© ebsco the role of the subscription agent lynn coulton – ebsco

© EBSCO

The Role of the Subscription Agent

Lynn Coulton – EBSCO

© EBSCO

Topics to be covered

• The Information chain• The Supply chain and its characteristics• Serial supply ‘life cycle’• Electronic serial ‘life cycle’• Why agents/intermediaries exist• The changing landscape• ‘Agent’ Initiatives in the electronic

environment• Who pays?• Meeting the needs of the community

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The information chain

AuthorPublisher

Subscription AgentLibraryReader

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Author

Reader

? Publisher

? Subscription agent

? Library

The information chain

Open Access Model?

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The supply chainTHE TRADI TI ONAL MODEL OF S CHOLARLY PUBLI S H I NG

ACADEMI CS AND RES EARCHERSAuthors & Readers

LibrariesPRIMARY

PUBLISHERS

S UBS CRI PTI ON AGENTS

© EBSCO

The supply chainTHE 1980/ 90's MODEL OF S CHOLARLY PUBLI S H I NG


LibrariesPRIMARY

PUBLISHERS

S UBS CRI PTI ON AGENTS

ABS TRACTI NG &I NDEX I NG S ERV I CES

DOCUMENT DELI VERYS ERV I CES

S ECONDARY PUBLI S HERSPrint, CD- ROM & Online

ONLINE INFORMAT IONS ERVICES

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The supply chainTHE 'NEW ' MODEL OF S CHOLARLY PUBLI S H I NG


Libraries PR I MARYPUBLI S HERS

SUBSCRIPTION AGENTS /Info rm atio n Interm ediaries

Data providers

A B S TRA C TI NG & I ND EX I NGS ERV I C ES

DOCUMENT DELI VERY S ERVI CES

Full- tex t aggregators / co llections &subject specific databases

ONLI NE I NFORMAT I ONS ERVI CES

Libraries

Libraries

Libraries

Libraries

LI BRARYPURCHAS I NGCONS ORT I A

REPRODUCT IVE R IGHTSORGANIS AT IONS

LIBRARY UTILITIESCo ntent aggregato rs

PUBLI S HERS 'COOPERATI VE

S ERV I CES

PUBLI S HERS ' ONLI NES ERVI CES

Outsourced hos tingservices

Libraryportals &

VLE's

Electronic resourcemanagement services

(ERM)

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The supply chain – complexity

Authors?00,000

Publishers60,000+

Libraries?0,000

Readers?000,000

Titles280,000+

Online Titles25,000+

Organisations?,000

Select & Evaluate options

Catalogue records

Ensure delivered

Serials resource life cycle

Order & pay

Bibliographic changes

Missing issues/no service

Management

Information

Renewal criteria/decisi

on

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The Subscription

agent as intermediary

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Provide Support

EvaluateMonitor

Administer

Provide Access

Acquire

Electronic resource life cycle

© EBSCO

ClaimingClaiming

User IDsUser IDs

Admin module information


Preferences (store)

Preferences (store)

Holdings listsHoldings lists

Access restrictions

Access restrictions

View rights for use

View rights for use

Provide Support

EvaluateMonitor

Problem logProblem log

Hardware needs

Hardware needs

Software needs

Software needs

Contact infoContact info

Troubleshoot/ triage


Usage statsUsage stats

Downtime analysis

Downtime analysis

Review problemsReview

problems

User feedback

User feedback

Administer

Trial useTrial use

Assess need/budget

Assess need/budget

OrderOrder

PayPayPricePrice

EvaluateEvaluate IP AddressesIP Addresses

RegisterRegister

Proxy ServersProxy Servers

CatalogueCatalogue

Portals/Access lists


Campus authentication


URL maintenance

URL maintenance

Provide Access

Acquire

Electronic resource life cycleLicense terms

License terms

© EBSCO

ClaimingClaiming

User IDsUser IDs



Preferences (store)

Preferences (store)


Access restrictions

Access restrictions

View rights for use

View rights for use

Provide Support

EvaluateMonitor


Hardware needs

Hardware needs

Software needs

Software needs





Downtime analysis

Downtime analysis


problems

User feedback

User feedback

Administer

New processes introduced

Trial useTrial use

Assess need/budget

Assess need/budget

OrderOrder

PayPayPricePrice


RegisterRegister


CatalogueCatalogue





URL maintenance

URL maintenance

Acquire

Provide Access


License terms

© EBSCO

ClaimingClaiming

User IDsUser IDs



Preferences (store)

Preferences (store)


Access restrictions

Access restrictions

View rights for use

View rights for use

Provide Support

EvaluateMonitor


Hardware needs

Hardware needs

Software needs

Software needs





Downtime analysis

Downtime analysis


problems

User feedback

User feedback

Administer

Publishers

Trial useTrial use

Assess need/budget

Assess need/budget

OrderOrder

PayPayPricePrice


RegisterRegister


CatalogueCatalogue





URL maintenance

URL maintenance

Acquire

Provide Access


License terms

© EBSCO

Electronic resource life cycle

IP AddressesIP Addresses

OrderOrder

PayPay

RegisterProxy ServersProxy Servers

Catalogue




Claiming

User IDs



Preferences (store)

Preferences (store)

Holdings lists

Access restrictions

Access restrictions

View rights for use

View rights for use

Provide Support

EvaluateMonitor


Contact info

Troubleshoot

Usage stats

Downtime analysis

Downtime analysis


problems

User feedback

User feedback

Administer

Trial useTrial use

Assess need/budget

Assess need/budget

License terms

License terms

PricePrice

URL maintenance

Provide Access

Acquire

Software needs

Software needs

Hardware needs

Hardware needs

Evaluate

The Library

The Agent

© EBSCO

Authors?00,000

Publishers60,000+

Libraries?0,000

Titles280,000+


Organisations?,000

So Why do ‘Agents’ Exist?

Readers?000,000

Libraries?0,000

Titles280,000+

Organisations?,000

Readers?000,000

Libraries?0,000

Titles280,000+

Organisations?,000

Readers?000,000

© EBSCO

Authors?00,000

Publishers60,000+

Libraries?0,000

Readers?000,000

Titles280,000+


Organisations?,000

Agent


© EBSCO

Authors?00,000

Publishers60,000+

Libraries?0,000

Readers?000,000

Titles280,000+


Organisations?,000

Agent

Simplify

Add value

Representing thousands of libraries to the publishers

Representing thousands of publishers to the libraries


© EBSCO

Simplify & Add Value?

• Economies of Scale • Reduced Overheads through eased administration.

• Rights Management• Currency Management

• Outsourcing/consolidation• Licensing & Authentication

• Awareness/Alerting• ILS Interfaces

• Standards / interoperability• Abstract & Full-text Databases

• Electronic Linking• Industry Knowledge & Expertise

© EBSCO

Challenges……brought on by changes in serials supply

The changing role of Intermediaries in the electronic world

• Declining budgets• Price increases• VAT• New technology• eJournal Management• Linking & Open URL• Authentication

– ATHENS : Shibboleth

• Access v Holdings• Outsourcing• ILS integration • Consortia• Remote access• Usage statistics

– COUNTER : SUSHI

• Federated searching

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‘Agent’ Initiatives in the Supply of Electronic Serials Content

• Aggregation Services • Agents as negotiators

• EDI & E-commerce• ‘Software’ services & tools

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‘Traditional’ Text Aggregators

• Full text plus A&I– Potential one stop shop for user– Extra revenue stream for publisher

• Business model– Low entry cost for publishers– Aggregator does the work & takes risk– Recent volumes embargoed to protect

subscription revenue?– Library widen content base & electronic

availability

EBSCOhost ‘databases’, Ovid, ProQuest & Gale

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‘Contracted out’ Hosting Aggregators

• Hosts full text in place of publisher – Restricted to contracted

publishers

• Business model- publisher outsourcing service– charge to publisher– Publisher retains subscription

revenue (existing model)

MetaPress, Atypon, Highwire & Ingenta

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Gateway & Hosting aggregators

• Point and hosts full text – Potential one stop shop for user

(headers/abstracts & full-text)– High usage– Avoids data ‘silos’

• Business model– Low /No charge to Agents customers– Publisher retains subscription revenue

(existing model)– Library widens content base &

electronic availability– Pay for view– Linking

EBSCOhost EJS & SwetsWise

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Agents as Negotiators

• NESLI (now replaced by non agent NESLi2)

• EBSCO & California State University (Journal Access Core Collection)

• Corporate (global) licenses

© EBSCO

EDI & E-commerce

• EDIFACT & X12– orders, claims, check-in, financial, & management

information.(More and more likely in Academic Institutions

following Gershan)

• B2B business transactions – standards & protocols – integration with e-commerce platforms– ( Ariba, SAP, Oracle and Commerce One etc).

• ‘Desktop’ (devolved) procurement • Pay per View

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Software services & tools

• Think of the ‘traditional’ role of the agent as an intermediary

• Apply that thinking to the electronic field• Look to agent provide support in

– License negotiation– Title management – A to Z listing– Link resolver services (Open URL)– Federated searching– Electronic Books as “content”

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The Current ‘Landscape’

• Familiar occupants – traditional territory– Publishers, libraries, agents, LMS vendors,

Booksellers• New, unfamiliar, parts of the landscape

– Managing tasks associated with acquisition & delivery of electronic resources (journals / databases / eBooks)

• Electronic Resource Management modules– No familiar occupants – where to turn?

• Whatever the ‘container’, the content remains vital

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So who pays?

• Agent (and all intermediaries) need resources to develop and deliver service(s).

• The need for profit– To ensure stability– To invest in new service developments– To deliver quality service

• Traditionally the agent’s income derived from a combination of publisher discount and library ‘service’ charge.

• The changes we are witnessing are forcing a revision to this traditional model.

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Publisher discounts

• The high value title– Sub price (say) £1000– Publisher discount to agent 10%– Income for agent £100

• The low value title– Sub price (say) £50– Publisher discount to agent (unlikely!) 10%– Income to agent £5

• The importance of the ‘mix’ of titles

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• Does it cost the agent (or the library for that matter) any less to process the ‘low value’ title?

• Result is that the high value titles subsidise the low value ones (or the departments that subscribe to the high value titles subsidise the departments that subscribe to the low value titles)

Publisher discounts

© EBSCO

• If a library decides to place such high value subscriptions direct with the publisher, then the subsidy is removed.

• The ‘mix’ is disturbed

• The consequence (in the long term) could be higher (agent) charges for libraries for the titles that remain via an agent.

Publisher discounts

© EBSCO

Alternative pricing models

• The need for transparency…and to be able to determine ‘value for money’

• Cost plus models– Where the discounted price has an agreed mark-up

added

• Low/no discount– Where those titles that do not generate enough

revenue for the agent are marked up to an agreed level prior to terms being applied (% or flat figure)

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• Group purchasing brings the opportunity for economies of scale

• Electronic delivery can mean the sharing of resources

• Tendering improves the ‘transparency’ of the process– Providing the tender is framed ‘properly!’– E.g. ‘named contact’

Consortia purchasing:the tender process

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The emergence of ‘The Big Deal’

• ‘Bundling’ by publishers locking libraries into multi-year, no cancellation agreements

• Increasing proportion of library budget ‘ring-fenced’

• Increased availability of electronic content

• ‘Off the shelf’ (one size fits all) license• Role of agent?

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The ‘Big Deal’ ?

• “… convinced that the Big Deal serves only the big publishers. Many other university and college libraries are also investigating their options,

recognising – as we all do – that the push to build an all-electronic collection can’t be undertaken at the risk of; 1)weakening that collection with titles we neither need or want, and 2) increasing our dependence on publishers who have already shown their determination to monopolise the information marketplace.”

Kenneth Frazier – Director of libraries U of Wisconsin. D-Lib magazine March 2001

– http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march01/frazier/03frazier.html– http://www.dlib.org//dlib/april01/04letters.html

• (the letters responses were interesting too!)

• Followed up by:– An Orderly retreat from the Big Deal – is it possible for Consortia

• Jeffrey N Gatten & Tom Sanville – D-Lib magazine October 2004

– http://www.dlib.org/dlib/october04/gatten/10gatten.html

• “…I was surprised to hear speaker after speaker declare that they thought that the ‘Big Deal’ was unsustainable and likely to go sooner rather than later

• Comment on the launce of the Ingenta Institute report “The Consortium Site Licence – is it a sustainable model?” September 2002

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• (Some) libraries resistance to renewing TBD

• Fragmentation of bundles

• ‘Bespoke’ (tailored) license

• Role of agent?– Detailed invoices– ILS integration & information

‘The Big Deal’ (phase two)

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In a fragmented world of change

…as the complexity of the industry grows –

- the value the agent/intermediary brings to

both the publisher and the library grows

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Meeting the needs of the community

• Single point of access for e-journals• Single authentication per user

session – Athens and Shibboleth• Linking to fulltext• Ensuring user can locate the

resource• Integration of e-journals, databases

and opac• Single intermediary library/publisher• Licensing• Customisable access profiles• Library ‘branding’ • Publication information• Usage statistics

• Financial security• Value for money• Quality assurance• Stability• Order generation & checking• Claim generation & processing• ‘named’ contact for customer

service• Management reporting• Outsourcing and processing

services (consolidation) • Innovative technology partnership• Invoice flexibility• Validated links• Standards / interoperability

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Staying up to date

• Association of Subscription Agents (ASA)http://www.subscription-agents.org

• United Kingdom Serials Group (UKSG)http://www.uksg.org

• Lib-licence http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/index.shtml

• Lis e-journals

http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/LIS-E-JOURNALS.html

© ebsco the role of the subscription agent lynn coulton – ebsco

Documents

supply chain slide

ebsco topics

intermediary slide

community slide

ebsco author reader

electronic environment

needbudget order

needbudget license terms