness, Web site, CEIRC program.

6. CEIRC (CAUL Electronic Information Resources Committee) • NPRF funds $2m 1993-1996 for datasets • “Trials” of ISI Current Contents, Academic Press IDEAL, IAC Expanded Academic ASAP, etc • Evolved into consortial purchasing • Committee recommends policy to CAUL • CAUL Office handles day-to-day • Now includes CSIRO, CONZUL (+24 total) • CEIRC Levy

7. CEIRC (2) • Guidelines for external participants • Guidelines for licences - no strict model • Checklist for “negotiations”but • No preferred pricing model • No minimum participation • No schedule of negotiations

8. CAUL Office • Instigation via member, publisher or office • Distribution of information re product, licence, price & trial via email list • Negotiation/liaison re price & conditions • Maintenance of details on web site http://www.caul.edu.au/datasets/ • Participation list, IP addresses, contacts • Invoicing & payments

9. Decision-Making • Self-selected consortium vs National Site Licence • “Buying club” • National Site Licence - an ideal which requires either • top-sliced or additional funding or • internal agreement about what is wanted and how much the individual institutions are prepared to pay for it

10. Decision-Making (2) • Changing environment --> Changing decision-making processes • Each product assessed independently • Licence conditions • Overlap between products • Choice of interfaces • Datasets Coordinator - coordinates communication & decision by given date!

11. Cost-Sharing • Determined by Publisher & passed on to group eg • Subscription history (current spend) • Carnegie Classification • Percentage discount by volume • # Institutions • # Databases • # Titles • EFTSU / FTE - all or discipline-specific

12. Cost-Sharing (2) • Determined within Consortium eg • Equal share • FTE-based • Usage-based • Resources budget, or • … a combination of the above eg 50% equal share (entry level) + 50% FTE-based • … or what it is worth to the institution eg NAAL (Alabama)

13. Cost-Sharing (3) • Gaining consensus • Current Contents - 50% fixed + 4 tiers based on FTE (+ choice of interface) • MathSciNet - Costs of current subscribers reducing with added subscribers • ProQuest5000 - Minimum entry cost per institution + Minimum total cost

14. CAUL Agreements 1996- • 49 agreements, 20 full-text, 4 factual databases, the rest bibliographic • Half commenced in 2000 or later • burgeoning of available electronic products • increasing willingness of publishers to deal with consortia • Billing handled centrally (24) • local office or agent • Average number of participants 20 • Highest number 40 (ProQuest5000, PsycINFO)

15. Issues • Publishers • Site definition (16 Oz single-campus univ) • Bundling print with online (mainly UK) • Maintaining bottom line • Premium for electronic and/or enhanced product eg WoS • Access to “purchased” data & archiving

16. Issues (2) • Members • Variation in size / wealth / research emphasis / discipline base • Cost-sharing parameters • Competition • “Subsidy” of less well-resourced institutions • Relative gain, rather than the NAAL ideal • Agreement on priorities

17. Issues (3) • Subscription Agents • Publishers dealing directly • Overlap with consortia • Invoicing members • Paying publisher • Finding new roles • Agent for consortia • Collections management and support

18. Pause .... • Very similar deals being done by a wide variety of consortia internationally • Value in sharing information • Value in clubbing together in discipline-based groups • Value in a group facilitator • not distracted by “regular job” • knowledge base

19. Pitfalls …. • Setting unachievable deadlines • rolling start-dates possible • Creating unnecessary legal obstacles • with the publisher or with each other • Shift in cost centres - from personal & laboratory subscriptions to Library • Unsustainability - the “big deal” leaves little room for flexibility

20. … and progress • Cheaper than list prices • Access to more titles • Shift in licence conditions eg ILL, course packs, single institution vs multi-site etc • Unbundling of print from electronic • More trust --> Simpler licences