What's the 'big deal', and why is it bad deal for universities?

At first sight the “big (or all-you-can-eat) deal” seems excellent value for libraries and their users, and represents the shining possibilities of the electronic age. A more thorough-going evaluation, however, exposes dangers for universities, their funders and publishers. This paper examines the big deal in the light of fundamental market conditions and suggests alternative models for procuring electronic resources. The roles and strengths of the players in the information supply chain are defined and traditional hard-copy procurement is analysed in terms of these roles and the concepts of authority, branding and monopoly. The fundamentals of procuring electronic resources and prevalent purchasing models are discussed in terms of the same roles and concepts. The advantages of the big deal are laid out - access to resources, low unit costs etc. The dangers are also discussed. These arise mainly from the publishers’ position as monopolists. The possible long-term effects, on library budgets and academic publishing, of dealing with monopoly suppliers are examined. Means of avoiding or minimising these dangers – consortia, alternative publishing methods, new economic models to promote competition – are examined

Goal-oriented design of value and process models from patterns

This thesis defines a design framework and a method for modelling networked businesses. The intended application domain is electronic businesses that extensively use information and communication technology to coordinate work. The key property of the proposed approach is the reuse of design knowledge in the form of design patterns. Design patterns are extracted from models of existing electronic intermediaries considered successful. These businesses have been reverse-engineered to two types of models: economic value exchange models and business process models. The identified patterns comprise two libraries of value exchange and business process patterns, respectively. Patterns are catalogued with, among others, their context, solved problem, and proposed solution. Most importantly, they are annotated with a machine-readable\ud capability model used as a search key in the library. Capability models are part of the goal-modelling technique for business requirements proposed here. Our goal-modelling technique operationalizes each business goal with a variable and an evaluation function: the evaluation function determines when a measured variable value satisfies the goal. A goal model represents requirements if goals are assigned evaluation functions but the variable values are unknown. In such a case, the goal model specifies what is desired to happen. If, on the other hand, variable values are known, the goal model documents the capabilities of a pattern. The proposed design framework structures the development process into: (1) available design knowledge in libraries of value and process patterns, (2) business requirements captured in a goal model, and (3) economic value and business process perspectives to look at a business system. The design method prescribes steps to transform patterns and requirements into a system specification. These include: (i) identification of relevant pattern based on matching capability and requirements goal models; (ii) synthesis of value and process patterns into value and process models, respectively; and (iii) consistency check procedure for value and process model.\ud The usefulness of the approach is demonstrated in a real-life example, which shows that the framework and method exhibit a predefined set of desired properties

Plataformas de préstamos de libros digitales en las bibliotecas públicas

Libraries and eBooks providers are working together to update and define new business models more efficient and effective to purchase eBooks. In a global market increasingly competitive , new technologies and economic realities are forcing textbook publishers and wholesalers to make significant changes in their business models . This report discusses digital lending platforms and business models with which e-book providers are working as well as the methods and the ways in which libraries can purchase electronic books , the different models available and access the potential advantages and disadvantages of each , best practices , workflows , licensing, and key points in the management of resources for managing e-book collections . In this environment, the e-book providers try to find models that are attractive purchase for libraries while trying to protect content from piracy and other produce , or at least protect their source of income . As a result , there are a variety of options available to libraries wishing to create collections of electronic books through digital lending platforms . The purpose of this paper is to analyze the business models of digital publishing and access to published materials from libraries digitally through digital lending platforms , focusing on identifying key challenges , share experiences, and prioritize areas of action

The University as Publisher: Summary of a Meeting Held at UC Berkeley on November 1, 2007

With the advent of electronic publishing, the scholarly communication landscape at universities has become increasingly diverse. Multiple stakeholders including university presses, libraries, and central IT departments are challenged by the increasing volume and the rapidity of production of these new forms of publication in an environment of economic uncertainties. As a response to these increasing pressures, as well as the recent publication of important reports and papers on the topic, the Center for Studies in Higher Education (CSHE) convened a meeting of experts titled, The University as Publisher. The event was sponsored as part of the A.W. Mellon Foundation-funded Future of Scholarly Communication project at CSHE.Our goal was to explore among stakeholders -- faculty, publishers, CIOs, librarians, and researchers -- the implications of the academic community, in some structure, taking over many, if not all, aspects of scholarly publishing. Two themes were the focus of the public panels: Institutional Roles in Evaluation, Quality Assessment, and Selection and Structuring and Budgeting Models for Publishing within the University Community. Our discussions included the importance of distinguishing between informal dissemination and formal publishing and the challenges that each presents to the university community. The harsh economic realities of high-quality formal scholarly publication, not least of which are managing peer review and editorial processes, were emphasized. Understanding disciplinary needs was cited as paramount throughout the discussions; the needs and traditions of scholars in the sciences and humanities, as well as among myriad disciplines, will likely demand different dissemination and publishing models and solutions. An additional theme that emerged was acknowledging the diverse forms electronic dissemination takes in the academy and the need to foster a spectrum of alternatives in publication forms, business models, and the peer review process. Budgetary and academic freedom concerns were explored as well. Regarding the expensive infrastructure required for electronic dissemination and publishing, it was agreed that there is enormous duplication among the university press, IT, and the library

Improving access: is there any hope?

World-wide calls for improvements in access to journal literature are being answered by a plethora of projects and services. Consortial purchasing, national licences and "big deals" dominate changes in collection development. Moves to set up affordable easy-to-use electronic document delivery services offer an alternative model based on single-article purchase. More radical barrier-free access models are moving the economic emphasis away from purchasing to input-payments. Are all these projects and services making a difference or will access to journal literature be no better in years to come than it is now? It is arguable that only those initiatives which are developing new models through collaboration between the stakeholders will succeed in making a major break-through in access

Competition and cooperation: Libraries and publishers in the transition to electronic scholarly journals

The conversion of scholarly journals to digital format is proceeding rapidly, especially for those from large commercial and learned society publishers. This conversion offers the best hope for survival for such publishers. The infamous "journal crisis" is more of a library cost crisis than a publisher pricing problem, with internal library costs much higher than the amount spent on purchasing books and journals. Therefore publishers may be able to retain or even increase their revenues and profits, while at the same time providing a superior service. To do this, they will have to take over many of the function of libraries, and they can do that only in the digital domain. This paper examines publishers' strategies, how they are likely to evolve, and how they will affect libraries

Digital library economics : aspects and prospects

A review of the issues surrounding the economics of and economic justification for, digital libraries

A new model for procuring e-books

This paper draws on a recent ground-breaking tender for e-books for higher education libraries in the UK. The strategy for the tender was informed by standard procurement practice and by the experience of acquiring other e-resources, particularly journals under the so-called big deal. Both are examined as background to the discussion of e-books in general and the tender in particular

espida Bibliography

This is the bibliography pulled together during research for the espida Project

LIBER's involvement in supporting digital preservation in member libraries

Digital curation and preservation represent new challenges for universities. LIBER has invested considerable effort to engage with the new agendas of digital preservation and digital curation. Through two successful phases of the LIFE project, LIBER is breaking new ground in identifying innovative models for costing digital curation and preservation. Through LIFE’s input into the US-UK Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access, LIBER is aligned with major international work in the economics of digital preservation. In its emerging new strategy and structures, LIBER will continue to make substantial contributions in this area, mindful of the needs of European research libraries