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

Librarians as midwives of change in scholarly communication

History testifies to two ICT revolutions. In my reckoning scholarly communication is now in the grip of a third. The point of this chapter, to paraphrase Marx, is to show that librarians are in a position not simply to interpret the world of scholarly communication, but to change it, or at least to act as the midwives of that change. The chapter discusses the information value chain, the economic background to scholarly communication, and trends in pricing and negotiation with publishers. It closes by suggesting that the electronic age offers the potential to turn academic library practice on its head. University libraries until now have promised to collect or gain access to the research outputs of all other universities and research institutions, a task that is both impossible to accomplish and costly to attempt. With the widespread introduction of institutional repositories, however, it is now feasible for each university or research institution to collect all the research outputs of its own scholars, and make them available to all other universities. This task, by contrast, is finite and achievable; the costs are commensurate with the research standing and income of the academic institution

A weighted decision matrix for outsourcing library services

A study, funded by Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries, was undertaken in 2000-2001 to give an up-to-date view of the current experience of outsourcing and externalization in libraries, museums and archives. Case studies of purchasers recognized as pioneers in the field, and of providers, were undertaken. As a result, this weighted decision matrix was developed as a tool for judging the suitability of library services for outsourcing. Illustrations of potential uses are given

Price and competition: consortial strategies for procuring information

The issues discussed here (the advantages of consortium purchase; national or regional negotiation; separation of electronic from hard-copy procurement; creating competition between monopoly suppliers) are treated more fully in my report on research undertaken for Resource (The [UK] Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries) in March 2002, and in an earlier paper

Cutting out the middle man?: disintermediation and the academic library

Big Deals, open access, and digitisation increasingly mean that selection decisions are being removed from librarians and transferred to the end user. David Ball looks at the forces pushing towards this ‘disintermediation’ and considers the future role of the academic library

Managing suppliers for collection development: the UK higher education perspective

This chapter follows the adoption of the new procurement discipline by academic libraries since the demise of the NBA. It first examines the standard procurement cycle, with particular reference to libraries and book supply. It then discusses library purchasing consortia and their contribution to managing and developing the library market place for books, identifying three phases of operation. It closes with some reflections on the future prospects of collection development. Traditional collection development is seen as being turned on its head – we no longer seek to collect the huge range of works of scholars of all other institutions in order to make them available to the (relatively) small number of our own scholars; instead we collect the works of our own and make them available to all

The electronic library: cornucopia or poisoned chalice?

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 libraries, their funders and publishers. This paper examines some of the implications of electronic resources for collection development. The roles and strengths of the players in the information supply chain are defined: creators, publishers, intermediaries, libraries. 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 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 effects on academic publishing of dealing with monopoly suppliers are examined. Means of avoiding or minimising these dangers - consortia, alternative publishing methods - are examined

Positioning librarians as essential to the new virtual learning environments

This paper discusses the explosion in the use of electronic resources by students and the development of e-books. The existing high usage will intensify as virtual learning environments (VLEs) become the primary means of interaction between students and universities. A brief outline of university library procurement in the UK is given, followed by an analysis of a recent ground-breaking tender for e-books for higher education libraries in the UK. The continuing development of a bespoke subject collection of e-books for nursing students is explored in some detail, as is the demand for non-traditional resources for the VLE. The paper closes by discussing the information architecture necessary to streamline and unify access to resources in the hybrid library, and to lay the foundation for an architecture appropriate to the electronic library

The Virtual Learning Environment as a transformational technology for academic libraries

This paper discusses the explosion in the use of electronic resources by students and the development of e-books. The existing high usage of e-resources will be intensified as virtual learning environments (VLEs) become the primary means of interaction between students and universities. The development of a bespoke subject collection of e-books for nursing students is explored in some detail, as is the demand for non-traditional resources for the VLE. The paper closes by discussing the opportunities for integrating resources into and exploiting VLEs

Procuring e-books for the virtual learning environment

This paper discusses the explosion in the use of electronic resources by students and the development of e-books. The existing high usage will be intensified as virtual learning environments become the primary means of interaction between students and universities. A brief outline of university library procurement in the UK is given, followed by an analysis of a recent ground-breaking tender for e-books for higher education libraries in the UK. The continuing development of a bespoke subject collection of e-books for nursing students is explored in some detail