Dear colleagues -
Is anyone on this list at an academic institution with a main library
(or several) & a medical library? At the University of North Dakota,
we have 1 main library & several smaller ones, including a Med
library. I'm the Dean of Libraries, but Med's never reported to me;
they've had their own director reporting to the Dean of Medicine. She
recently left & they're sorting out many things; one that keeps
arising is our shared licenses & funding formula.
The main library's long paid for many databases, journals, & bundles
in areas that are also important to Med, e.g. general science,
chemistry, biology, etc., plus general interest materials everyone
uses, e.g. Academic Search Elite, JSTOR, etc. We never asked Med to
share costs for these. However, we've always shared costs for some
huge STEM packages - Elsevier's ScienceDirect, Wiley, &
Springer/Nature. In the past, we had an odd way of divvying costs.
We split expenses based on many factors, including how many print
titles the library had purchased historically (early 1990s and
before). That worked for a while. We couldn't just go by FTEs, or
the main library'd pay a disproportionately large share, as we'd be
counting students & faculty from English, History, Art, & other
departments that would rarely, if ever, use ScienceDirect.
We're now trying to change the funding formula, & can see 3 options.
1) We could go by FTEs but only within disciplines with a science
basis. 2) We could try to figure out actual usage by counting
downloads for various IPs/ranges. That quickly gets ugly & complex.
There are complicating factors re/how our proxy server and other IP
ranges are configured. For example, over 1/2 our usage goes through
Eduroam, which unfortunately is configured for a single IP. (The main
UND network can be wonky.) We can get stats on on-campus use, but the
minute you leave your office, it gets weird. 3) We could count just
on-campus use & allocate proportionately. No one likes the latter,
but it's an option.
I know that once people agree to a funding formula, there's strong
reluctance to change. It's hell trying to sort out a funding formula
everyone can agree on; I've done it 3 times, & it took forever.
Another time, we gave up & stuck to the 1970s era formula. That's not
an option here.
Is anyone willing to share with me any information about how you
calculate your funding formulae, what factors you consider, and how
they're weighted? Many thanks in advance.
Sincerely,
Stephanie Walker
Dean of Libraries & Information Resources
University of North Dakota
stephanie.walker_at_und.edu
(Note: The email account I'm writing from is my alumni email, which I
use to read professional lists.)
Received on Thu Aug 01 2019 - 13:19:10 EDT