Consortium purchase of electronic resources by public libraries in England: intelligence gathering for Resource: stage one

Abstract

Following the gathering of baseline information on the purchasing of electronic resources in the annual NETBase returns, the brief from Resource was to undertake structured interviews with library authorities and consortia in England with a view to identifying: what works well; what are the various management models that have been adopted ; what is problematic with respect to the management of commercial products; what issues and concerns staff have; what are their views on future development and how such procurement could best be managed. Six consortia were surveyed: Central Buying Consortium, Co-East, CUSP, Foursite, LASH (Libraries Access Sunderland scHeme), Libraries in Partnership West Midlands (LIP WM). Interviews were carried out in March 2002, using the following structure: 1. What is the membership? 2. What is the decision-making and management structure? 3. What personnel are involved - dedicated, voluntary, procurement...? 4. What contracts are in operation? 5. How are the contracts managed and what problems are there? 6. What issues and concerns do member libraries have regarding e-resources? 7. What would you like to see in the future in terms of e-content, and how should it be delivered? 8. Should e-resources and traditional procurement be co-ordinated, and if so how? 9. Are there licensing issues? 10. Are there technical issues? Consortia were also encouraged to raise issues or concerns themselves. Five library authorities were also surveyed: Blackburn, Bristol, Croydon, Knowsley and Norfolk. These interviews were also carried out in March 2002, using the following structure: 1. What e-resources do you subscribe to now? 2. What are the selection criteria? 3. How do you make the resources available? 4. What is the take-up? 5. Are there technical issues/problems (passwords, IP addresses...) 6. Are there skills issues - for staff, for users? 7. What content would you like to make available? Libraries were also encouraged to raise issues or concerns themselves. In order to put the results of the intelligence-gathering into a structured context, I preface the results of the survey with an analysis of the information value chain and an outline of the procurement cycle. These ideas are, I believe, fundamental to an understanding of the challenges and opportunities of procuring e-resources in a rapidly developing marketplace. I then analyse some of the procurement models for e-resources that are emerging in the UK and abroad, before outlining issues arising from the survey that Resource might wish to consider