Acquiring e-resources by consortia – efficient, isn’t it? Informatio Scientifica – Informatio Medicata Budapest Pirjo Rajakiili Meilahti Campus Library Terkko, Helsinki

Contents Finnish consortium FinELib Organization of FinELib Acquisiton of e-resources Resources and the use of them Funding Estimation of FinELib

FinELib- Finnish consortium The Finnish National consortium, FinELib, is launched by Ministry of Education in 1997 Started in accordance with the government’s information society programme During the years activities were carried out as a project Since the year 2000 FinELib has been a permanent part of the National Library of Finland

Vision The vision of the FinELib consortium is to bring Finnish science, research, teaching and learning to the top

Strategic aims FinELib has five strategic aims: Meeting customer service needs Ensuring the availability of information Innovative application of technology Improved visibility Top expertise

Organization The national FinELib consortium consists of 101 members: Finnish universities (17) polytechnics (27) research institutes (38) public libraries (19) The amount of consortium members has reduced down from 107 to101 because of the mergers of organizations

Organization All interest groups are represented in decision making processes and development of services of FinELib through 3 different groups: 1) Steering group is responsible for policy making and evaluating the impact and efficiency 2) Consortium group makes proposals for the National Library and the steering group 3) Subject specific expert groups make prioritised proposals for new acquisitions for the National Library (8 groups, one for health sciences)

Acqusition of e-resources FinELib adheres to the licensing policy and principles approved by the FinELib consortium The licensing policy is based on internationally approved licensing principles with adjustments made by the FinELib consortium In its licensing policy FinELib pays attention to the central issues in acquisition, such as perpetual access, terms of use, contractual liability issues and the availability of usage statistics

Acquisition of e-resources The subject-specific expert groups have an important role in the acquisition process, but the final decision on new resources is made by the consortium group Each member organization decides themselves which e-resources they wish to subscribe The minimum number of subscribers of any resource is 4 organizations – FinELib will not negotiate agreements for fewer than 4 consortium members

Resources FinELib e-resources and staff number In 2008 In 2009 E-journals Databases Article downloads 10,9 million 16,3 million Searches made 43,1 million 56,4 million E-books Reference books Staff number 14 16,5

Use of e-resources The use of e-resources has increased year after year, for example in 2009 the use increased 40% compared to the year 2008 In 2009 there were 16,3 million article downloads, which is 5,4 million more than in 2008 Number of e-journals and the use of them has increased more compared to their expenses during the years

Funding Based on centralized funding from the Ministry of Education and separate funding from member organizations Total expenses of FinELib in 2009 were more than18 million euros, 16,5 million in 2008: in 2008 in e-resources staff IT, support other (training..) _________________________________ Euros together

Funding Total expenses have increased from the year 2008 to 2009 about 1,6 million euros = 8,7% The consortium members’ self-financing share for the costs of e-resources was 13,7 million euros = 81.3% about the total costs of e-resources (16,8 million euros) The consortium members’ self-financing share has been increasing

Estimation of FinELib FinELib has been acquiring e-resources on a centralised basis for its member organizations for 13 years now Hundreds of databases and thousands of e-journals and e-books have been obtained The centralised service has saved resources in libraries – less staff’s time for acqusition work and less money with better agreements for a large consortium FinELib regularly evaluates and measures its activities by user surveys

Estimation of FinELib User questionnaries of e-resources have shown that along the increase in e- resources available, satisfaction with the material has grown Although the amount of e-resources is fairly extensive, the customers want more and more e-resources and more and more training in how to use them This means more investment in Information Literacy teaching in libraries FinELib itself organized 20 training courses about its e-resources in 2009

Estimation of FinELib FinELib has a total of approx. 60 licence agreements, renewals for the year 2010 included 83 different resources FinELib has not taken any new resources for negotiation for the year 2011, but there will be a lot of renewals for negotiating The acquisition by consortia has been cost-effective, because the costs have increased reasonably compered with the increased use of e-resources

Estimation of FinELib The users at universities think that the acqusition done by FinELib is very important (86%) or important (13%) The environment is changing and big deals have their problems. That’s why FinELib is trying to find new licensing models for the consortium. The four prioritized subjects for developing the licensing are licencing 1)for sub organizations, 2) for student and research groups going across organizational boundaries,

Estimation of FinELib licensing 3) for adult and supplementary education and licensing 4) for joint libraries Three libraries were chosen to pilot the new licensing models in 2010 and we are waiting for the results about pilots. I hope to have a consortium for health libraries some day

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