Managing serials in the electronic world

1. Managing serials in the electronic world

2. Steve Sharp • SABER Team Leader • University of Leeds Library

3. How do we do it? SABER (Serials, Acquisitions, Binding, Exchanges & Reading lists) (- formerly E-Resources) Reflects need for separate team at Leeds to manage e-resources. Louise Cole (e-Resources Team Leader) Kay Johnson (Serials & Binding Co-Ordinator)

4. Different models! Merged print and e-Team? Separate Teams? Hybrid Team? Multi-skilled staff and matrix management.

5. What is a serial? • What is a serial? • “A publication issued in successive parts, intended to be continued indefinitely. Typically, a serial contains a collection of articles by different authors, often in a particular subject area. Serials are also known as Journals and Periodicals”. • “A publication issued in successive parts that is intended to be continued indefinitely and which includes magazines, journals, newspapers, annuals, and proceedings of conferences”. • “A publication in any medium issued in successive parts bearing numeric or chronological designations and intended to be continued indefinitely. Serials include periodicals; newspapers; annuals (reports, yearbooks, etc.); the journals, memoirs, proceedings, transactions, etc. of societies; and numbered monographic series” • “Comprises a potentially unlimited number of episodes and contain a number of interweaving and overlapping plots continuing from one episode to the next”. • “A processed breakfast food (usually ready-to-eat) made from cereal grains”.

6. What is a serial? (cont.) • Don’t be surprised by the vocabulary! • Serials are known by many names – Serial • Journal • Periodical

7. Serials – a thing of value? • Hard to underestimate the value of serials to an organisation, especially academic institutions. • Source of up-to-date information, new ideas and research. • Often more rapidly and frequently published than books. • Increasing shift to e-journals, esp. STM subjects. • Some subjects still heavily tied to print, e.g. Arts and Social Sciences. • How to marry the two distinct areas – print and electronic? • Academics are often very attached to “their” journals – without understanding the real cost or how they are managed. • Often unaware of the full significance of a journal - until the threat of cancellation!

8. Collection management and development: • Will normally inherit an existing set of subscriptions. • Renew, subscribe or cancel subscriptions, based on: • Budget available. • Current research and teaching. • New courses / research / academic staff. • Usage. • Deals available from publishers, nationally or regionally.

9. Collection management and development: (cont.) • At Leeds, we review our subscriptions annually. • Faculty Team Librarians discuss with Schools and Faculties and their Library reps. • Often, Schools will need to cancel less-heavily used subscriptions in order to free up money for new subscriptions. • Journal price inflation is usually well above normal inflation - and Library budgets are struggling to keep up! • The “big deal” e-packages therefore look very appealing!

10. Collection management and development: (cont.) • April - finalise journals budget for next financial year. • May - begin discussions with Schools and Departments. • July - receive renewals checklist from subscriptions agent and pre- • payment invoices. • July - receive finalised list of renewals, new subscriptions and • cancellations. • August - confirm orders with subscriptions agent. • Oct-Mar - receive monthly batches of “definite” invoices confirming actual • subscription invoices. • July - reconcile accounts with subscription agent (may be debit or • credit)

11. Managing, delivering and promoting serials: • Traditional model – Current Journals Area? Subject listings? • OPAC makes it easier to keep up-to-date - e.g. keyword search and limit by material type. • Daily routine: - Journals arrive in post • - Check-in on Library Management System (Holdings display • immediately on OPAC). • - Check for title changes, missed issues, changes in • frequency, etc (Agents can help here!). • - Check online access is available, and report any loss of • access. • - Display issues in Current Periodicals Area. • - Bring in any complete volumes for binding. • - Re-shelve any issues left out by Library customers.

12. Managing, delivering and promoting serials (cont.):

13. Managing, delivering and promoting serials (cont.):

14. Managing, delivering and promoting serials (cont.): • Generic e-journals pages on OPAC? • Need title-by-title access on Library OPAC. • Transience of e-titles in packages! • Don’t forget the impact of cataloguing (and un-cataloguing) e-journal packages! • Often dealing with hundreds (or thousands) of titles!

15. Paying the price! - financial management of subscriptions: • At Leeds, budget split is: 45% e-resources • 27% print journals • 28% books • Increasing percentage of budget tied into non-cancellation deals for e-packages. • Direct with publisher or through an agent? • Paying for subscriptions? – One-line payment? Bill actual? (Often depends on institution’s Finance Dept.) • At Leeds, we pay the agent up-front on one-line invoices, and then get “definite” invoices through the year. • Other institutions prefer to pay actual invoices once agents have paid the publisher.

16. Into the online world! – e-journals. • Many ways of obtaining e-journal content: • - Individual print+online subscription (free or subscribed). • - Individual e-only subscription. • - Part of a publisher “big deal” – may need to maintain any current subscriptions! • - Part of an aggregated package. • - Part of a one-off backfile purchase. • - Open access. • - Freely available. • How your institution acquires e-journals will vary, often from title-to-title, publisher-to-publisher, etc.

17. Managing e-journals: • Customers often think online access is the easy approach to journal subscriptions! • Great deal of time is spent checking that online subscriptions are set up and active. • Link checking for existing subscriptions.

18. Managing e-journals (cont.) • - Checking access rights and licence terms. • - Activating full-text access to new subscriptions. • - Routinely checking continuing access to existing online subscriptions. • - Adding titles to e-journals listings. • - Cataloguing. • - Troubleshooting. • - Collating usage statistics. • - Renewals (and checking continuity of access). • - Re-checking access if title moves publisher. • - Checking archival policies.

19. E-journal usage: • Use of e-journals can be affected by many factors: • - Publisher licence. • - Publisher purchase model. • - Type of subscription. • - Gateway/service provider. • - Authentication, e.g. ATHENS, IP address, password • - On or off-campus? • - Technical issues, e.g. Internet Service Provider. • - Embargo periods or rolling access. • - etc, etc, etc • The factors affecting use are almost endless, and any change to any factor can have a major impact. Hence the need for:

20. Electronic Resource Management Systems (ERMS): • A tool, often available with LMS, but also a commercially available product. • Key place for recording financial, licence details, catalogue record, and holdings data. • Also records relationship between an individual title and package, and between the print and electronic formats. • Records technical information, such as passwords, IP addresses, contact details, statistics, etc.

21. Journals nowadays need to be: - Pervasive • - Reliable • - 24/7 • - Instant • - Flexible • But, above all, they need to be secure and permanent!

22. Archiving your e-content: • One-off purchases of backfiles, as made available by publishers. • Hosted by publisher? • Locally hosted? • Collaborative backup, e.g. LOCKSS? • What happens if a publisher goes out of business? • What happens if a title is bought by another publisher? • What happens if a title is taken out of a “big deal” package? • Many institutions hesitant to discard print copies of serials until guaranteed archive access if confirmed.

23. Implications of Open Access: • Increase in subscription prices for printed and e-journals is becoming prohibitive. • Resulting cancellations impacting on dissemination of new ideas and research. • Value of peer review. • More open publishing model and therefore greater dissemination of ideas. • Who pays? – Author? Institution? Library?

24. Any questions?

25. Steve Sharp • SABER Team Leader • Brotherton Library • University of Leeds • Leeds LS2 9JT • s.l.sharp@leeds.ac.uk