Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 16:23:32 -0500
From: Gracemary Smulewitz (Rutgers U.) <smulewi_at_rci.rutgers.edu>
Subject: Minutes from our mid-winter meeting
Below are the minutes from the ALCTS-SS Research Libraries Discussion
Group Meeting at mid-winter in San Diego. When we made the
announcement about the topic several of you who could not attend asked
that we distribute the minutes. Thank you, Laura McElfresh, for excellent
documentation of the meeting.
“The Price We Pay”: An Open Discussion
ALCTS/SS Research Libraries Discussion Group
Chair: Gracemary Smulewitz, Rutgers University
Vice Chair: Laura Kane McElfresh, Emory University
10 January 2004
INTRODUCTION
The ALCTS/SS Research Libraries Discussion Group met at ALA
Midwinter in San Diego, CA on 10 January 2004 for an open discussion
of the impact of rising journal prices on academic libraries: the problems
these institutions face, and the solutions they are devising.
Prior to the meeting, the following announcement had been distributed
via various listservs:
RESEARCH JOURNALS: THE PRICE WE PAY
Discussion hosted by the ALCTS/SS Research Libraries Discussion Group
Many research institutions are having tremendous difficulty balancing the
cost of research journals published in multiple mediums. Some institutions
have taken drastic actions, including boycotts and vast subscription
cancellation projects. What are some of the issues that libraries are
grappling with?
The ALCTS/SS Research Libraries Discussion Group is hosting an informal
discussion on "Research Journals: The Price We Pay". A few points to be
addressed are:
? Ease of Access
? Permanence of collection
? Usage by affiliated and non-affiliated patrons
? Cost, Cost, Cost!
? The impact of Humanities/Social Sciences and Science issues
? Consensus within the institution and how to get institutional support?
? Who makes the decisions and in what time frame?
? Experiences of libraries which have dramatically changed their practices
(what can they tell us so far?)
Please join us on Saturday, January 10th, from 9:30-11:00 a.m. in the U.S.
Grant, Georgian Room to explore this issue.
In response to this announcement, a rather large and enthusiastic group
gathered at ALA Midwinter 2004 to discuss these issues. Attendance,
as represented on the sign-in sheet, numbered 70 participants from 54
institutions (mostly colleges/universities and some companies). A wide
range of schools, in both geography and size, was represented.
OPENING REMARKS
Discussion Group Chair Gracemary Smulewitz of Rutgers University
convened the meeting, giving an overview of the two news items which
inspired the choice of discussion topic. First, the University of Georgia
Libraries announced in early November that, as a result of budget cuts,
they had undertaken a massive serials cancellation project. In order to
save
money and in response to library patrons’ evident preference for electronic
formats over paper journals, the UGA Libraries would cancel print
subscriptions for titles currently held in both electronic and print
formats,
opting to go electronic-only for these titles. The conversion would
start in
January 2004.
The second item on our menu of food for thought was the Cornell
University Library’s decision, also announced in November, to reject
Elsevier’s “Big Deal”—that is, to quit subscribing to a journal package
in favor of subscribing to titles on an individual basis. The Library
had found
that the Elsevier package caused an inordinate amount of money to be paid
for little used titles; however, cancellation of the little used titles
would break
the journal package, making the remaining titles more expensive. Hence,
more cancellations would be necessary in order for Cornell to free up money
for more-needed titles from other publishers. (The Cornell Library’s
statement
on this matter, with updates and with links to supplementary
information, may
be found at <http://www.library.cornell.edu/scholarlycomm/elsevier.html>.)
Finally, Gracemary observed that these decisions had been made by way
of a consensus between the faculty and the libraries of each
institution, not by
a library working in isolation.
Before the open discussion began, a show of hands indicated—not
unexpectedly—
that most of the participants could identify with the problems facing
Cornell
and the University of Georgia.
DISCUSSION
Gracemary remarked that Rutgers, like many institutions, was suffering
from repeated budget cuts; it was also added that UC-Santa Cruz had
canceled all print where electronic subscriptions were held, as Georgia had
done. At the Emory University General Libraries, the policy (though not a
strict one) is to prefer electronic over print formats. Apparently,
while not
universal, the practice of canceling print journal subscriptions in
favor of
online access is far from unusual.
Susan Barribeau of the University of Wisconsin, Madison went into
more detail here. UW-Madison’s engineering library has canceled all
print duplicates of electronic titles in their holdings, but has also taken
further steps in an attempt to help stop the journal price explosion: for
starters, they have identified faculty who hold positions on boards of
expensive publications and have begun dialogues with these faculty
members. Library-faculty communication goes well beyond this arena,
however. Liaisons interact heavily with their faculty; for example, UW-
Madison’s Chemistry librarian keeps the faculty abreast by maintaining
a 5-year plan for cancellations. Furthermore, drastic actions such as the
print cancellation/online conversion are accomplished through behind-
the-scenes collaboration between faculty and library personnel, followed
by public announcements. This touched on a theme introduced during the
opening remarks: the phenomenon of successful cost cutting measures
accomplished by libraries and the faculty patrons, working in
collaboration.
Karl Debus Lopez, also from UW-Madison, added to Ms. Barribeau’s
remarks, saying that UW-Madison currently has a policy of adding journal
subscriptions a la carte—also accepted by the faculty—wherein no
subscription bundles or packages are considered. The Library Director feels
that the Big Deal is not a sustainable model; it “locks libraries in,”
hindering
them from making the best possible financial decisions.
However, not all libraries feel free to reject the Big Deal, as Deana Astle
of East Carolina University pointed out. Schools like ECU depend on the
large numbers of titles and the pricing advantages provided by the Big
Deal;
otherwise, they cannot afford the needed titles. Here, she feels, the
library is
compromised not just by matters of finance, but by matters of need and by
the savings offered by journal packages.
ECU’s switch from print to online was motivated not necessarily by cost,
but rather by the need for lots of remote access to resources (the patron
population is very spread out; there is much cross-campus use, and the
medical school is a couple miles away from the main library. Additionally,
East Carolina carries 1/3 of the Distance Education classes in North
Carolina,
exacerbating the need for remote access.) We cannot be dogmatic about
these matters, Ms. Astle continued; the Big Deal is not always a bad thing.
Returning to the group from UW-Madison, Gracemary asked: how does
their decision affect library operations? Is there a toll on staffing?
Response:
one major ramification is the need to ensure the existence of adequate
document delivery systems for fallback, in case a patron needs a title that
has been canceled. With a decentralized campus, they currently have six
ILL shops running; Susan (Barribeau) wishes they could operate under
one system, but this is not possible.
According to a representative from UCSD, between the ten campuses
in the University of California system, they hold subscriptions to all but
about 210 of Elsevier’s titles, and they try to get the best possible deal
for online access. When negotiating contracts for electronic journal
formats,
they try to stipulate a print subscription for central archiving; this
addresses
the problem of ensuring access in perpetuity. At UCSD, as with some of
the other schools whose stories we are hearing today, the libraries have
also marshaled faculty support. (In fact, some faculty members were
willing to end access too radically!)
California State University, Fullerton, a master’s-level university and the
third largest school in the Cal State system, focuses on what its library
patrons want; and according to Fullerton’s Teresa Malinowski, the patrons
want electronic—they will not use paper. Thus, Cal State Fullerton has
let go of paper at every possible opportunity; providing a computer
workstation on every faculty desktop on campus allowed the library to
move forward with the conversion to e-access. But what about the titles
that cannot be found online? In the current financial environment, Ms.
Malinowski says, print-only titles may find themselves on the chopping
block.
Question: how can we balance the needs of our humanities faculty? Their
journals, often much less expensive than the science & engineering titles,
may tend to get lost in the shuffle.
Amherst College is currently evaluating their collection. Susan Kimball
says that after an initial period of online access being “free with
print” for
humanities and social science titles, Amherst librarians now find that
publishers are starting to charge for online access, and they are beginning
to raise faculty awareness on matters of journal costs. However, the
difference
in cost is less of a factor than patterns of use are: patrons in the
humanities
and social sciences do use print, due to their own reading patterns and
the ease of browsing in print.
Electronic formats put us at the mercy of the publisher, Ms. Kimball
added; alternatives such as open access do not currently exist, so we
find more publishers jumping on the bandwagon and following the Elsevier
stranglehold model. Wen-Ying Lu, Linguistics librarian at Michigan State
University, added to these remarks, saying that her faculty did not want
print to be canceled. She now finds herself unable to add titles because
Michigan State is locked into the Big Deal. Subject expertise is no longer
the extent of our work, Gracemary observed: librarians increasingly need
to understand the business side of things, such as budgets and contract
negotiations.
Referring back to Ms. Kimball’s comments, Deana Astle of East Carolina
University cautioned the audience against “thinking of disciplines as being
monolithic” and introducing stereotypes into the discussion. Scientists do
not always favor electronic formats, and some humanists do prefer online
access over print.
Ivy Anderson of Harvard University said that like Cornell, Harvard has
canceled the Big Deal; in addition to canceling print, they have also
canceled some electronic access. The Engineering library has worked
with the faculty to develop cancellation lists and try to “regain
control of
the collections”, another example of the vein of library/faculty
collaboration
which seems to run through so many successful collection reform efforts.
Two cultural trends—consortia and flip pricing—mean that we need new
ways of thinking about journal prices, according to a representative from
UC-San Diego; we have to get away from the idea of “how much will I
save” by canceling a particular title or two. List prices have never been a
completely accurate indicator of a title’s true cost (for example, a print
version may look $200 cheaper on paper, but the list price does not include
the costs of processing, binding, etc.), but bundling only thickens the
haze
around journal prices. If a library buys access to Brain Research and
Ebony through the same journal package, she asserts, then Brain Research
and Ebony effectively cost the same amount. And if a library has a
consortial
deal with a guaranteed limit on price increases, added East Carolina’s
Deana
Astle, they might actually be paying less than the list price.
Members of the audience had some difficulty with this idea; for example,
one participant wondered what would happen to the price and value of the
package (and hence its constituent journals) if Brain Research were
dropped.
Furthermore, Kay Granskog of Michigan State pointed out, what if a library
tracks its subjects by cost? In this case, an African American Studies
librarian would be very unlikely to accept the idea of Ebony and Brain
Research having the same price! But there is no better way, replied the
UCSD participant.
At UW-Madison, they do track at the subject level—wherever possible,
they are able to break out the costs of print and surcharges for electronic
access. It takes time and effort, but is useful for collection management
librarians; and perhaps some participants found this surprising, but
Elsevier
does provide UW-Madison with a list of prices. Additionally, UW-Madison
has a new class code for Access Fees, helping them to track these expenses.
To contrast, many other libraries have difficulty tracking cost per subject
information through class codes, because they do not have this type of
machinery in place (for example, Rutgers has their electronic journal
packages on a generic fund code).
Continuing in this same direction, Lynda Clendenning of Indiana
University talked about how her institution lets vendors handle their
Elsevier bill. The vendors track it like a print subscription, so they
do get
subject tracking on their invoices—for everything, not just for print
subscriptions. Of course, there is an added fee for this service, but IU
does
not find it onerous. Now, while subject tracking is an interesting idea,
subject breakouts break down with aggregators such as LexisNexis;
however, for many libraries, aggregator access is not seen as an acceptable
replacement for print or an online subscription. At UCSD, LexisNexis is
used as a substitute for print only in some scattered marginal areas. The
work force has changed a bit at UCSD, according to Susan Starr: due
to the need to track subscriptions and costs, “we’re getting very good at
spreadsheets."
Carleton College hasn’t changed its staffing, according to Kathy Tezla,
but work roles have evolved: in addition to the preservation work that was
previously part of one collection management person’s job responsibilities,
this person is now also in charge of online access. Cost and other analyses
are done internally at Carleton, and then a document is produced to show
the findings.
When it comes to number-crunching, the “heavy lifting” at UW-Madison
is done by Acquisitions and Technical Services; they then pass the
information on to Collection Management. Usage statistics are also
gathered,
with the intention of tying them in to costs. Here, there is a gray
area—a “large,
tortuous change”, as Susan Barribeau expressed it—where collection
management and technical services are morphing into e-resources
coordination and it’s not always clear who should do what.
Serials staff at UW-Madison were able to convince the higher-ups to
create a position to handle statistics and analysis, not wanting to
trust the
data provided by vendors. Additionally, they need to have staff in
Acquisitions who can interpret this information and pass it on to
Collection Management, freeing Collection Management from being
too involved with the nuts-and-bolts aspects of this work; selectors
at UW-Madison have not always had to deal with Big Deal-type
problems, since some resources have been paid for with University of
Wisconsin consortial funds.
Once again, however, we must remember that not all institutions can
keep in-house statistics; some do have to rely on vendor-provided
statistics, which ECU’s Deana Astle likens to “comparing apples &
kumquats”. Here, librarians’ hopes for the future may in part be pinned
on the Project COUNTER (Counting Online Usage of NeTworked
Electronic Resources) initiative, which seeks to create a code of practice
whereby they can get vendors to standardize their reported statistics.
(Currently, the Project COUNTER web site is at
http://www.projectcounter.org/ but they might be changing their domain
name.)
Returning to an earlier thread of conversation, Carole Pilkinton of the
University of Notre Dame said that Notre Dame gets “lots of bang for
the buck” from journal packages; they have objections like the big schools
do, but do realize that they get a lot for what they pay. Costs for the
packages are largely covered by departments with historic subscriptions to
their most heavily-used titles, such as the Chemistry department; these
departments analyze heavily, and want to get out of the Big Deal so that
they can drop some expensive and little-used titles. This, however, would
destroy support for widely used titles in other areas, many of which do not
have the print or historic subscriptions. Here, independent consultant
October Ivins pointed out that Elsevier has digitized their backfiles. She
also mentioned that since there is so much available in the backfiles,
Elsevier will have extensive hits. Ms. Astle observed that East Carolina
University’s humanists and social scientists make heavy use of archival
electronic content such as JSTOR.
Gracemary then posed another question: has anyone gone to a
by-the-drink plan? That is, has any library funded a certain amount for
access to individual articles from non subscribed titles? Kimberly Parker
of Yale University said that Yale did an analysis on some titles not
contained
in their package, and found that the costs for by-the-drink access would
have exceeded $100K. This is far more than it would have cost to simply
subscribe to the titles; hence, by-the-drink pricing turned out to be very
impractical for them.
For our last major topic of discussion, we turned toward alternatives to
big publishers, such as open access. The Public Library of Science (PLOS)
was described as an attempt to get us away from being held hostage by
commercial publishers.
One salient point was the need to tie all sciences together. For example,
physicists are well represented by reliable alternative publishers, so they
sometimes express wishes to withhold their business from large commercial
publishers; but dropping the commercial publishers would cripple the life
scientists on campus, who do not have nearly as extensive an array of
alternative publishing options. Here, such new publications and content
carriers as PLOS Biology and BioMedCentral are attempting to fill the
life scientists’ needs.
Of course, publications are only as good as their content, editors, etc.;
thus, in part, it is up to faculty to help “make” alternative
publishers. They
can choose where to publish the results of their own labor; as one
participant put it, Big Publishing’s stranglehold on scholarly content
“is only going to stop if [faculty] quit giving away their research."
At Harvard University, in getting rid of the Big Deal, one of the goals
was to tie this move to discussions about scholarly publishing. Faculty
support for alternative publishing seemed strong; but after the
discussions,
it has been much more difficult to actually galvanize broad activity in
this
direction. UCLA has also tried to sell alternative publishing to their
faculty,
hosting a faculty forum about the Elsevier Big Deal and about open access,
and targeting the fact that these same faculty members are on editorial
boards of journals and may be able to help solve the problems libraries
face. But as representatives from UW-Madison point out, part of the
perception problem with open access lies in accreditation: when open-
access titles become a requirement for accreditation, it will help confer
legitimacy (in the eyes of non librarians).
For their part, Elsevier is definitely aware of the open access movement;
however, their reactions and the results of said actions remain to be seen.
Deana Astle mentioned that Elsevier’s stock has dropped in Europe,
partially
due to concern about competition from open access publications (the story
was published in several places, including the Manchester Guardian; the
January issue of the SPARC Open Access Newsletter
<http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/01-02-04.htm> gives a link
to the version published in the Times Online
<http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,748-930132,00.html>. On the other
hand, according to Susan Starr of UC-San Diego, there has also been talk
that Elsevier could take over open access.
Finally, institutional repositories can provide another means by which
control over scholarly publications can be wrested from Big Publishing;
faculty members can see their work as staying at home, rather than being
given away to commercial publishers who sell (or lease) it back to
libraries
at high prices. MIT’s DSpace, of course, is a big leader; Rutgers is
starting
to get into the institutional repository business, and while Lynda
Clendenning was not quite certain of Indiana University’s progress in
this direction, she remarked that they do have someone whose title has
“Repository” in it.
Some of the issues that we touched lightly upon were likely to be
discussed in the SPARC/ACRL Forum (“Open Access: Getting From
Here to There”), scheduled to be held later the same day. A description
of this forum, along with materials from the presentations given by the
panel, is available from <http://www.arl.org/sparc/core/index.asp?page=j0>.
WRAPPING UP
One common thread running through the discussion was the idea that
successful library actions involved faculty/library cooperation and
collaboration. (The causality, however is unclear: is a cancellation
project successful because faculty are kept in the loop, or does the
library keep the faculty informed because they already feel the faculty
will be sympathetic and/or helpful? Conversely, does fear of upsetting
the faculty sometimes cause librarians to keep cancellation projects
under their hats?)
For those of us in consortia, it may be a good idea to have the
consortium contact a publisher; there is a need to present a united front.
Presenting a united front may prove difficult, however, as pricing models
which are good for one institution may be bad for another. Additionally,
as collection management efforts depend on access to consortial materials,
it is important for members of consortia to keep in touch with what the
others are doing.
Overall, this was a far-ranging discussion involving a wide range of
institutions (perhaps a bit too wide, and perhaps skewed towards the
big libraries; Shirley Rais of Loma Linda University expressed a desire
for a group for smaller libraries, whose problems are often the same
but who must solve them in radically different ways). Of course, we did
not solve all our problems or answer all the questions about serials in
today’s academic libraries; but one may hope that this fruitful and
educational discussion can lead to more and better efforts towards
that goal.
lkm 2/23/2004
--
Gracemary Smulewitz
New Brunswick Libraries
Access/Collection Services Rutgers University
smulewi_at_rci.rutgers.edu
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Received on Sun Feb 29 2004 - 13:31:19 EST