ACQNET v10n016 (July 5, 2000) URL = http://www.infomotions.com/serials/serials/acqnet/acqnet-v10n016.txt ISSN: 1057-5308 *************** ACQNET, Vol. 10., No. 16, July 5, 2000 ========================================== (1) FROM: M. Kunkel SUBJECT: Timberline Report Part 2 of 2 (225 lines ) (1)------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2000 09:20:37 -0700 From: Marita Kunkel (Oregon Institute of Technology) Subject: Timberline report, part 2 of 2 Monday, May 22 E-Journals: The OhioLINK Experience (Carol Pitts Diedrichs, Ohio State University Libraries) OhioLINK's Electronic Journals Center (EJC) was born out of the need for a solution for the delivery of journal articles. Three problems existed: the rapidly increasing costs for journal subscriptions, the greater demand for actual textual material and questions about OhioLINK's adherence to copyright and fair use guidelines. EJC's four objectives were: stability in pricing, greater information access for all, multi-year agreements to stabilize costs, and reasonable access fees for smaller institutions. EJC obtained licenses for journal use on a statewide basis at the publisher level, subscribing to the intellectual content, not the physical method of delivery. The electronic version of each journal is stored on OhioLINK servers, with links to citation databases, the OhioLINK central catalog and to local catalogs. New articles are added from each publisher weekly and usage statistics have shown dramatic increases in use. In 1999 almost 600,000 articles were downloaded, up from 160,000 in the 9 months of 1998. Of the 2500 journal titles held in EJC, virtually all had articles downloaded from them. Only 1750 of those titles were previously held by any Ohio college or university library. In a 106 week period of use at Ohio State University, over 77% of titles used were not held on campus and 51% of articles downloaded were not held on campus. Statistics on the average use for 13 universities from April 1999 to March 2000 show that more articles were downloaded from journals not held in print than from journals held in print. The traditional costs to supply either print subscriptions or document delivery for these dramatic numbers would be overwhelming. At smaller and two year colleges usage has also been significant. In the case of Southern State Community College 100% of the articles downloaded came from titles accessible to users only through the EJC. The EJC experience has lead to the following conclusions by Ohio librarians: what is available in print is not what is needed; the expansion in use can be dramatic; expansion and integration of EJC will breed more use; libraries have the means to change the economic dynamic to allow evolving expansion over rationing and forced selection; and there is strength in diversity and group action. California State University Journal Access Core Collection (Marc Langston, California State University, Chico) The CSU system took a different consortial approach than OhioLINK to building an electronic journal collection. The Journal Access Core Collection (JACC) is a program for system-wide acquisition of serial literature. Its goals were to develop electronic access to the 1282 most commonly held journals within the CSU, to make them searchable through a single interface and to purchase access with a single contract. In December 1998 an RFP and list of 1282 JACC titles were sent to 50 vendors and publishers. The following January responses were received from 7 vendors. Four vendors were selected: EBSCO, OCLC, Gale Group and UMI. In June 1999, after negotiations with vendors, EBSCO was selected to supply JACC for an initial term of 18 months. Only 980 of the original 1282 JACC titles were available electronically. Projected costs for those 980 titles exceeded the initial allocation of $500,000 by 45% so the list was narrowed to 405 titles. Of those 405 titles 353 are available on EBSCOhost and 52 are available on EBSCO Online. CONSER MARC records were provided for all titles. The EBSCO Online records include the durable URL to journal title page. Durable URLs will be provided later this year to the EBSCOHOST records. A custom database searches articles in both EBSCOHOST and EBSCO Online, although use of the respective individual interfaces is also possible. Each campus can also customize the search interface. JACC is not a mandate to cancel print subscriptions and cancelled EBSCOHOST titles may force publishers to withdraw content. The future of JACC is to add more electronic journal titles with the potential to reduce subscription costs per campus. There has been some frustration at the reduced size of the project, but also conviction that the model is a good one. There is more to OP Ordering Than Searching the Internet (Sharon Propas, Stanford University and James Bryant, Backer-Bryant Academic Library Services) Acquisitions staff at Stanford were dissatisfied with the process for acquiring out of print materials. Low fill rates, unpredictable pricing, and differing levels of expertise among searchers led to the quest for a better method. Using firm order vendors did not improve the situation, so out of print vendors were approached. What Stanford wanted in an OP vendor was familiarity with the market, a willingness to use the web for searching as well as print sources, and predictable pricing. While the cost per title was cheaper under the old "do it ourselves" model, the benefits of using an OP vendor - saving staff time, easier maintenance of orders, and unexpected value-added services - outweighed the cost issue. One problem arose with collection development staff over which department would be assessed for the OP vendor's services charges. What's next for this outsourcing project? Cost and fill-rates will continue to be measured, developments in the OP market will be monitored, acquisitions staff will be further trained in the use of web resources, and communication with collection development staff about the gains of outsourcing will continue. >From the OP vendor's point of view, the Stanford model is a departure from standard business practice. Interest in developing a relationship with Stanford allowed the vendor to agree to a fixed service charge and met the library's requirement for predictable pricing. A New Social Contract for Acquisitions and Collection Development (Martin Cohen, McGill University) The traditional lines of demarcation between Acquisitions and Collection Development departments in academic libraries have not kept pace with recent developments. Although things have happened that have virtually transformed the respective departments' functions, we continue to adhere to a model that is largely obsolete. The primary force driving a need for a second look at the division of labor between the two departments is not library automation, although it certainly enters into the process, but the advent of approval plans with vendors. Approval plans reduce the amount of time spent on routine tasks and have a consequent effect on the awareness of staff in both departments where matters like the choice of vendor for firm orders or the need for face-to-face exchange with the supplier are concerned. Collection Development people may the best equipped to suggest a source for purchasing an "oddball" firm order, even though that is considered Acquisitions' turf. As vendors offer a new diversity of services, the sales representative, still the library's primary contact, is backed up by a variety of specialized personnel, all of whom have to deal directly with the customer at one time or another. The "customer" is not limited to the head of Acquisitions or Collection Development, but includes bibliographers who are now managing approval sub-profiles and placing orders online. In the area of electronic resources, acquisitions tasks have become so complicated as to have to be divided among a number of participants beyond simply Acquisitions and Collection Development. For example, before any order can even be placed, there are a multitude of technical and licensing issues to be investigated. While the functions of Acquisitions and Collection Development can never be merged into one department, it is still important to understand where the boundary lines have become blurred. With a certain degree of readjustment of traditional roles, and a large measure of mutual understanding, a smoothly functioning model for the acquisition process can evolve. Book Selection Responsibilities for the Reference Librarian (Robert Sorgenfrei & Christopher Hooper-Lane, Colorado School of Mines) Reference librarians with collection development responsibilities face a common dilemma. They are expected to carry out what may seem to be an added responsibility in the face of several factors: lack of time, lack of immediacy in comparison to other duties, lack of subject field knowledge, lack of administrative support or reward for collection development activities, lack of guidance combined with blurred lines of supervision, and a lack of expertise in collection development. At the Colorado School of Mines all professional librarians serve as liaisons to assigned departments and are responsible for collection development in those departments. In order to mediate the problems listed above, several steps were taken to make selectors' responsibilities and expectations for their performance clear. A well-designed approval plan was implemented and selectors were given "ownership" of their respective sub-profiles, which they are expected to monitor and modify as needed. The collection development librarian provides adequate training for selectors, has the authority to select the appropriate people, and evaluates the selectors' performance. With this authority came clearer lines of reporting and allowed the collection development librarian more credibility in lobbying the administration or head of reference for more time for selectors to do this part of their job. The benefits of including collection development in the position description of the reference librarian are: it requires the knowledge of the literature in a given field; it encourages an understanding of the library collection, its costs and its relevance to reference services are balanced; and it helps break down library departmental barriers. With training, time, and a clear understanding of expectations, reference librarians may find collection development one of the most interesting aspects of their jobs. Collection Development in the Digital Age (Sandra Kerbel, University of Virginia) Collection development/management staff have typically been involved in the post-production activities of scholarly communication - selecting, ordering, cataloging, and preserving. Libraries have focused most of their resources on the physical content of scholarship. However, librarians should be working collaboratively with faculty and students in creating digital content and in managing digital collections. There is an opportunity to be involved in pre-publication activities of scholarly communication by guiding, directing, and organizing digital materials. Collection development librarians are well prepared to work with our users in the following roles: providing intellectual content for digital materials or objects (locating appropriate resources); collaborating to structure and organize digital objects (utilizing metadata and standard information techniques); and providing systems and frameworks for searching and delivery of digital content. It is a unique opportunity for librarians to become involved in enhancing and organizing digital content within a user-created context. The University of Virginia librarians are taking advantage of this opportunity. An example of one model for librarian-faculty-student collaboration may be seen at http://www.lib.virginia.edu/science/parshall/algebra.html. In this project, in which a published journal article was subsequently enhanced and republished as a website, librarians took an active role in identifying a need, organizing the material, and assisting in the final publication. In a second model, the library is actively involved in supporting research whose outcome is presented in a digital environment. The library's support is traditional in its roles of liaison and instruction, but it has moved beyond the passive acquisition of post-publication materials and is involved in the creative pre-publication activities of scholarly communication. Both models illustrate how librarians can work to build and shape digital collections based on institutional priorities, rather than publishers' digital offerings. Tuesday, May 23 E-Book Panel Discussion (Bonnie Allen, Oregon State University, Carol Pitts Diedrichs, Ohio State University, & Scott Smith, Blackwell's Book Services) The Institute's final session was an open discussion on electronic books. How does the emergence of e-books fit into collection development? While e-books seem a logical progression in the production of electronic resources, academic publishers aren't rushing to this format and thus far institutions like Oregon State University have seen little demand from students either. For many, the problem is with content: are the titles offered actually the titles a library needs? NetLibrary's purchasing model is at the title level; IT Knowledge, a database of about 1500 information technology titles, offers purchase of an entire database at a flat fee. OhioLINK chose IT Knowledge because it filled a need that the print collection wasn't meeting. Publishers are cautious about this new development, seeing its potential, but concerned about possible risks. It is unclear what the market will support and many publishers wait 6-9 months after the print publication to release the digital version. Modes of access (portable electronic readers and the web), pricing models (buying or leasing), standards of publishing, support of distance learning, cost savings in processing and space, security of e-books, simultaneous user status, funding arrangements (will book budgets have to accommodate e-book purchases), and e-book enhancements were all issues brought forward for discussion on what was for most attendees a compelling, timely topic. ****** END OF FILE ****** ACQNET, Vol. 10, No.16 ****** END OF FILE ******