Consortia, Libraries, and Managing in the Downturn. Ann Okerson Electronic Resources & Consortia 11 November 2009

Transcription

1 Consortia, Libraries, and Managing in the Downturn Ann Okerson Electronic Resources & Consortia 11 November 2009

2 Outline for today s talk I. Overview of consortia History & purpose Types, services, issues, priorities II. The downturn Review ICOLC Statement on the Global Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Consortial Licenses (January 2009) NERL in the downturn Actions III. Yale Situation: a case study Collaborations IV. Other collaborative initiatives

3 I. Consortia Overview

4 Definition of a library consortium "A library consortium is any local, regional, or national cooperative association of libraries that provides for the systematic and effective coordination of the resources of schools, public, academic, and special libraries and information centers, for improving services to the clientele of such libraries. (US Federal Communications Commission)

5 Many different shapes & sizes Some very large, complex (such as JISC); tiny (LALC) Some have broad programs; others mainly license electronic resources Can be restricted: to specific library types (special libraries, academic libraries, etc.) or government agencies Can be open: To all local, or regional, or country wide group libraries; some consortia include all libraries in their region including elementary school and public Libraries often belong to several at once!

6 Source: Arnold Hirshon Types of consortia: a continuum From decentralized Loosely affiliated Volunteer staff No formal organization Small range of programs To centralized Tightly affiliated Permanent staff Formal organization Ambitious programs Loose federations Central organization Tightly knit federations

7 Funding consortia: a continuum From centrally funded To self-funded Typically state funding Consultative governance Consortium decides for all Institutional funds Individualized menus Customized resources And everything in between! All $$ from contributions, distributed decisions Hybrid of membership types Hybrid of central and contributory $$ Central $$ and decisions Source: Arnold Hirshon

8 How many consortia? ICOLC: In 2000: 135 consortia listed 90 in USA 45 in 21 other countries In 2009: 211 consortia listed 129 in North America 82 in 41 other countries American Library Directory: lists 407 US Networks, Consortia, and Other Cooperative Library Organizations ALA 2007 Survey: lists about 200 in US

9 211 Consortia in ICOLC in multinational

10 Consortia: timelines Library Cooperation in the US since 1876? Consortia in the U.S. have been around since the 1930s (North Carolina) 1960s and 70s: Shared cataloging through OCLC and RLG was born 1980s+: Focus moved to fast delivery for books and articles, requested by libraries end-users 1990s+: Large-scale licensing of electronic resources began, launched by publishers such as Encyclopedia Britannica and Academic Press NOTE: The availability of electronic online information resources expanded immensely the role and presence of library consortia

11 Adding services over time: OhioLINK Off-site Digital Media Center Vendor images On-site E-Journal Center Electronic Journals Inst. AV E- Theses & Diss. Chat Reference Subject Clusters On-Site Central Catalog On-site E-books & full text literature Reference & Research Databases E-books: vendor systems Electronic Books Source: Tom Sanville, OhioLINK

12 ICOLC survey top priorities (March 2009) Budget Management Licensing & re-negotiation Digital initiatives & digital preservation Next generation catalog Interlibrary lending Print shared storage Scholarly Communications/ OA Union Catalog Training Etc. 80%

13 II. Downturn: ICOLC and NERL

14 International Coalition of Library Consortia

15 ICOLC statement January 2009 Global Economic Crisis There are & will be: significant cuts, prolonged cuts, a permanent reduction in base budgets (a lower plateau) Two principles: 1: Flexible pricing that offers customers real options, including the ability to reduce expenditures without disproportionate loss of content, will be the most successful. 2: It is in the best interest of both publishers and consortia to seek creative solutions that allow licenses to remain as intact as possible, without major content or access reductions.

16 ICOLC statement (2) Purchasers will trade features for price; that is, we can do without costly new interfaces and features. This is not a time for new products. Putting price first will help all parties, because budget pressures will drive decisions in a way never seen before. Real price reductions will be welcomed and can help to sustain relationships through the hard times. Multi-year contracts will be possible only with clear opt-out and/or reduction clauses. Options will be needed for semi-annual or quarterly payment schedules, in combination with more flexible opt-out/reduction clauses and renewal cycles.

17 Example: NERL Membership: Full members: 27 large academic research libraries Affiliates: 70+ smaller academic Organization & Governance: Voluntary consortium with shared goals: non-bureaucratic Letter of agreement, with decisions made by full members Review organization every 3 years (founded 1996) Staff of 2+; annual dues-funded operations of $120,000 Each contract is optional for each and every member Yale the organizational and fiscal home Programs: Focus on access to expensive (over $10K) scholarly e- resources of importance to research institutions Billing turnover of ~$30M annually

18 NERL situation Makes available over 10,000 Journal titles Makes available nearly 300 databases Members can pick and choose from the databases and packages Works with over 60 publishers Collects numerous data regarding usage and cost per use for publisher packages Generates annual Savings Reports for members Payments for 2009 centrally made = $23M Total payments including members = ~$35M Estimated savings off list = ~29%

19 NERL situation (2) For with moderate increases; 2 are flat ; rest cut for fiscal year April 2009 letter sent re. e-resources contracts with ~60 publishers/providers NERL Budget Letter to Vendors Cuts range from 1% - 15% (5-20% in actual dollars) Average dollar cuts around 4-5% Average buying power cuts around 8-10% Not able to sustain payments at previous levels Reviewing contracts with major suppliers Looking for partnerships and stability Can we strike new pricing models?

20 NERL situation (3) Responses to NERL letter so far - 53: Not-for-profits are trying to hold prices flat for 1 2 years; a few reductions Creators of large historical databases are increasing incentives (more customers = price reductions); know that sales will be way down; also capping or eliminating annual access fees A few for-profits (Lexis-Nexis) also freezing prices for general subscription products For-profit journal publishers appear to expect to reduce content, treat different consortial members differently ( divide & conquer ), make reduction terms conditional upon buying back up in future years to pre-downturn spends

21 III. Yale: a case study

22 Yale case study December 2008 President s letter: 5% reduction January 2009 raised to 6.75% February 2009 raised to 7.5% March 2009 library must further reduce: 65 staff positions (38 vacancies eliminated) $1.93M collections Travel and operations slashed April 2009 no carryovers to new FY June 2009 expect further cuts in the fall and in next fiscal year 44% of Yale income from endowments; sliding further? 5% additional collections cuts mandated 11/09 Flat pricing will take us only so far (not very)

23 Yale case study (2) Yale has 20+ libraries in different discipline areas; choices will vary; in FY: Limited or zero new subscriptions Reduce print book purchases (foreign exchange factor) Cancel less-used, more specialized, or somewhat overlapping databases Downsize reference collections Significantly reduce retrospective database purchases (backfiles, historical collections) Begin systematic serials cancellations Future of journal packages rigorously examined Strategy: Retain staff as much as possible More of the above cuts PLUS Systematically un-do high-spend journal packages

24 Yale case study (3) We buy most major resources through NERL Savings for Yale around 20% off list price Journal package analysis shows: Cost per use ranges from $.65 to $2.94 per download (discipline dependent) Packages based on historic spend Historic titles still account for 2/3 80% of actual use Pareto s Law applies: 1% of journals = 10% of use; 2-3% account for 20% of use; about 25-30% account for 80% of use; and about 40% account for 90% of use Lots of high use resources

25 BorrowDirect a regional collaboration What Enables partner university students, faculty, and staff to borrow books directly from the libraries of Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and Yale. Scope All printed books (monographs) and music scores that are lent by the owning library with the following exceptions: Books that are non-circulating, or on reserve Books assigned to reference, or rare book collections by the owning library Bound journals or journal articles Response Time Within 4 business days after requested. Notification notice sent when requested book arrives. Pick-Up Location Can be specified, during scheduled library hours. Loan Period 6 weeks. Recalled books within 3 days. Cost Effective Automated via special software. Handled as a circulation rather than ILL transaction; costs around $8/transaction

26 BorrowDirect collective collection 50 Million Volumes 500,000 Monographs Added Annually 40 Million Microforms 125,000 Videos 715,000 Audio Files $120M in Library Material Expenditures $40M for Monographs Source: Estimated from ARL Statistics

27 BorrowDirect people & programs 95,000 students 42,000 graduate students 9,000 faculty 2,500 Ph.Ds awarded 425 Ph.D fields Source: Estimated from ARL Statistics

28 BorrowDirect collections officers We are exploring opportunities in a time of $$ constraint (and plenty of materials to buy) ADs for Collections met at 3 ALA conferences 3 conference calls (recently on October 30 th ) Brainstorming and exploration Re-energeize old agreements (film studies) Create new ones (perhaps e-book approval plan sharing one day?) Identify dead ends (little more can be done example) Are there new downstream opportunities (new disciplines)

29 YBP BorrowDirect consortial view, Trade Presses University Presses YBP treated 43,836 discrete titles. BD institutions purchased 55% of YBP s inventory or 24,144 titles of which 9,814 were unique, single institution purchases. BD acquired 52,701 copies with an overlap of 28,557 copies. This constitutes an estimated 3 copies per title. YBP treated 10,057 discrete titles. BD institutions purchased 79.4% of YBP s inventory or 7,981 titles of which 1,367 were unique, single institution purchases. BD acquired 25,291 copies with an overlap of 17,310 copies. This constitutes an estimated 3.7 copies per title. Given that BD members also acquire their own university press titles outside of YBP, redundancy is even higher.

30 Ways to divide responsibility? Identify which schools have earmarked funds for substantial disciplines and let them carry heavier load Document current subjects & programmatic shifts at the BD institutions Steady-state Renewed interest Interdisciplinary growth Areas for exploration: Music (recent-ish) German Studies (Cornell and Princeton will explore) Environmental (Dartmouth leading) Nanotechology (Brown leading) Native Americans (Brown and Dartmouth will explore) Korean Studies (Yale investigation) Small press contemporary poetry (Columbia & Yale)

31 Ways to divide responsibility P-books: could we agree to think of our printed books as a BD community resource? E-books: could we acquire as a consortium for sharing? Alternative (possible) Scenarios: When 4 of 7 BD members own an e-book title, it becomes available to other members. After a title is requested via BD for the 3 rd time, another copy is purchased for the system. Agree to share (reduce) purchase of print copies as we transition to more e-books.

32 The next generation? Can we augment the formats available to include videos, audio recordings, and microforms? Can we open collections currently closed for borrowing, through flexible loan periods, digitizal delivery, or other methods? Do we need a more formalized approach to our agreements? How can we foster closer communication and productive networking among our subject specialists? Our faculty? Are there other research libraries which we would recommend as BD partners?

33 Discussion? When does BorrowDirect make sense as a collections strategy? When not? How to hold conversations? Any differences in potential for sharing between undergraduate and professional materials? To what extent can group collection agreements override local needs? How do we stay with changing priorities, landscape? How do patron-driven requests fit here? How to think about inequities among collections budgets of different libraries?

34 IV. Other collaborations

35 Some other (ambitious) sharing strategies Inter-institutional Mandates 2CUL: The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded $385,000 to support the development of an innovative partnership dubbed 2CUL. This new relationship has the potential to become the most expansive collaboration to date between major research libraries. Starting this fall, Cornell and Columbia will plan significant partnerships in collaborative collection development, acquisitions and processing. The two universities will form a separate service entity to facilitate the collaboration. Initial work will focus on several global collecting areas, as well as collaborative funding and support of technical infrastructure in various areas.

36 Connecting, reproducing, linking...

37 Building the global library

38 We ll keep dancing Happy Feet