Consortia, Libraries, andManaging in the

Downturn

Ann OkersonElectronic Resources & Consortia

11 November 2009ann.okerson@yale.edu

Outline for today’s talk

• I. Overview of consortia– History & purpose– Types, services, issues, priorities

• II. The downturn– Review ICOLC Statement on the Global

Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Consortial Licenses (January 2009)

– NERL in the downturn– Actions

• III. Yale Situation: a case study– Collaborations

• IV. Other collaborative initiatives

I. Consortia Overview

Definition of a library consortium

• "A ‘library consortium’ is any local, regional, or national cooperative association of libraries that provides for the systematic and effective coordination of the resources of schools, public, academic, and special libraries and information centers, for improving services to the clientele of such libraries.”

(US Federal Communications Commission)

Many different shapes & sizes

• Some very large, complex (such as JISC); tiny (LALC)

• Some have broad programs; others mainly license electronic resources

• Can be restricted:– to specific library types (special libraries, academic

libraries, etc.) or government agencies

• Can be open:– To all local, or regional, or country wide group libraries;

some consortia include all libraries in their region including elementary school and public

• Libraries often belong to several at once!

Types of consortia: a continuum

From decentralized To centralized

Loose federations

Central organization

Tightly knit federations

Tightly affiliated Permanent staff Formal organization Ambitious programs

Loosely affiliated Volunteer staff No formal organization Small range of programs

Source: Arnold Hirshon

Funding consortia: a continuumFrom centrally funded To self-

funded

All $$ from contributions, distributed decisions

Central $$ and decisions

Hybrid of central and contributory $$

Institutional funds Individualized menus Customized resources

Typically state funding Consultative governance Consortium decides for all

Hybrid of membership types

And everything in between!

Source: Arnold Hirshon

How many consortia?

• ICOLC: http://www.library.yale.edu/consortia• In 2000: 135 consortia listed

– 90 in USA– 45 in 21 other countries

• In 2009: 211 consortia listed– 129 in North America– 82 in 41 other countries

• American Library Directory: lists 407 US “Networks, Consortia, and Other Cooperative Library Organizations“

• ALA 2007 Survey: lists about 200 in US

211 Consortia in ICOLC in 2009

129 4713

8

83 +3 multinational

Consortia: timelines

• Library Cooperation in the US since 1876?• Consortia in the U.S. have been around since the

1930s (North Carolina)• 1960s and 70s: Shared cataloging through

OCLC and RLG was born• 1980s+: Focus moved to fast delivery for books

and articles, requested by libraries’ end-users• 1990s+: Large-scale licensing of electronic

resources began, launched by publishers such as Encyclopedia Britannica and Academic Press

• NOTE: The availability of electronic online information resources expanded immensely the role and presence of library consortia

Adding services over time: OhioLINK

Electronic Journals

ElectronicBooks

Off-siteDigital Media Center

Reference & Research Databases

Ven

do

r imag

es

Vendor videos

Inst. AV

Inst. images

On-siteE-Journal

Center

On-Site Central Catalog

Ebsco

Databases

Chat Reference

On-site E-books & full textliterature

E-books: vendor systems

Subject Clusters

ISI WoS

Jour

nal

Citatio

n D

B’s

Web

DB’s

vendor s

yste

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E- Theses& Diss.

Source: Tom Sanville, OhioLINK

ICOLC survey – top priorities(March 2009)

• Budget Management• Licensing & re-negotiation• Digital initiatives & digital

preservation• Next generation catalog• Interlibrary lending• Print – shared storage• Scholarly Communications/ OA• Union Catalog• Training• Etc.

• 80%• 61.5• 60.7

• 57.6• 54.5• 45.8• 42.9• 40.• 39.1• 35.0

II. Downturn:ICOLC and NERL

International Coalition of Library Consortia

http://www.library.yale.edu/consortia

ICOLC statement

• January 2009 “Global Economic Crisis”• There are & will be: significant cuts,

prolonged cuts, a permanent reduction in base budgets (a lower plateau)

• Two principles:– 1:  Flexible pricing that offers customers

real options, including the ability to reduce expenditures without disproportionate loss of content, will be the most successful. 

– 2:  It is in the best interest of both publishers and consortia to seek creative solutions that allow licenses to remain as intact as possible, without major content or access reductions. 

ICOLC statement (2)

• Purchasers will trade features for price; that is, we can do without costly new interfaces and features.  This is not a time for new products. 

• Putting price first will help all parties, because budget pressures will drive decisions in a way never seen before.  Real price reductions will be welcomed and can help to sustain relationships through the hard times.

• Multi-year contracts will be possible only with clear opt-out and/or reduction clauses. 

• Options will be needed for semi-annual or quarterly payment schedules, in combination with more flexible opt-out/reduction clauses and renewal cycles. 

Example: NERL

• Membership:– Full members: 27 large academic research libraries – Affiliates: 70+ smaller academic

• Organization & Governance:– Voluntary consortium with shared goals: non-bureaucratic– Letter of agreement, with decisions made by full members– Review organization every 3 years (founded 1996)– Staff of 2+; annual dues-funded operations of $120,000– Each contract is optional for each and every member– Yale the organizational and fiscal home

• Programs:– Focus on access to expensive (over $10K) scholarly e-

resources of importance to research institutions– Billing turnover of ~$30M annually

NERL situation

• Makes available over 10,000 Journal titles • Makes available nearly 300 databases

– Members can pick and choose from the databases and packages

• Works with over 60 publishers• Collects numerous data regarding usage and

cost per use for publisher packages• Generates annual Savings Reports for members

– Payments for 2009 centrally made = $23M– Total payments including members = ~$35M– Estimated savings off list = ~29%

NERL situation (2)

• For 2010 - 3 with moderate increases; 2 are “flat”; rest cut for 2009-2010 fiscal year

• April 2009 letter sent re. e-resources contracts with ~60 publishers/providers

• http://www.library.yale.edu/NERLpublic/ 2009 NERL Budget Letter to Vendors – Cuts range from 1% - 15% (5-20% in actual

dollars) – Average dollar cuts around 4-5%– Average buying power cuts around 8-10%– Not able to sustain payments at previous levels– Reviewing contracts with major suppliers– Looking for partnerships and stability– Can we strike new pricing models?

NERL situation (3)

Responses to NERL letter so far - 53:• Not-for-profits are trying to hold prices flat for 1 –

2 years; a few reductions• Creators of large historical databases are

increasing incentives (more customers = price reductions); know that sales will be way down; also capping or eliminating annual access fees

• A few for-profits (Lexis-Nexis) also freezing prices for general subscription products

• For-profit journal publishers appear to expect to reduce content, treat different consortial members differently (“divide & conquer”), make reduction terms conditional upon “buying back up” in future years to pre-downturn spends

III. Yale: a case study

Yale case study• December 2008 – President’s letter: 5% reduction• January 2009 – raised to 6.75%• February 2009 – raised to 7.5%• March 2009 – library must further reduce:

– 65 staff positions (38 vacancies eliminated)– $1.93M collections– Travel and operations slashed

• April 2009 – no carryovers to new FY • June 2009 – expect further cuts in the fall and in

next fiscal year• 44% of Yale income from endowments; sliding

further? • 5% additional collections cuts mandated 11/09• Flat pricing will take us only so far (not very)

Yale case study (2)

• Yale has 20+ libraries in different discipline areas; choices will vary; in 2009-2010 FY:– Limited or zero new subscriptions– Reduce print book purchases (foreign exchange factor)– Cancel less-used, more specialized, or somewhat

overlapping databases– Downsize reference collections– Significantly reduce retrospective database purchases

(backfiles, historical collections)– Begin systematic serials cancellations– Future of journal packages rigorously examined

• 2010-2011 Strategy:– Retain staff as much as possible– More of the above cuts PLUS– Systematically “un-do” high-spend journal packages

Yale case study (3)

• We buy most major resources through NERL

• Savings for Yale around 20% off list price• Journal package analysis shows:

– Cost per use ranges from $.65 to $2.94 per download (discipline dependent)

– Packages based on “historic spend”– “Historic” titles still account for 2/3 – 80% of

actual use– Pareto’s Law applies: 1% of journals = 10% of

use; 2-3% account for 20% of use; about 25-30% account for 80% of use; and about 40% account for 90% of use

– Lots of high use resources

BorrowDirect – a regional collaboration

• What Enables partner university students, faculty, and staff to borrow books directly from the libraries of Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and Yale.

• Scope  All printed books (monographs) and music scores that are lent by the owning library with the following exceptions:– Books that are non-circulating, or on reserve – Books assigned to reference, or rare book collections by the

owning library – Bound journals or journal articles

• Response Time  Within 4 business days after requested.• Notification  Email notice sent when requested book arrives.• Pick-Up Location  Can be specified, during scheduled library

hours.• Loan Period  6 weeks. Recalled books within 3 days.• Cost Effective Automated via special software. Handled as a

circulation rather than ILL transaction; costs around $8/transaction

BorrowDirect collective collection

• 50 Million Volumes

• 500,000 Monographs Added Annually

• 40 Million Microforms

• 125,000 Videos

• 715,000 Audio Files

• $120M in Library Material Expenditures

• $40M for Monographs

Source: Estimated from 2006-07 ARL Statistics

BorrowDirect people & programs

• 95,000 students

• 42,000 graduate students

• 9,000 faculty

• 2,500 Ph.Ds awarded

• 425 Ph.D fields

Source: Estimated from 2006-07 ARL Statistics

BorrowDirect collections officers

• We are exploring opportunities in a time of $$ constraint (and plenty of materials to buy)– ADs for Collections met at 3 ALA conferences– 3 conference calls (recently on October 30th)– Brainstorming and exploration

• Re-energeize old agreements (film studies)• Create new ones (perhaps e-book approval

plan sharing one day?)• Identify “dead ends” (little more can be done –

example)• Are there new downstream opportunities (new

disciplines)

Trade PressesTrade Presses University PressesUniversity Presses

• YBP treated 10,057 discrete titles.

• BD institutions purchased 79.4% of YBP’s inventory or 7,981 titles of which 1,367 were unique, single institution purchases.

• BD acquired 25,291 copies with an overlap of 17,310 copies.

• This constitutes an estimated 3.7 copies per title.

• Given that BD members also acquire their own university press’ titles outside of YBP, redundancy is even higher.

• YBP treated 43,836 discrete titles.

• BD institutions purchased 55% of YBP’s inventory or 24,144 titles of which 9,814 were unique, single institution purchases.

• BD acquired 52,701 copies with an overlap of 28,557 copies.

• This constitutes an estimated 3 copies per title.

YBP BorrowDirect consortial view, 2008-2009

Ways to divide responsibility?• Identify which schools have earmarked funds for substantial

disciplines and let them carry heavier load

• Document current subjects & programmatic shifts at the BD

institutions

– Steady-state

– Renewed interest

– Interdisciplinary growth

– Areas for exploration:

Ways to divide responsibility

• P-books: could we agree to think of our printed books as a BD community resource?

• E-books: could we acquire as a consortium for sharing?– Alternative (possible) Scenarios:

• When 4 of 7 BD members own an e-book title, it becomes available to other members.

• After a title is requested via BD for the 3rd time, another “copy” is purchased for the system.

• Agree to share (reduce) purchase of print copies as we transition to more e-books.

The next generation?

• Can we augment the formats available to include videos, audio recordings, and microforms?

• Can we open collections currently closed for borrowing, through flexible loan periods, digitizal delivery, or other methods?

• Do we need a more formalized approach to our agreements?

• How can we foster closer communication and productive networking among our subject specialists? Our faculty?

• Are there other research libraries which we would recommend as BD partners?

Discussion?

• When does BorrowDirect make sense as a collections strategy? When not?

• How to hold conversations?• Any differences in potential for sharing between

undergraduate and professional materials?• To what extent can group collection agreements

override local needs?• How do we stay with changing priorities, landscape?• How do patron-driven requests fit here?• How to think about inequities among collections

budgets of different libraries?

IV. Other collaborations

Some other (ambitious) sharing strategies

• Inter-institutional Mandates

– 2CUL: http://www.library.cornell.edu/news/091012/2cul

– The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded $385,000 to support the development of an innovative partnership dubbed “2CUL.” This new relationship has the potential to become the most expansive collaboration to date between major research libraries.

– Starting this fall, Cornell and Columbia will plan significant partnerships in collaborative collection development, acquisitions and processing.

– The two universities will form a separate service entity to facilitate the collaboration.

– Initial work will focus on several global collecting areas, as well as collaborative funding and support of technical infrastructure in various areas.

Connecting, reproducing, linking . . .

Building the global library

We’ll keep dancing“Happy Feet”