British Library Update14 May 2009

Peter RobinsonLiaison Team ManagerCustomer Services

peter.robinson@bl.uk

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Topics for today

EThOS (Electronic Theses Online System)

Adobe Digital Editions / Secure Electronic Delivery (SED)

British Library Integrated Catalogue (BLIC)

Systems development (IRMDS)

Customer Services

Questions.

EThOS

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What is EThOS?

EThOS (Electronic Theses Online System)

EThOS offers free access to the full text of UK theses, allowing researchers to tap into this rich and vast body of knowledge.

An e-thesis can take a variety of forms. At the simplest level it may be an electronic version of a printed thesis, such as an old document which has been scanned and converted into PDF. Alternatively, it could be a recently completed piece of work produced and archived as a Word document or a

PDF, to be made available on the Web.

Delivered through a single web interface, the service includes theses stored electronically by the British Library, as well as those held by other universities. Theses will be digitised on demand as and when required by

researchers.

Service: http://www.ethos.bl.uk/

EThOS Toolkit (containing background information):

http://ethostoolkit.cranfield.ac.uk/tiki-index.php

EThOS Project (project now completed): http://www.ethos.ac.uk/

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Intellectual property issues

Seeking permissions – given the number of theses within copyright, would be hugely difficult, time-consuming and very expensive. It

would make offering a viable system impossible and would severely limit the number of theses which could be supplied. Even where the

author could be found, delivery timescales would be dramatically increased while the permissions were sought and administered.

EThOS will therefore digitise, store and distribute existing theses and any submitted outside of the Deposit Agreement in future WITHOUT

gaining specific distribution rights. The EThOS system, then, will adopt an ‘opt-out’ approach rather than 'opt-in'.

This decision is not made lightly and is made on the assumption that:

• The majority of authors wish to demonstrate the quality of their work

• Institutions wish to demonstrate the quality of their primary research

Should any author object to their thesis being made available via the service, there will be a clear notice and removal policy

on legitimate objection.

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EThOS - where are we now?

The popularity of EThOS has been spectacular. Over the three months it has been available as a beta version we have seen:

• Over 100 UK universities sign up to participate in the service• Traffic to the site grow to over 550,000 hits per month, which is even busier than our very popular Online Gallery• The number of theses available for immediate download triple, from 4,000 in January to over 12,500 at the end of April• It grew to become the most popular linking destination from the British Library Integrated Catalogue, generating four times more links than the next most popular resource.

We are, of course, delighted by how quickly EThOS has been adopted by the research community and how effectively it is showcasing UK research to the World. However, as a participant in the service, you will also be aware that this popularity has created some service delays. In particular, it is currently taking us significantly longer than the stipulated 30 working days to digitise theses submitted for inclusion in EThOS.

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Usage

Microfilm

05-06 06-07 07-08

No. theses filmed/digitised

5227 4708 5027

No. theses supplied

12830 11831 10771

EThOS

20/01/09 – 28/03/09

14545

33737

The EThOS service model, where theses are available open access, is very different to our old British Library Thesis service.

We planned for demand to increase significantly when the service went live. In fact, we expected it to increase three fold and planned our

digitisation processes to meet this number of theses. But EThOS has been much more popular than we expected. Demand over the first three

months has been twice our expectation and this has resulted in a significant backlog of theses waiting to be digitised, despite our efforts to

increase the throughput by introducing a second shift and investing in new scanning machinery.

Adobe Digital Editions

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Secure Electronic Deliveryand Adobe – an overview

SED is our fastest growing delivery mechanism (currently 35,000 articles each month) and will become our most popular during 2009

SED uses Adobe Content Server v3 to deliver the documents

The customer uses Adobe Reader version 6 or 7 to read the documents.

Adobe Reader v6 or 7

ACS3

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Migration from ACS3 to ACS4

September 2008 – ACS4 testing

October 2008 – ACS4 integrated into SED

December 2008 – March 2009 - Begin phased release to customers via a switch based on customer code

March 2009 - No more Adobe Reader 6 or 7 installations - ADE forced upgrade to 1.7 - ADE no longer able to read ACS3.

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ADE and Reader current position

using ACS3

Adobe Reader v6 or 7

SEDACS3

ADE1.6

Can use either Reader 6/7 or ADE to read SED documents.

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ADE and Reader Introducing ACS4December 2008 to March 2009

Adobe Reader v6 or 7

SEDACS4

ADE1.6

Reader 6/7 can only read ACS3;ADE 1.6 can read either.

SEDACS3

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ADE and Reader Dec 2008 - March 2009

Adobe Reader v6 or 7

SEDACS4

ADE1.6

SEDACS3

Customer Code

Control is with a virtual ‘switch’ based on the customer code.

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ADE and Reader Dec 2008 - March 2009

Adobe Reader v6 or 7

SEDACS4

ADE1.6

SEDACS3

Customer Code

Until March the default is to send from ACS3.

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ADE and Reader Dec 2008 - March 2009

Adobe Reader v6 or 7

SEDACS4

ADE1.6

SEDACS3

Customer Code

If the customer confirms ADE is working and registers their customer code by using the

‘switch’, they will get ACS4 documents.

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How the SED switch works

Switch controlled by ‘customer detector page’ http://sed.bl.uk:8091/DEDetector/detect.do

Can also be controlled by ‘customer services application’ (internal BL process).

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Service Switch on

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ADE and Reader MARCH 2009

Adobe Reader v6 or 7

SEDACS3

ADE1.7

No new installations of Reader 6/7 allowed by Adobe

SEDACS4

ADE 1.7 can no longer read ACS3

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ADE and Reader SEPTEMBER 2009

Adobe Reader v6 or 7

SEDACS3

ADE1.7

SEDACS4

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What you should do

Move to Adobe Digital Editions as soon as possible!

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Hot news!

Coming soon… an alternative to Secure Electronic Delivery!

FileOpen is another software option for accessing the documents you request to be delivered electronically.

http://www.fileopen.com/(see the FAQs for more info)

It achieves exactly the same goals as SED but is compatible with Adobe Reader versions 4 and above.

It only requires a small plug-in and once downloaded, users will not need to update/migrate to new platforms.

If you want to volunteer to test it, see me afterwards!

Building a sustainable document supply model for the future

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BL Document Supply – a recent history

We have traditionally offered UKHE a c40% discount on our standard prices

Historically, we have underwritten the cost of delivering the service to UKHE from other areas of the BL

But, have been given a directive by the Treasury to achieve cost recovery within 2 years

Our goal is to do this without passing on all of the pain to the customer.

Price vs cost of COPIES to UKHE - 2003-8

£4.95£4.10 £4.25 £4.25 £4.25 £4.50

£5.85£6.43£6.05£5.60£5.33

£0

£3

£6

£9

2003/4 2004/5 2005/6 2006/7 2007/8 2008/9

Price Cost

Price vs cost of LOANS to UKHE - 2003-8

£9.00£6.85 £6.85 £7.20 £7.60 £8.05

£10.87£10.40£9.90£8.95

£7.01

£4

£7

£10

£13

2003/4 2004/5 2005/6 2006/7 2007/8 2008/9

price Cost

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• We ran 6 Focus Groups in June and July 2008, with over 70 universities represented

• We floated the idea of an alternative model and asked participants to give us their views

• We came away with a set of goals that would make an alternative model attractive and have scored all alternatives against the criteria

• We are now in a position to recommend one model.

Consultation process

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Service Current Price

Actual Cost

Shortfall % required for full Cost

Recovery

Articles (e)

£4.95 £5.85 £0.90 16%

Loans £9.00 £10.87 £1.87 17%

An alternative document supply model – our goals

• To achieve our cost recovery goals by March 2011

• To minimise the impact of charges to end users

• To minimise the short-term impact on existing operational and ordering procedures

• To phase the introduction of any new model over a number of years

• To recognise the different business needs of each institution and offer options to all customers.

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Options considered

• Stick with the transactional model

• An “all you can eat” subscription

• A cross between the two.

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The New Hybrid Subscription Model

• Requires the university to pay an additional subscription fee in order to offset future transactional price rises

• Customer will qualify for a series of an additional service benefits if they opt for a subscription

• Subscription fee is determined by the volume of transactions from each institution.

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The Hybrid subscription model – what does it include?

Institution X

Subscription = • Transactional rate capped until August 2011• All Banker Transactions included• 2hr service for £15 (usually £26)• 24hr service for £10 (usually £16)• Guarantee of <inflation rise to subscription price until at least Aug 2011• Branded SED• Access to all future encryption options.

Transactional Charges • SED = £4.95• Paper = £5.95• Loans = £9.00• Everything else = standard price.

+

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The Hybrid subscription model – calculating the subscription fee

• Annual subscription fees are determined by the current volume of transactions with the BL, with heavier users paying more than lighter users

• There will be no subscription fee required for customers currently spending <£1,000pa on document supply services.

  £ 9.00 £

5.95 £ 4.95 TOTAL  Proposed

Customer Loans Paper copies SED copies Revenue Subscription

1 £ 43,381 £ 17,099 £ 27,613 £88,093 £5,000

10 £ 28,461 £ 8,754 £ 14,138 £51,353 £5,000

20 £ 15,096 £ 9,349 £ 15,098 £39,544 £5,000

30 £ 12,499 £ 6,397 £ 10,330 £29,225 £3,000

40 £ 13,998 £ 4,885 £ 7,889 £26,773 £3,000

50 £ 10,134 £ 4,842 £ 7,820 £22,795 £3,000

75 £ 3,311 £ 3,685 £ 5,951 £12,946 £1,500

100 £ 2,710 £ 1,489 £ 2,404 £6,602 £1,000

124 £ 489 £ 277 £ 447 £1,212 £500

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Rolling out the new model

• The Hybrid Subscription Model will be available from August 2009

• In years 1 and 2, customers will be given the choice of the subscription model of sticking with a version of the existing transactional model

• Prices on the transactional model will rise in two increments to each cost recovery by Aug 2010.

Transactional model Only: £4.95 copies, £9.00 loans

Subscription model:Subscription = £500 - £5k

+£4.95 copies, £9.00 loans

Today From Aug 2009

Transactional model:£5.40 copies, £9.90 loans

Or

From Aug 2010

Subscription model:Subscription = £500 - £5k + inflation

+£4.95 copies, £9.00 loans

Transactional model:£5.85 copies, £10.80 loans

Or

British Library Integrated Catalogue

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The BL Catalogue is changing.

http://catalogue.bl.uk

The British Library Integrated Catalogue (BLIC) is changing.

We need your comments to shape its future.

A beta version of BLIC is currently available for testing.

Tell us what you think.

http://www.bl.uk/surveys/primo/index.html

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What else is new?

The British National Bibliography (BNB) is now searchable as a separate file on BLIC.

The British National Bibliography is a record of UK and Irish publishing and

items received by the British Library on legal deposit.

Included are pre-publication records and records created by legal deposit libraries other than the BL.

Despite it being a legal requirement that these books are sent to us, items listed in BNB are not necessarily all held by

the British Library.

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Is everything else available for loan?

No.

Most items in the Reference Collection (usually stored in the St Pancras building) are not available for loan.

But some are… how can you tell which are which?

Systems Development

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Systems development

A major overhaul of our request processing system is underway.

This involves running several legacy systems alongside the new integrated system, then moving to a seamless changeover.

We have consulted users about what they would like to see from the new system.

We are now going to tender to identify the most suitable supplier.

Customer Services

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Keeping in touch

Customer Updates

Customer education

Representation on ILL stakeholder groups

Public events

Keeping track and monitoring trends (CRM)

Key Account Management

Agents

Managing expectations

Feedback / Customer Satisfaction

Internal customers

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Special copy services

Imaging Services (paper or digital copies of manuscripts, out-of-copyright books, music etc)

Copy service for out of print items published by HMSO / The Stationery Office, Health and Safety Executive etc.

Colour copies

Near-Print Quality copies

Replacement and Multiple copies

Copies for the visually impaired using guidelines set out in the Copyright (Visually Impaired Persons) Act 2002

Higher Education Scanning Service (HESS).

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Customer Services

More than just a call centre!

Variety and diversity - everything from ARTEmail to Zetoc

A professional service at all times

Highly responsive to customer concerns

We can represent the views of the customer to colleagues and departments within the BL

01937 546060 / customer-services@bl.uk

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Questions?

British Library Update14 May 2009

Peter RobinsonLiaison Team ManagerCustomer Services

peter.robinson@bl.uk