Speaker: Elliot Hermann, Nature
Libraries use a lot of statistical data to determine the value of their content. You know how it goes.
University of Utah and Nature worked out a pilot with ReadCube to provide rental article access. $2.99 for read-only for 48 hrs, $7.99 for purchase and available. In the end, this was a better value for the library for high demand titles that are not used enough to justify purchase/subscription.
How can publishers and librarians work together to determine and establish value? Publishers are trying to do more analytics beyond cost per download. Cost per citation, local citations, author submissions/affiliations, access denials, altmetrics – ultimately some sort of customized solution.
Speaker: Jill Emery, Portland State University
Collaboration, Content, Connection
PSU could not exist without the Orbis-Cascade Alliance, their consortia.
Librarians and publishers are complimentary. We are both invested in the success of authored content, and we agree that quality academic content carries a cost.
In consortium we are able to do things that we could not do individually, unless we are at the 800lb gorilla libraries. OCA did a DDA with EBL via YBP. They spent a lot of time figuring out who would work with them and how it would be set up. It was understood from the outset that it was a pilot project for all of them, and at some point things might change. So, last year when the STL prices went up, it wasn’t a surprise to them. What ended up being complicated was the communication.
It wasn’t a real loss for the publishers. They gained markets they wouldn’t have had. The other outcome was the proof that this could be done across multiple organizations to some success.
There is an agreement that quality academic content carries a cost, but the issue is the price point. The profit reports coming from the commercial STM publishers makes librarians uncomfortable with continuing to invest their collections funds in that market.
Librarians help add context to quality content. Librarians expand on the metadata of the quality academic content. Librarians and publishers partner to make sure standards are employed.
Publishers and librarians are enmeshed in the scholarly communication network. We need to continue to experiment and move forward, but in a way that is affordable for all of us, without negatively impacting the quality of the work.
Speaker: Maggie Farrell, University of Wyoming
Universities are under pressure to graduate students in four years with marketable degrees. They are under pressure to do research in areas relevant to local interests. They are under pressure to collect materials in those areas and be repositories for the research done.
She would like to link metrics to collection purchases, collection impact, value, and university pressures.
