1. Hidden Costs of E-Journals
Rollo Turner
Secretary General
Association of Subscription Agents and Intermediaries

2. The ASA
ASA – international trade association represents agents and intermediaries worldwide
Members (UK only)
members (World)
members
Now 44 members

3. Who are the members? Membership includes: EBSCO, Swets
Edina, Ingenta, Ovid, Teldan (TDNet)
AOBC, Basch, Cox, DA, DEA, Eastview, Globe, Infocandy, Karger Libri, Kinokuniya, Lowland, Lehman, Maruzen, MK-Periodica, Prenax, Suomalainen…..
for a full list

4. ASA - promoting good practice
ASA provides
-- Guidelines for good practice, meetings, newsletter, representation
ASA campaigns to improve, for example,
Gracing periods for e-journals
Early pricing and payments in good time
ASA works on standards
Usage Statistics (COUNTER initiative)
Automation (ICEDIS)
ISSN

5. Hidden Cost of e-journals Introduction
Virtual library cheaper than print
Hybrid library the most costly
Open Access – jury out for some time
Cost of admin of e-subs
Is it efficient?

6. Acquisition and Access Process ca 1984
Libraries
Direct
Agents
Publishers

7. The Acquisition & Access Process 2004
$$$
Open Access
Library
Consortia
Direct
E-Doc- Del
Aggregators
Interm’ries
Agents
Publishers
Open Access

8. Why so much complexity? Demand for better value
Demand for instant access to all content
Different value options for different markets (market segmentation)
Big deals, price by size, usage, type of org
The market for large publishers now very different from the small publishers

9. (Source Swets Information Services)
E-Journals growth
75% of scholarly journals now online
30-40% of all subscriptions now online
60% of all subscriptions online by 2008
(Source Swets Information Services)
90%+ by 2010?

10. The market But 5 publishers produce 5000 journals (33%)
100,000+ serials
50,000+ publishers
15,000+ research and scholarly journals
3,000+ research and scholarly publishers
But 5 publishers produce 5000 journals (33%)
66% of scholarly jnls outside Big Deals
80% of all jnls outside Big Deals
50% of spend (or more) can be on 33% of the content

11. Cost of E-Journal Admin
“Up to 2 FTEs”
“At least one person”
“Replaced para-professional with fully
skilled professional”
“Eats up staff time”
“About $25,000 per year and growing”

12. Electronic only subs and small publishers
Small publishers asked for complex pricing
Packages of smaller publishers
ALPSP
Aggregations services
Licence required to match larger publishers
The impact is dramatic….

13. Future very different from the Past
Today
Most e-jnls come as part of a big deal
Few e-jnls subscribed singly
Single order brings many e-journals
Admin ‘simple’
Tomorrow
Most e-jnls subscribed individually
Big deals more selective
Many orders for few e-journals
Admin challenging!

14. The E-Resources Cycle But at what cost? Acquire/Renew Evaluate Access
Budget
Resource Identification
Negotiate/Order
Pay/Invoice
Holdings lists
Agree buy group
Analysis of content
Identify gaps
Acquire/Renew
But at what cost?
Access route
Registration
Catalogue
Authentication, rights
Licence databanks
Usage stats
Downtime
User feedback
Evaluate
Access
Support
Market to users
Help desks
Supplier list
Troubleshoot Access denials

15. Negotiate and Pay Cost of negotiating with large publishers?
3 days per licence? 5?
10?
How many librarian days per year?

16. Negotiate and Pay Cost of negotiating with small publishers ¼ day
2 days?
Librarian days per year for 1000 publishers?

17. Measuring Cost Effectiveness of Purchasing
Cost of raising and paying for 10,000 titles from 1000 suppliers going direct $100,000
Plus cost of up to 1000 negotiations OR
10 orders to 10 publishers for Big Deals $ 1,000
Plus cost of negotiation and admin
One order to an intermediary for remaining suppliers $
Plus cost of arrangements with intermediary
Library/organisation saves $98,000
Less negotiation and admin

18. The Hidden Costs Resource Identification Negotiation
Building the database – journals, packages, interfaces
Trials requirements and evaluation
Negotiation
Knowledge base of who to talk to, time zones, language
Licence and price
Up to 1-2 FTEs in most large research establishments?

19. The Hidden Costs Ordering Up to ½ FTE during busy period?
What is in the package
Monitoring package content
Tracking publisher changes
Subject grouping and internal cost allocations
Up to ½ FTE during busy period?

20. The Hidden Costs Orders Payment ? Cost Ensure correctly made out
Publisher alerting for IP address changes etc
Payment
Currency and service cost
? Cost

21. Hidden Costs Access (receiving) Management How many FTEs required?
Access failure
Special licences
Licence databanks
Management
Price history
Subject classification
Holdings lists
How many FTEs required?

22. Simplifying the Acquisition Process
Multiple acquisition routes means
Challenging administration
Internal cost allocation, title/price database, publisher alerting, who to contact, etc etc
Intermediation means
Greater potential for resource efficiency

23. Conclusions E –Journal admin is resource intensive
The future may not ‘scale’
More e-only journals takes more resources
Resources can be maximised and cost minimised through intermediation

24. Association of Subscription Agents and Intermediaries
Thank You
Rollo Turner
Secretary General
Association of Subscription Agents and Intermediaries