ERC ST 040514

Orbis Cascade Alliance Electronic Resources Committee Meeting

May 14, 2004, 10:00 AM – 3:00 PM

George Fox University – Portland

Portland Center – room 281

 

Members Attending: ** italics means I didn’t note if that person attended for that institution

Cat Finney (COCC); John Creech (CWU); Pam Smith (Clark College); Ken Watson (EOU); Sue Anderson (EWU); Brian Gerheim (Evergreen); Janis Tyhurst (GFU); Joanna Haney (L&C); Barbara Valentine (Linfield); Canon Crawford (Maryl); Diane Carroll (OHSU); Karen Kunz (OIT); Laurel Kristick (OSU); Lynda Larremore (Pac U); Flora Lippert (PCC); Ed Loera (PSU); Heather Whipple (Reed); Scot Harrision (St. Mart); Carrie Fry (SeaPacU); Jan Hartley (Sea U); Emily Miller-Francisco (SOU); Emily McElroy (UO); Susan Hinken (UP); Donna Bachman (UPS); Tim Jewell (UW); Lynn Chmelir (WSU); Camila Gabaldon (WOU); Donna Packer (WWU); Lee Keene (Whitman); Ford Schmidt (Willamette)

 

1. Welcome and Introductions (John Helmer and Tim Jewell)

 

2. Regional Group E-Resource Purchasing in the Northwest (Tim and Barbara Valentine)

Tim and Barbara each summarized some of the history of prior work by various groups (such as the CLP, Orbis, etc.) on group purchasing of electronic resources. Since this information had been presented at the Feb. 27^th Steering Team meeting, and made available in the meeting notes, it is note reproduced here.

3. Establishing Processes and Procedures for New Products and Renewals (Greg Doyle and Debi Baker)

 

a. Renewals

Greg Doyle points out that renewals are a concern because most products originated under Orbis and although former Orbis libraries know how the system works, Washington libraries do not. Wants to how proactive we want him to be. Renewal survey was sent out last month and includes 21 libraries’ responses to which products might be interested in renewing with Alliance. As renewals accrue he will look to this list for subgroups. Most, but not all libraries, have done the survey. In addition, the regular renewal process is built in to survey interest two months in advance, but this time frame can not be relied on for various reasons and often renewals come up faster than institutions can think about them and respond.

 

Carrie Fry mentioned that an institution can gauge what is coming up according to the renewal calendar on the website. Then when renewal announcement sent out they can be ready.

 

To help get everyone on board for this first year, Greg wondered if “chunking out” renewals - surveying for the next 10 or so before they renew – would be useful. Susan Hinken thought maybe a 4 month cycle would be helpful. Diane Carroll suggestions that a survey might be useful now, but not later when everyone was on track.

 

Lynn Chmelir mentioned that renewal cycles were difficult to mesh. Debi said making this work was an Alliance staff service, something they are very willing to do. Greg added that it is only a one-time effort to get this in sync and something staff wanted to do.

Heather added staff can even try to squeeze you into the middle of a cycle.

 

Greg asked about 3^rd party databases. There are lots of vendors pushing the same product. Do you want quotes from everyone? Right now RILM is being offered by OCLC. PsycInfo is offered by Ebsco, Ovid, OCLC… He can remind us of the vendors that offer this and to get quotes with no obligation. Carrie Fry wondered if we could do a zoomerang survey sometime asking what’s important like vendor loyalty.

 

Flora Lippert (PCC) asked about BIOSIS since it was a Portals deal what is going to happen to it? BasicBiosis is an Ebsco Biomed option. Tim Jewell noted that BasicBiosis is a small subset of BIOSIS, with a focus on medical literature; that focus may or may not be “right” for a particular library’s users. Others noted BIOSIS (senior) was expensive. Also only 1990- present. CSA has Biological Sciences collection. Upshot of discussion: Need to get started early on BIOSIS and options before the Jan. 1 renewal. Bound to be a totally different deal than Portals had.

 

Lynda Larremore (Pac U) wondered if worth surveying the membership to see what we buy on our own to see if there is interest for an Alliance purchase. Greg suggested this might overwhelm the process. Better just to propose anything you thing the Alliance might want to buy which segued nicely into discussion of new products.

 

Decision: Institution members can read the renewal calendar from the staff home page to see what is coming up. Additionally, for this first year, Greg will “chunk out” groups of upcoming renewals, giving enough advance notice for institutions to think about them. After the first year, everyone should be able to follow the renewal calendar and jump in when needed. In addition, it is always possible just to ask Greg when you want in and he can see if vendor will prorate or help this work in other ways. BIOSIS, renewing in 6 months, will need more time so Greg will begin to look into that now.

 

b. New Products

 

Greg wanted to know how to put forward new products. Should he dismiss any? Heather said a feature of Orbis that worked was letting volunteers bring resources they wanted at their own institutions to the table. How much time should these be “out there” with no activity? Susan thought descriptions and link to website would be useful.

Flora asked about BCR vs the Alliance. Greg says BCR may not always be the best deal so just ask and he will let us know if BCR has the best deal.

 

Decision: After discussion, it was decided that Greg will survey interest on the list of any new products that come his way, either via vendors or members. They will include as much info as possible, link to website, etc. Let him know even if you have the vaguest interest. He will set a deadline for interest (maybe 2 weeks) and then work with that subgroup and the vendor.

 

c. Trials

 

These are easy to set up, but for various reasons, to be safe, Greg will provide trials only for people in the subgroup of interest. He will always try to get an IP trial if possible.

 

d. New Product to investigate: HRAF

 

4. Cost Allocation Discussion:  past practices, philosophies, member input (Barbara, Greg, and Debi)

 

Barbara Valentine: The purpose of this agenda item is not to come to any conclusions; it's just a fact-finding, sharing session.

The 1998 document for TFER, which was never updated, was one of the handouts.  The two goals outlined there have continued to guide Orbis ER purchases: 1. everyone pays less than the street price, and 2. the distribution will reflect the best price for ALL participants.

In reality, the 20/40/40 distribution recommended on that document is often not the best way to acheive the two goals, and distributions have reflected a variety of factors and formulas.  There will never be a single allocation model.

CLP generally uses the vendor-provided allocation (ISI, MathSciNet).

For Orbis (and the Alliance), renewals get complicated as participation changes.

Overall, the allocation process looks complicated but has worked for all participants because of the two goals.

The current communication arrangement -- email -- may be less effective for expressing opinions than meeting in person.  Members will need to respond to proposals, requests for interest, etc., posting to the mailing list.

Members should know that ORCA staff will help with sticker shock, confusion, concerns, etc; it's not all up to the individual member who proposes a new product or wants to join an existing purchase.

Greg Doyle suggested he could run various price allocations, ask non-participating members to identity the best one [to avoid possible favoritism], and then offer 1-3 options to actual participants.

Tim Jewell asked if the steering team should take this on.

Greg pointed out that sometimes, steering team members would be participants.

Emily Miller-Francisco suggested participants could rate each option on a scale, such as "OK," "Best," or "Not possible"

Diane Carroll said that this first year, renewals may be more like new products, and expressed concern over Tim's statement that UW has chosen not to join any purchases this first year because of concerns over cost distribution unknowns.

We then discussed an example renewal, MathSciNet, which raised the following points:
*The definition of "big," "medium," and "small" institution is more complicated in CLP than in Orbis. *We need to avoid making members feel they're subsidizing others while
finding an allocation that will allow all interested participants to stay in.

After the discussion of MathSciNet, Greg suggested that the steering team review all the possible allocations and remove two they deem most unfair [instead of selecting non-participants review the possible allocations ?? -- sorry, my notes are no longer clear to me on this point -- HW]

The steering team will review these notes and the 1998 TFER document and come up with new procedures and goals for the committee to review.

 

5. E-journal Packages and Consortia (Christine Stamison, SWETS)

 

Christine relied on PowerPoint slides (available to Alliance members at [url]) for most of her presentation, and also distributed copies of a handout discussing Swets’ consortial licensing and financial management services and one on the ALPSP Learned Journals Collection. Some of the points raised in the Q & A were:

 

· Christine expects inflation on journals priced in foreign currencies to be particularly high.

· Doesn’t see open access “really catching on.”

· John Helmer: what is the value of Swets’ consortial services to a consortium like the Orbis Cascade Alliance that has some central staff? Christine: taking on the financial risk of paying the publisher, and time spent “chasing down possible customers.”

· Emily Miller-Francisco: cancellation restrictions tied to packages are troublesome for libraries. Will publishers be moving away from them? Christine: I don’t see that happening; libraries need to “push back” on this issue.

· Laurel Kristick: we’re concerned about starting to see demand from vendors for graduate student FTE’s as part of pricing discussions.

· Diane Carroll: usage-based pricing is also a concern: the “kiss of death”; pricing of Science is an example.

 

6. E-journal Case Studies and Discussion 

 

Kluwer proposal (Greg and Diane Carroll)

 

Greg and Diane provided copies of a “Kluwer Ejournal Proposal Q & A” document that summarized information about the proposal, and listed key questions at the top of the sheet. Diane distributed a spreadsheet showing costs by institution and gave separate subscription lists to the potential participants. Discussion focused on the first of 4 options, which was characterized as a “no risk” proposal: one year, no limit on cancellations or a price increase cap, 7% premium to have print + online access. Interested libraries were asked to inform Greg by June 1^st; if sufficient interest, the goal would be to complete all details by Sep. 1^st.

 

American Chemical Society (Tim and Debi)

 

Debi Baker and Tim Jewell briefly summarized how Orbis and the CLP had been sharing costs. The CLP has had some central money to help with the electronic access charge, and has distributed remaining costs on the basis of FTE’s. Orbis has [  ]. As the two contracts are being brought together, it may be desirable to reconcile these differences.

 

7. III's E-resource Management Module at the UW (Tim)

 

Tim Jewell presented slides from taken from his previous presentations on DLF ERM
Initiative and from Diane Grover's and Ted Fons' presentations on the III E-resource Management Module at the April IUG meeting in Boston. He subsequently sent an e-mail to the ER list providing the following information for obtaining Diane’s and Ted’s slides:

”The name of the session they gave was ‘Electronic Resources Management: From
Development to Implementation.’

Both Diane's and Ted's presentations are available on the web, but you'll need your local, separate usernames and passwords for access to the two different sites involved -- you probably all have that information, or know who to call to get it.

Diane's are on the Innovative User Group website (http://www.innopacusers.org/) -- look for "meeting information" for 2004 Boston. If you look at the "subject list" of presentations, it's in the "management of electronic resources" group. Diane is generally happy to talk with interested parties about local implementation issues, etc. -- I'd just ask that you be judicious in your requests :-)

Ted's are on III's "CSDirect" site (http://csdirect.iii.com/) under presentations -- look for IUG 12, under "Digital Collections Management." It was the first presentation under that when I looked this morning.”

 

8. Follow-up questions, ERC sponsored program ideas, “open mic.”
(Tim, All)

 

We were asked whether we'd be interested in any workshop-type events. Orbis-Cascade will no longer host the big summer meetings that used to be the venue for consortial workshop opportunities. However, we are encouraged to organize our own events if there's interest. Someone suggested that we might have a workshop on usage statistics and how best
to deal with them. Any other ideas should be forwarded to the ER Steering Team.

It was clarified that the Steering Team members don't represent particular constituents. So ERC members should feel free to approach any of the members about ideas or concerns that they might have.

 

Minutes prepared by: Tim Jewell, Emily Miller-Francisco, Barbara Valentine, and Heather Whipple, May-June 2004

 

approved: July 12, 2004