1. The Politics of e-access and e-funding in the Library environment Jill Taylor-Roe, Newcastle University Library Jill.Taylor-Roe@ncl.ac.uk UKSG Managing E-Resources Seminar 27 Oct 2005

2. Topics to be covered  Funding of Library Resources  Stock Selection  Management and Exploitation  Staffing  Future Trends  Summary

3. In the beginning…  Budgets for print based resources:  Journals = recurrent = may be reviewed on an annual basis  Monographs = non-recurrent = more flexible  Miscellaneous = e.g. AV, CD-ROM, Maps  Balance varied according to type of library.

4. How is funding managed?  By Format  By Administrative Unit or Cost Centre  By Budgetholder  Centrally  Devolved  Mixed Economy!

6. Characteristics of Funding in the print environment  Usually item level attribution  Costs may be shared across cost centres/ admin units/budget codes  Generally easy to assign items by format if desired  Mixture of recurrent and one-off expenditure  Minimal VATable expenditure

7. Let there be E…  E-journals, E-docs  E-Databases – cd-rom, then web  E-Books – Encyclopedias, Reference Books, Textbooks  E-Datasets – Human Genome Project, Research Databases, Experimental Data

8. New Ways of Packaging Information  Big Deals – by publisher  Subject Clusters  Book Collections – e.g. ORO, Xrefer  Multi year deals  Huge growth in recurrent vs one-off expenditure  Significant Increase in VATable expenditure

9. Funding Solutions?  Re-allocate resources from traditional funds  Create new funding structures  Bid for new money – one off or recurrent  Use contingency to fund experiments  Stick with what you know and hope the problem  goes away?!

10. What we did at Newcastle  Bid for project funds - £100K pa for ejournals, £25K pa for e-books  Created new general funds – e.g. ejourmaingref for “big deals”  Created new e-cost centres to match to print codes and moved some funding across  Negotiated with Academic Schools for additional funds

11. Challenges  Takes time to make cases for extra money  Much harder to cost library provision at cost centre level esp for journals in Big Deals  Takes time to edit old budget codes to reflect new purchasing models  Much harder to effect change at micro level when tied in to packages and multi yr deals

12. Benefits  Project funding allows experiment without detriment to established expenditure  Additional dialogue with schools has increased their awareness of how info resources are priced and packaged  Package deals have effectively doubled the size of our journal portfolio

13. Who decides what to buy?  Subject Specialist  Subject Cataloguer  Acquisitions Librarian  End users – Academics, Researchers, Company staff, Members of the Public  Library Committee

14. How is it bought?  Individual Library Deal  Approval Plans  Deal brokered via Company HQ  Regional Purchasing Consortium  National Deal  International Deal

15. How has purchasing practice changed in the e- environment? (1)  More people involved in the purchasing decision  Possible loss of local control  Takes longer to make purchasing decisions?  Harder to fine tune collection management at micro level  You may need to factor in software and equipment costs!!

16. How has purchasing practice changed in the e- environment? (2)  User demand often still focussed at micro level  Harder to “match” this against prevailing purchasing models  New models still emerging – open access- pay to publish

17. Management of Library Resources: who’s involved?  In traditional print environment:  Librarian  Subject Specialists/Information Staff  Acquisitions Staff  Technical Services Staff  Reader Services Staff  Bindery Staff?  Any one else??

18. And where e-resources are involved?  New Players:  Information Systems Staff  Legal Eagles – checking and approving licences  Library Managers – dealing with access issues  IT Help desk staff – “I can’t get this journal to work on my PC…”  IT staff employed by publisher or vendor

19. And who loses out?  Acquisitions staff – fewer print items to process  Shelvers – fewer print items/vols to shelve and tidy  Issue desk staff – fewer items/vols going out on loan  Bindery Staff  NB Changes have hit journals hardest – books still predominantly print, but this will change too.

20. Collection Management  Selection  Relegation  Disposal  Fitness for purpose – meets needs of core users – e.g. University Staff and Students, Company Employees, General Public

21. Key Aspects of Collection Management in Print Environment  Material tends to be bought outright  Physical items reside in Library – or are relegated to local or remote Stores  Relatively easy to apply specific or general focus – e.g. to expand or contract a particular subject area or resource format  Space (or lack of it) can be a key driver

22. Collection Management of E- Resources (1)  Tend to be annual lease rather than outright purchase  Resources reside on publishers/aggregators servers or in repositories  What happens to previously subscribed content if you cancel?  What happens when publisher sells e-content and it leaves the package you were subscribing to?

23. Collection Management of E- Resources (2)  Disposal of print back runs may require additional investment in e-versions  Should we/Can we afford to retain print back runs “just in case”?  Space (or lack of it) can also be a key driver  Customer pressure may lead to demand for more extensive backruns

24. Promotion  Print – catalogues, user guides, web pages?  E-Resources – all of the above – plus…  Tutorials, (online and face to face)  FAQs, Helpsheets  Demos

25. Staffing: managerial aspects  Existing staff need new skills, esp IT skills  Regular training/updates are needed  More library staff are involved – good communication needed  More support/services needed from agents and other vendors  Staff profile is changing – implications for recruitment, budgeting and deployment of existing staff

26. Staffing: impact on people (1)  Traditional, familiar tasks may reduce or disappear  Jobs may be lost  Staff may feel threatened, undervalued, lack confidence about the future – supportive management needed!  Workloads may increase and become more complex

27. Staffing: impact on people (2)  Staff can and will become enthusiastic supporters, promoters and managers of e- resources…  But it requires considerable investment of time and resources to achieve this!!  May take time before your staffing profile matches the needs of the e-library

28. Future Trends  More e-resources – less print  Revised funding models to take account of new publishing models - e.g. OA  Radical revision of traditional library “footprint” – learning café, social learning space etc  Staffing profile reflects growth in resources  Regional or National Solutions to print legacy question?  More cross-sectoral activity?

29. Summary  E-resources have radically changed the ways in which we acquire, manage and promote library resources  We have had to acquire new skills, new staff ( if we can!) and new strategies to cope  Staff workloads have increased  The growth in e-resources has generally been viewed positively by librarians, but has also been seen as a threat by some staff  We are still learning how best to manage e-resources  Emerging technology will undoubtedly require new skills

30. And finally…remember that:  “Change is Constant” (Benjamin Disraeli)  “ “S/He who hesitates is lost “ (Proverbs)