JOHN COX ASSOCIATES LTD
Document Sample
Investigative Study towards establishing a
Scottish Higher Education Digital Library
for Scottish Universities
A Report commissioned by the Universities of
Edinburgh and Glasgow for SCURL
by
John Cox
24 September 2007
JOHN COX ASSOCIATES LTD.
International Publishing Consultancy
Rookwood, Bradden, Towcester, Northants NN12 8ED, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0) 1327 861184; Fax: +44 (0) 20 8043 1053; Web: www.johncoxassociates.com
Registered in England: company no 4793756
1
Contents
Heading Page
Executive Summary 3
The Report
The context 7
Methodology employed 8
The special characteristics of research in Scottish Higher Education 8
Information provision to support the Research Pools 10
Support for other scholarship and research 10
SHEDL’s principal objectives 11
An overview of publishers’ pricing policy and practice 13
SHEDL’s interface with the JISC 21
Policies and purchasing practices of comparable procurement consortia:
models for SHEDL 23
Governance and management 26
The requirement for consultative machinery 30
Funding SHEDL 30
Content acquisition strategy 33
Priorities for SHEDL’s licensing 37
Establishing appropriate licensing terms 38
Summary of key decisions required 42
Roadmap 43
Acknowledgements 45
Appendix A: Research Pools: information provision 47
Appendix B: Disciplines outside Research Pools: activity and publishers 49
Appendix C: Selected consortia profiles 50
2
JOHN COX ASSOCIATES LTD.
International Publishing Consultancy
Rookwood, Bradden, Towcester, Northants NN12 8ED, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0) 1327 861184; Fax: +44 (0) 20 8043 1053; Web: www.johncoxassociates.com
Registered in England: company no 4793756
Investigative Study towards establishing a Scottish Higher
Education Digital Library for Scottish Universities
Executive Summary
1. Scottish Higher Education comprises a coherent and manageable national grouping that can effectively
leverage its funding and improve access to information equally across the sector to populate a ‘common
information resource’. Furthermore, both the Howat and McClelland Reports suggest that Scottish HE
and FE adopt a more aggressive procurement policy; this has resulted in the establishment of Advanced
Procurement for Universities and Colleges (APUC).
2. SHEDL is conceived as an information licensing agency acting as a bloc for all Scottish HEIs. A full
programme of interviews with university librarians, academics and senior management indicated a very
high level of support for it as the way ahead. While the motivations for each HEI’s involvement vary,
there is a common desire to maximise the online information available to all HEIs in Scotland.
3. Scottish HE is characterised by a strong research base and cross-institutional collaborative research, as
manifested in Research Pools. In order to continue to maintain a competitive position with the leading
research-based universities in the remainder of the UK and internationally, Scottish universities need to
continue to attract high quality faculty and graduate students, as well as “stars” in research.
4. To provide an effective information infrastructure to support Research Pools, it is important to provide
all researchers access to a comprehensive, common, collection of online resources, regardless of
affiliation. The UK national collective licensing system, JISC Collections (NESLi2 is the journal
licensing component), meets only part of this need in negotiating terms for online access to content for
selection at the institutional, rather than the sectoral level. As a result of requiring each institution to
decide whether or not to opt-in to a particular licence, coverage in Scotland is patchy. Furthermore,
there is a considerable range of relevant publishers outside the JISC licensing scheme, which is limited
by JISC to selected publishers: see Appendix A and B. The JISC scheme has to be seen as sub-optimal.
5. The Research Pools do not represent the entire community of research and scholarship in Scotland.
There are disciplines in the humanities and social sciences in which most Scottish HEIs are active, and
a further range of publishers with journals in those disciplines.
6. SHEDL members spent approximately £22 million on information provision in 2005-06, of which
£16.4 million was spent on electronic information – over £13 million on journals and £3 million on
other digital products. SHEDL is designed as an “all-in” collective purchasing organisation. It should
concentrate on online journals, where the greatest value-for-money and demonstrable benefits to its
member institutions can be secured:
To ‘fill in the gaps’ in NESLi2 licences so that all institutions have access to those journals;
To extend collective licensing to other publishers, in all disciplines of relevance to HEIs, including
the humanities and social sciences.
7. SHEDL is primarily focussed on the HE sector; to go beyond HE requirements at this stage would risk
diluting that focus. Nevertheless, there are other organisations requiring similar information that could
be included in some SHEDL licences and bring additional funds to lubricate publisher negotiations:
National Library of Scotland, The Open University (for students in Scotland), NHS Education Scotland,
and the major city public libraries.
3
8. Publishers’ practice in licensing consortia can be summarised as follows:
As surveyed in 2005, 58% of publishers adopt a model where the principal base is previous
aggregate subscription revenue plus a premium for comprehensive access: it is used by most large
commercial companies. (It is ideal for SHEDL’s purpose: more journal content accessible by all
HEIs from the existing level of expenditure.) The premium is likely to come from internal library
savings, better pricing, Research Pool contributions and the participation of other research libraries;
Most publishers either make agreements for one year at a time or for three years, often with
undertakings to cap price increases at an agreed percentage.
80% of publishers confine the offer to journals, while 20% include other content, notably e-books,
reference works and databases.
90% of publishers include access to some or all back volumes as part of the deal; two-thirds include
all back volumes available online.
9. There is a consensus among all the university librarians, academics and administrators interviewed for
this report that SHEDL should seek to co-exist with, complement, and work within the JISC Collections
framework. This was strongly reinforced by the SFC. JISC appreciates the particular requirements of
Scottish HEIs, and is likely to accommodate SHEDL acting as ‘bloc’ within JISC or NESLi2 licences.
10. The 1990s saw severe journal price inflation and the simultaneous emergence of the Internet as a
delivery medium. Academic libraries formed consortia to pool their purchasing power to secure lower
pricing and better terms of use for online journals. SHEDL is treading a well-worn path; there are 304
consortia worldwide, of which 156 are in the USA and Canada. The impact on collections since 2000
has been dramatic, with an increase of 54% in the number of journals held in the average US university
research library, and a decrease of 23% in unit cost. There have been unintended consequences:
Usage of titles not previously held on subscription represents up to 50% of usage; this was
originally found by OhioLINK, and is confirmed by usage statistics from many universities around
the world including, for example, the University of Glasgow;
The library’s fully allocated cost of providing a reader with an item is dramatically lower with
online material compared with print. Online journals reduce library operating costs significantly.
11. Comparisons have been made in this report with a number of consortia with similar demographic and
membership characteristics to SHEDL. It is notable that:
a. consortia in the Nordic countries and Germany are led and managed by the local state or national
library, with administrative costs funded by government;
b. the Irish consortium IReL is operated by a company owned by the Irish universities;
c. consortia run by volunteers have negotiated fewer licences than those with dedicated staff;
d. all consortia have negotiated many more licences than JISC/NESLi2; a strategy to fill the gaps in
NESLi2 licences and license additional publishers is eminently practicable;
e. a dedicated professional team is needed to manage licences to a wide range of online journals and
other digital information products.
12. The structure and governance of SHEDL is critical. Two options, basing SHEDL on volunteer labour,
and a single university operating SHEDL on behalf of its members, are not recommended. There are
three viable options for organising SHEDL with dedicated staff:
a. The National Library of Scotland (NLS) as convenor and agent for SHEDL. A number of European
consortia are organised around the local national library. The NLS is keen to participate in SHEDL,
and provides the legal framework for contracting and employment and may assume part or all of
the administrative costs involved. However, NLS is not an HEI and is not accountable to the
University Principals. Its culture is oriented to public library provision, and its ability to manage
collective academic information procurement is unproven.
b. The establishment of a separate not-for-profit organisation (probably a company limited by
guarantee) owned by the HEIs. This is a conventional model for organising such collective efforts;
IReL, the Irish consortium, provides a precedent. It is a flexible vehicle in that it can extend its
membership to non-HEIs, and can exploit new opportunities and activities as and when priorities
change. It would be separate from its individual members, but responsible to them. Its activities
4
would be transparent, with audited accounts and a reporting structure. It provides a legal structure
and sends a message to publishers that SHEDL is a ‘serious’ venture. However, it would have to be
funded wholly by member HEIs, and incurs legal and accounting costs that may not be inapplicable
to the other options.
c. SHEDL operating as a unit of APUC, which was created to provide a collaborative HE and FE
procurement vehicle in Scotland. It is an official body, bringing an element of compulsion with it,
and it has premises, finance, IT and HR resources in place to support SHEDL. It will ensure
compliance with EU public procurement legislation, and bring discipline and best practice to
SHEDL. However, some purchasing professionals find the nature and complexity of information
procurement for libraries difficult, if only because any one journal has only one source of supply:
its publisher. Other libraries such as NLS, NHS Scotland and public libraries, fall outside its HE
and FE remit. Responsiveness to HEI library requirements is not yet proven.
None of these options is mutually exclusive. It is not inconceivable that a company could be
established that would subcontract its operation to the NLS, or be a subsidiary of APUC.
13. Whatever SHEDL’s structure, consultative machinery to use the expertise of member library staff will
be required to ensure that SHEDL is responsive to each institution’s information requirements and to
involve middle management in selecting and prioritising publishers, evaluating proposals and
monitoring performance. A committee structure is required to underpin SHEDL’s decision-making.
14. Planning SHEDL should assume that the establishment and operation of SHEDL will have to be funded
by the HEIs through an annual membership fee to meet the costs of employing dedicated staff and
overhead: initially a Project Director/Manager plus an assistant, with provision for some consultancy.
The indicative annual running cost is £150,000. This should be apportioned between the HEIs
according to size, e.g. using JISC Charging Bands or the emerging APUC charging structure. If the
chosen structure is either the NLS or APUC option, these bodies may contribute to running costs.
15. In order to dovetail SHEDL licences with existing JISC licences, product costs should be apportioned
using JISC Charging Bands as the preferred method. It should be noted that other sources of funding or
savings on existing expenditure should contribute to SHEDL, including:
Some savings in the £1 million on binding and inter-library loan spent by Scottish HEIs in 2005-06;
Better pricing or more access from those publishers already within the JISC Collections/NESLi2
licensing regime, reflecting savings in publishers’ costs by moving from a JISC opt-in regime to an
“all-in” SHEDL licence with a single contact and a single annual invoice;
The possible participation of other libraries (see paragraph 6) in some or all SHEDL licences;
Future economies in library overhead costs: premises costs, and the redeployment of library staff;
Input from Research Pools for particular information products, on a case by case basis.
16. The costs, savings and benefits of SHEDL can be summarised as follows:
Annual costs of implementing Annual savings & potential Non-cash benefits to member
SHEDL additional funding institutions
Cost of SHEDL office: £150K Savings in binding & ILL costs: one More journal content accessible in all
third of £1m = £300K + institutions
Premium to pay for all-in access Improved pricing per institution for all- Common information resource extended
to NESLi2 publisher licences: say in licence across Scottish HE to support Research
5-8% Pools
Premium to pay for all-in access Additional funding contribution from Common information resource extended
to non-NESLi2 publishers: not other research libraries participating in across Scottish HE to support all other
likely to exceed 10% selected licences research
Savings in library premises costs Redeployment of library staff to improve
faculty liaison
Additional funding from Research Possible reallocation of funds to facilitate
Pools for particular product licences purchase of unique materials
Potential bid for SFC pump-priming
funds to establish SHEDL
5
17. SHEDL should develop a coherent acquisition strategy aimed at:
providing online desktop access to a range of scholarly and research publications beyond the
capability of any individual institution alone;
meeting the needs of all SHEDL stakeholders, so that each participating institution derives a clear
benefit from its participation, both financial and managerial;
meeting the information requirements of the Research Pools and other research needs;
demonstrating a significant aggregate cost-benefit: i.e. more content to more users within existing
aggregate expenditure on information provision.
18. This strategy should be based on a detailed analysis of the journal titles required to support critical
areas of scholarship and research, and the publishers that dominate that requirement. This involves
significant initial effort, but pays off in establishing common ground, clear acquisition priorities, and
criteria adopted to prioritise publisher negotiation. Such acquisition priorities may include back volume
collections and aggregated databases, as well as current journals. It should be noted that a significant
range of large publishers, notably Blackwell, CUP, Elsevier, OUP, SAGE, Springer, Taylor & Francis
and Wiley, cover a wide range of disciplines relevant both to Research Pools and to the humanities and
social sciences. Based on extensive analysis fully described in the report, it is suggested that the
strategy falls into four distinct categories of publisher:
existing NESLi2 publishers, to extend access to all HEIs;
other important publishers active in the Research Pool disciplines;
smaller publishers that do not currently license consortia, mainly because they are small, but are
keen to do so; this includes many university presses and small commercial houses;
publishers specialising in individual disciplines – particularly learned societies.
19. Negotiating consortia licences for the acquisition of journals is an onerous and time-consuming process.
Any SHEDL licences should be for at least three years. SHEDL must establish a detailed licensing
policy in order to maintain consistency of terms across all publishers. This will ease the burden of
compliance administration within SHEDL libraries and ensure consistency. The current NESLi2
licence is a good model. It is strongly recommended that SHEDL create its own standard licence,
modelled as closely as possible on the NESLi2 model. The report contains a detailed treatment of
licensing terms, most of which are accounted for by NESLi2; others, including VLEs, data and text
mining, and access for organisations that have a formal working relationship or formal affiliation with
the institution, should be built in to its licence. SHEDL should also be able to extend membership in its
sole discretion.
20. The issues and decisions required following this report can be summarised as follows:
a. Proof of concept: The SHEDL concept is that Scottish research is characterised by institutional
cooperation, and that it provides the mechanism whereby access to the broadest possible range of
content to all HEIs can be effected, to create a common research information environment for
Scotland;
b. Structure: Adopt one of the three options: National Library of Scotland as manager and agent for
HEIs, operated by APUC on behalf of the HEIs, or a separate not-for-profit organisation owned by
all Scottish HEIs;
c. Governance: Board of Directors/Trustees, Memorandum of Agreement defining scope, obligations,
governance and funding, and the process of election/appointment to the Board;
d. Funding: depending on structure, sources of operational funding and the method of apportioning
both running costs and product licensing costs between members;
e. Consultative mechanisms required: Consultative committees’ remit and representation;
f. Content acquisition strategy: Establish collective needs across all disciplines, from which a target
list of publishers should be agreed;
g. Non-HEI participation: The criteria by which non-HEI participation in SHEDL licences is invited.
John Cox 24 September 2007
6
JOHN COX ASSOCIATES LTD.
International Publishing Consultancy
Rookwood, Bradden, Towcester, Northants NN12 8ED, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0) 1327 861184; Fax: +44 (0) 20 8043 1053; Web: www.johncoxassociates.com
Registered in England: company no 4793756
Investigative Study towards establishing a Scottish Higher
Education Digital Library for Scottish Universities: a Report
1. The context
1.1 The Scottish Confederation of University and Research Libraries (SCURL) represents not
only the institutions of higher education in Scotland, but also the National Library of
Scotland and the public library systems of Edinburgh and Glasgow. While higher education
institutions throughout the UK are subject to similar financial and management pressures in
respect of their provision of research information to their faculty and researchers, SCURL
encompasses other institutions involved in the curation and provision of scholarly and
research information. It constitutes a coherent and manageable national grouping that has
demonstrated that it can operate effective collaborative activities to leverage its funding and
improve access to information resources on an equitable basis throughout Scotland.
1.2 While the UK national collective licensing system, JISC Collections (NESLi2 is the journal
licensing component of its activity), meets part of this need in that it negotiates preferential
terms for online access to content for selection by individual institutions, there is an
opportunity to extend the benefit of collective negotiation and information provision in
Scotland. This study is designed to consider the feasibility of setting up a collective vehicle
for the negotiation, licensing and delivery of information resources to Scottish higher
education as a bloc via a “Scottish Higher Education Digital Library” (SHEDL). At the
outset, the following possible activities were considered:
extend collective negotiation to publishers not covered by JISC Collections, and
particularly NESLi2, which currently covers only a selected range of large publishers –
although JISC has plans to launch a Small and Medium Publishers service;
extend collective negotiation to other types of information resource, including resource
discovery tools, journal back volume collections, aggregated databases, e-books, online
reference works, abstracting and indexing services and other information databases
beyond what JISC already covers;
investigate whether the establishment of a Scottish platform on which these products
could be mounted is feasible so that they can be integrated effectively both within
SHEDL and with the holdings of each of the member libraries, to provide a seamless
information service to the Scottish academic research community;
explore the role SHEDL might potentially play in integrating access to open access
repositories in Scotland with its licensed published information, including the
establishment of its own repository platform to serve all Scottish higher education;
extend access to licensed information to institutions outside higher education, particularly
the National Health Service in Scotland, further education, public libraries and other
institutions within the Scottish devolved public sector;
7
exploit the role SHEDL might play in effecting the economies of scale that will result
from setting up appropriate collective provision for an archive of existing print-based
holdings, where they duplicate information available online.
1.3 The establishment of SHEDL raises issues of central management, the equitable sharing of
financial costs, licensing terms that publishers are prepared to offer, the establishment of a
practical licensing policy for SHEDL, and a plan to bring it to fruition. Moreover, it raises
issues of the interface between SHEDL and JISC Collections, and the relationships between
SHEDL and other Scottish library initiatives, such as CASS, CAIRNS and COSMIC.
2. Methodology employed
2.1 This Study has been undertaken with considerable assistance from the Steering Group
established by SCURL, and input from a variety of SCURL member institutions and other
organisations concerned with university teaching, research and library provision. A full list
is set out in the Acknowledgments at the end of this Report.
2.2 It has utilised a variety of types of information sources and enquiry:
a. SCONUL statistics on current library expenditure on information products;
b. Extensive files on publisher policy: John Cox Associates has the most complete
information files on publisher policy, through its authorship, jointly with Laura Cox of
Frontline Global Marketing Services Ltd, of a research report published by the
Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (Cox J and Cox L, Scholarly
Publishing Practice: Second Survey 2005, ALPSP, Worthing, 2006). This survey is referred to in this
report as the “ALPSP Survey”.
c. Detailed profiles of over 300 consortia worldwide through John Cox Associates’
participation in the research and preparation of a directory of collective purchasing
organisations, or consortia (Cox L, Consortium Purchasing Directory, Edition III, Frontline Global
Marketing Services Ltd, Towcester, 2007). These represent unique resources of information on
purchasing consortia. Selected consortia have been used to identify practicable
arrangements for governance and for acquisition strategies appropriate for SHEDL. See
Appendix C for further details;
d. A programme of interviews with official agencies and representative organisations in
Scotland and with key personnel from a substantial cross-section of SCURL membership,
to discuss their policies and requirements in respect of resource sharing, collective
acquisition and the management of a centralised resource such as SHEDL.
3. The special characteristics of research in Scottish Higher education
3.1 The establishment of devolved government in Scotland has resulted in the evolution of a
particularly Scottish approach to education, research and information issues:
Comments by Professor Anne Glover, Chief Scientific Adviser for Scotland, on the need
to build on the good reputation enjoyed by scientific research in Scotland;
The Science Scotland awareness campaign by the Royal Society of Edinburgh;
Scottish universities have intensified collaborative research in a context where “Big
Science” is increasingly collaborative worldwide, by establishing Research Pools;
8
The Howat report in 2006 suggested that the Scottish Funding Council adopt a more
aggressive procurement policy across both HE and FE, and carry out a review of costs in
Higher Education, followed by the McClelland Report on public sector procurement;
The resulting establishment of Advanced Procurement for Universities and Colleges
(APUC) to provide collective procurement for Scottish HE and FE;
Schemes such as the “Fresh Talent” initiative designed to make Scotland more attractive
to talented research students.
3.2 Scottish universities have a long history of cross-institutional collaboration in research.
Historically Scotland has a strong research base, but it has proved challenging for Scottish
universities to compete with the leading research-based universities in the remainder of the
UK, such as Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College London, Manchester etc. The Scottish
dimension to research includes the need to make Scottish universities more attractive to the
“big names” in research, and the need to share resources cost-effectively.
3.3 The history of institutional collaboration in Scotland, and the collaborative nature of much
scientific research, has been made manifest in the creation of formal multi-institutional
Research Pools in both pure and applied sciences (and more recently in areas beyond the
sciences). This development has been accompanied by significant investment from the
Scottish Funding Council (SFC) and the Office of Science and Innovation (OSI: formerly
OST, Office of Science & Technology):
Research Pool Discipline Member institutions Funding
Established Research Pools:
SUPA (Scottish Univ. Edinburgh, Glasgow, Heriot-Watt, £14 million: SFC, OSI,
Physics
Physics Alliance) Paisley, St Andrews, Strathclyde member universities
Eastchem Chemistry Edinburgh, St Andrews £23 million over four years:
Westchem Chemistry Glasgow, Strathclyde SFC, OSI and member
Eastchem & Westchem + Heriot-Watt, universities
Scotchem Chemistry
Dundee, Aberdeen
Newer Research Pools:
Glasgow Research Partnership:
Glasgow, Strathclyde, Glasgow
Caledonian, Paisley;
Scottish Research Engineering/ £154 million, of which £114
Edinburgh Research Partnership:
Partnership Mathematics million from SFC
Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt
Northern Research Partnership:
Aberdeen, Robert Gordon, Dundee
Aberdeen, Abertay, Dundee, St
SAGES (Scottish Alliance for
Earth Andrews, Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt, £22 million including £6.5
Geosciences, Environment
Science Napier, Glasgow, Strathclyde, Paisley, million from SFC
and Society)
Stirling, UHI
Aberdeen, Dundee, St Andrews,
Scottish Inst. for Research in £21 million including £9.4
Economics Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt, Napier,
Economics million from SFC
Glasgow, Strathclyde, Paisley, Stirling
SULSA (Scottish Univ. Life Aberdeen, Dundee, St Andrews, £77 million over five years,
Life sciences
Sciences Alliance) Edinburgh, Glasgow, Strathclyde incl. £27 million From SFC
SINAPSE (Scientific Imaging
Medical Aberdeen, Dundee, St Andrews, £41 million, including £5.4
Networks: a Platform for
Imaging Stirling, Edinburgh, Glasgow million from SFC
Scotland)
Dundee, Aberdeen, Abertay, £8.5 million: £1.1m from
SIPR (Scottish Institute for Policing & Edinburgh, Glasgow, Paisley, Bell SFC, £1m from ACPO
Policing Research) criminology College, GCU, RGU, Napier, St Scotland and £6.5m from
Andrews, Stirling, Strathclyde member institutions
Future Research Pools in marine science, computing and informatics, creative arts, clinical
medicine and Gaelic language and culture, are planned, but have not yet been approved.
9
4. Information provision to support the Research Pools
4.1 The establishment of Research Pools in Scotland has formalised a clear trend in undertaking
scientific research in cross-institutional teams. However, the organisation and delivery of
scientific information to serve the Research Pools has not matched this trend. Information
provision is organised on an institutional basis, with members of Research Pools based in the
institution that employs them, with access rights to only that information licensed by the
institution’s library. This works to the serious disadvantage of those in smaller universities
or departments.
4.2 In order to provide effective support to the Research Pools, it is important to provide a
common information resource, providing all researchers access to an optimum collection of
online resources, regardless of their institutional affiliation. However, the information supply
paradigm currently operated by publishers and libraries is based on licences specific to the
purchasing institution. The licences available to Scottish universities via JISC, including
journal licences in NESLi2, require each institution to decide whether or not to opt-in to a
particular licence. This is clearly sub-optimal, when compared with examples from
collective licensing regimes elsewhere, e.g. IReL in Ireland, or OhioLINK in the USA.
4.3 The participating institutions in the Research Pools that have been established all have opted
into NESLi2 licences – some much more than others. Appendix A provides two tables:
the NESLi2 licences held by each Research Pool participant, and
the NESLi2 publishers of journals in disciplines covered by the Research Pools that have
not been taken up by participating institutions, and a list of publishers with relevant
journals that lie outside the NESLi2 programme.
It will immediately be noted that coverage is patchy. There is no publisher – not even
Elsevier - where online access is complete. It can only be concluded that the JISC
Collections opt-in policy is not serving the Research Pools adequately. In no sense can the
current literature support for Research Pools be described as approaching a common
information environment. Consequently, there is a key role for SHEDL in securing access
for all higher education institutions in Scotland to:
a. all the journals of NESLi2 publishers to meet the needs and responsibilities of all
institutions participating in Research Pools; and
b. journals published by “non-NESLi2” publishers.
5. Support for other scholarship and research
5.1 The Scottish Research Pools do not represent the entire community of research and
scholarship in Scotland. They are primarily concerned with pure and applied sciences; with
the exceptions of economics and policing, the humanities and the social sciences do not
figure in this research investment. As a result, a number of HE institutions do not participate
in any research pools:
RSAMD
Queen Margaret University
Glasgow School of Art
Edinburgh College of Art
10
Appendix B sets out a set of broad disciplinary groupings not covered by the current
Research Pools, which are in economics, policing, science, technology and medicine. It will
be evident from that table that there are disciplines in which a substantial number of Scottish
HE institutions are active, and a further range of publishers with journals in those disciplines.
There is a significant overlap between publishers active in the Research Pool disciplines set
out in Appendix A and those listed in Appendix B, showing that a number of publishers could
be targeted for licences that will provide journals serving the entire Scottish HE community –
not only science technology and medicine, but also the social sciences and the humanities.
5.2 Particular mention must be made of the needs of scholars and researchers in the humanities.
Most humanities subjects are much less heavily reliant on journals as their principal medium
of scholarship, and more dependent on primary sources, monographs and other elements of
the traditional library. Indeed, the library is the “laboratory” for most humanities scholars.
The principal focus of SHEDL’s proposed activities will be online journals. While there are,
of course, a significant number of journals in the humanities, many are published by the
larger publishers already in the NESLi2 licensing scheme, and by others listed in Appendix
B, and will be included in licences that this report contemplates SHEDL targeting. In a
survey undertaken jointly by RIN and CURL, and published in April 2007, it was found that
attendance at the physical library itself is declining, but that scholars in the arts and
humanities put a high value on the physical library and its collections, and visit it much more
frequently than their colleagues in other disciplines (Key Perspectives Ltd, Researchers’ Use of
Libraries and their Services: www.rin.ac.uk/files/libraries-report-2007.pdf). These findings are echoed in a
study published by Educause (Schonfeld RC & Guthrie KM, The Changing Information Service Needs of
Faculty, Educause Review July-August 2007: www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm07/ermo746.asp). It is still
unclear how the humanities publishing model, with its reliance on the book, will evolve; the
take-up of e-books has been hesitant. What SHEDL can bring to the humanities is access to
additional research and scholarship in related fields – especially interdisciplinary fields such
as cultural studies - that complement scholarship in the traditional humanities disciplines. It
would be inappropriate of SHEDL at this time to interfere with proper collection
management in the humanities, and nothing in this report should be taken as intending to do
so. That provision is properly a matter of each institution and its library.
5.3 It is also important to note that SHEDL succeeds only if it brings value for money and
demonstrable benefits to all its member institutions:
Small institutions working on restricted budgets will benefit from a significant increase in
the availability of journal content simply by participating in a collective “all-in” licensing
regime, both in the disciplines covered by research pools and also in other disciplines;
Even the largest institutions within SHEDL will benefit by broadening and deepening the
collection, at a time when even the most lavishly funded library has otherwise to be
highly selective in its acquisitions;
Specialist institutions – the HEIs in the arts, and institutions with a restricted range of
specialities – benefit as a result of licences made with large multi-disciplinary publishers
and smaller specialist publishers, as the range of institutions active in even highly
specialised disciplines is wide, as is shown in Appendix B.
6. SHEDL’s principal objectives
6.1 In principle, SHEDL could address any of the activities set out in 1.2 above. Interviews with
SCURL members were almost unanimous in rejecting, at least initially, any activity that
would detract from the principal benefit that they need to derive from SHEDL: better value
11
for the money already being spent on information provision. While there are many
significant and related activities that SHEDL could potentially undertake, the principal driver
behind the creation of SHEDL is information acquisition; this is where the priority lies. The
following activities have therefore been treated as low priority, and only to be addressed
when the collective licensing of online information has been firmly established:
The establishment of a Scottish platform to manage and deliver information products.
This was seen as involving a level of investment and management time that could not be
justified in an environment where resource discovery tools had improved to the point
where locating, linking to and retrieving content from distributed sites is no longer a
major problem;
The establishment of a repository platform. This would simply duplicate initiatives in
Scotland such as IRIScotland and UK-wide initiatives such as EDINA; it is redundant;
Extending access to licensed information to institutions outside higher education should
be part of the wider vision for SHEDL in the future, but would distract from the
immediate objective of broadening and deepening access to research information in
higher education;
Any role that SHEDL might play in accelerating a collective archive of existing print-
based holdings by initiatives such as CASS would be a useful by-product of SHEDL’s
licensing online information, but is not seen as a major driver of SHEDL’s activities.
6.2 There is a clear consensus that SHEDL should focus on a practicable set of objectives to
meet the immediate needs of HEIs: to support Research Pools, to facilitate further cross-
institutional collaboration at post-graduate level, and also to enhance the student experience,
in order to create a common information resource for all Scottish HEIs. Thus its overriding
aim is to negotiate licences to provide access to all HEIs to online research journal content,
both to enhance the collections of smaller institutions and to broaden and deepen the
collections of the larger universities, in order to attract research “stars” and high quality
faculty and graduate students to Scottish universities:
To “fill in the gaps” in NESLi2 licences so that institutions participating in Research
Pools all have access to the journals and publishers covered by NESLi2 licences;
As NESLi2 covers a selected range of large publishers, to extend collective negotiation to
other publishers with journals of relevance to Research Pool disciplines;
To extend collective negotiation to other publishers of journals in non-Research Pool
disciplines (mainly in the humanities and social sciences)
6.3 While there is a clear consensus that journal acquisition is the main priority for SHEDL, it
was clear that there is interest in collective negotiation to other types of information resource,
including full-text aggregated databases, journal back volume collections, e-books, online
reference and selected abstracting and indexing services, but that this should be treated as a
lower priority than journals.
6.4 While SHEDL’s objective is primarily concerned with the information requirements of
Scottish HEIs, with particular reference to research, there are other organisations with a
requirement for similar information that could be included within SHEDL’s scope and bring
additional funds to lubricate the process of negotiation with publishers. In particular,
SHEDL’s plans should take account of the following:
12
The National Library of Scotland is a considerable research library in its own right. In an
ideal world, it would like to provide access remotely to anyone in Scotland that desires to
use its resources, but in practice it recognises that such access will have to be restricted to
users of its reading rooms. It serves unaffiliated researchers, and would like to provide
access to the research information that SHEDL licenses in its reading rooms. As will be
observed from the profiles of other consortia in Appendix C, especially those in Europe,
it is not at all unusual for the local national or state library to be included as an integral
part of the consortium licence. Publishers are unlikely to see this as an unreasonable
extension of access to licensed materials.
The Open University is funded by all the Funding Councils. The OU does not expect its
students to use local libraries, and takes responsibility for information provision itself. It
has a substantial cohort of students resident in Scotland. It is understood that it can
“partition” staff and students in Scotland from those elsewhere, and would be interested
in participating in SHEDL. It spends over £2 million a year on information, of which
two-thirds is accounted for by serials, and would bring additional buying power to bear.
NHS Education Scotland has created its own e-library. Its content strategy has been quite
different from the very focussed evidence-based clinical medicine adopted in England; it
has created an information service to support medical, nursing and all the support
professions in Scotland. It currently spends £1.9 million a year on information, but
would welcome collaboration with the university sector in licensing major publishers
such as Elsevier, OUP, CUP for content not only in medicine but also in education, social
work etc. NHS participation would be selective, but it would bring additional buying
power to SHEDL in respect of certain publishers.
The major city public libraries provide reading room access to students and to other
undertaking learning or research. Indeed, both Edinburgh and Glasgow are members of
SCURL. They have relatively small budgets (e.g. Glasgow City Libraries spends £120K
on online information, which includes public library products such as Know UK and
NewsBank via the SLIC licence), which appear to have been deployed on aggregated
databases rather than primary journals. They may be interested in participating in some
licences for reading room access; their contribution to funding is likely to be small.
In establishing SHEDL, decisions have to be made about the extent of non-HEI participation,
perhaps in the form of an “adjunct” membership of SHEDL. In the case of NLS, this may be
for all licences. For the NHS and the public libraries, this will probably be on a case-by-case
basis. This is only practicable where there is a clear commonality of interest.
7. An overview of publishers’ pricing policy and practice
7.1 Online publishing has changed the role and the perception of the publisher’s list price for the
journal. The published price is now only part of the picture. When library consortia, or
when bundles or collections are involved, the publisher’s price becomes only a guide. It is
not unlike the magazine advertising rate card, where virtually nobody pays the published
price if they are placing more than one advertisement. It should be noted that nearly 90% of
journals are now available online – nearly 93% of STM titles. The most comprehensive
picture of pricing practice is set out in the ALPSP Survey.
There is a great variety of pricing models, particularly in respect of collections or bundles of
journals, and multi-institutional licences for consortia. It is important to remember that
publishers cannot get together and talk about pricing or other terms of trade. It is a breach of
13
anti-trust law in the USA, and of competition law in Europe; any substantive collusion
between publishers, even to agree on pricing models, is unlawful. The result has been that
there is still no settled practice in pricing, with publishers independently creating a variety of
pricing models. It is generally accepted that standard practice will take a long time to
emerge.
7.2 Even at the level of the individual journal title, 42% of publishers use customer size to
differentiate pricing, usually in three, four or five price bands: by number of sites, by staff
and student population (FTEs), by institutional classification (such as the JISC banding in the
UK, or Carnegie Classification in the USA), or by simultaneous users:
Pricing Using Differentiation by Customer Size
30%
Percentage of Online Publishers
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
No. Sites FTEs Classification Simultaneous Other
Users
Some publishers have introduced pricing differentiated by the level of access or functionality
provided. While the printed journal is self-defining, the functionality of the online product
plays a significant role in the value the customer attributes to the content; different prices can
be set for different levels of functionality or service. This approach has not been widely
adopted, but Blackwell for example offers different levels of service: the premium service
provides print and full access rights to all available back files from 1997 and to articles
posted immediately on acceptance for publication, while the standard subscription price at a
10% discount provides the print copy and online access to the current and previous two years
only, with limited usage rights. Online only subscriptions are priced at 85% of the premium
service price. Wiley also offers different access levels, and it is not unreasonable to assume
that, following the acquisition of Blackwell, Wiley-Blackwell will maintain similar policies.
Elsevier also offers a variety of pricing options which provide different levels of service.
In negotiating licences with consortia, the highest level of functionality has usually been the
default offering; SHEDL should not accept degraded functionality when a higher level is
offered by the publisher. With the majority of publishers, this type of functional
differentiation simply will not arise.
7.3 In relation to subject collections, or bundles, many of the pricing methodologies that also are
applied to consortia licences have been developed for bundles of journals (variously
described as “collections” or “packages”), whether from one publisher or from multi-
publisher schemes such as the ALPSP Learned Journal Collection, BioOne or Project MUSE.
Most large and medium size publishers offer bundles or collections. The majority of small
publishers do not - a reflection of the small number of titles they publish rather than any
deliberate policy not to bundle:
14
Publishers Offering Bundles and Collections
11 2
Large
29 17 Yes
Medium
No
Small 41 69
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
The ALPSP Survey revealed a multitude of pricing structures for bundles. There are also
combinations of models. Many publishers use four, five or even six methods. This indicates
that most publishers continue to experiment. The models used fall into the following
categories; they are explored in more detail in the discussion below on pricing for consortia,
which is most relevant to SHEDL’s requirements:
Prior year plus a premium, calculated as the prior year’s subscription revenue in respect
of the titles in the bundle from the customer plus a premium. 58% of publishers used this
model in 2005, compared with only 23% in 2003
Variations on the title subscription price, applied as a discount related to the number of
titles included in the bundle.
Simultaneous users, the traditional model for pricing databases.
Population based models, i.e. related to full-time equivalents (FTEs), defined as full time
enrolments in education, or number of employees in corporate, government and
professional libraries.
Pricing by institutional classification, using categorisation and banding methods
developed within the university community: the Carnegie classification system in the
USA, and the JISC Charging Bands in the UK; 18% of publishers use this method.
Usage-based pricing.
Use of institutional size measured by number of sites or by population as a basis for
pricing has declined dramatically in recent years.
Because publishers use more than one methodology, the graph shows more than 100%; the
calculations are based on the total number of models rather than the number of publishers.
Most larger publishers base prices on previous print subscriptions, but include extra factors
such as institution classifications and population; their pricing is more uniform.
15
Total Pricing Models
0.7
Percentage of Publishers Offering Bundles 0.58
0.6
0.5
0.4 0.346
0.3 0.247
0.2 0.148
0.099
0.1
0.025
0
Previous Print Simultaneous Size of Population Usage Other
Users Institution
There are a number of features of publishers’ practice in respect of licensing subject
collections or bundles that are noteworthy:
Many publishers include prior years’ volumes in order to add value to the offering; the
majority of those that do offer over 5 years’ coverage or the complete back file;
Nearly 70% of the publishers offering bundles do not allow cancellation of titles within
the bundle or the substitution of one title in the bundle by another. One large publisher
does so. Of those that do, some allow title substitution, and some reduce the price of the
bundle.
Large publishers uniformly offer the facility to add additional or new titles to a bundle,
either by substitution or by addition for an increase in the price. This conceals a great
deal of flexibility in practice. Informal consultations with both librarians and competitive
publishers indicates the following:
- Libraries have generally committed all their funds and cannot meet the extra expense
of a collection with new titles in it unless they have been subscribing to those new
titles already.
- Where a collection licence has been agreed for more than one year – typically three
years – the prevailing practice appears to be to retain the collection as originally
specified and keep new titles out of it until the licence is due to be renewed.
- Some publishers package the new titles as an “upgrade” or “adjunct” that the library
can opt to purchase; the “upgrade” is consolidated with the collection on renewal.
- Other publishers set a price cap on annual increases for new content that is only
applied should content increase by a certain percentage.
7.4 When one examines pricing for collective licences via consortia, it is apparent that the link
between the individual journal price and consortia pricing models becomes much more
tenuous. It is clear that large publishers, seeking to secure the “Big Deal” (see 7.4.1 below),
have adopted a variety of pricing models that are now more complex and less uniform than
they were three years ago. The models used are largely interchangeable with those used for
subject collections or bundles, and fall into the following categories:
16
7.4.1 Prior year plus a premium
The first model for consortia was the APPEAL licence created by Academic Press –
now part of Elsevier: all the publisher’s journals (the “Big Deal”) accessible online
for a price set at the prior year’s subscription revenue from the customer plus a
premium (usually around 10 per cent, and often accompanied by deep discounts for
additional print subscriptions). This ‘Big Deal’ model is familiar, and it has worked
for both the library/consortium and for the publisher; it stabilises the publisher’s
revenue, and provides price stability for the library. It is used for consortia by most
of the large publishers, including Elsevier, Springer and Wiley-Blackwell. It should
be noted that it is favoured by many consortia themselves (e.g. OhioLINK).
However, it assumes steady increases in library budgets. Recent downturns in library
budgets, especially in the USA, have resulted in consortia seeking to cancel
individual titles selectively. Nevertheless, it is still the most widely used model
especially for consortia licences encompassing a publisher’s entire list, even though
the link with the total value of subscriptions in the year in which the agreement is
reached looks increasingly tenuous as years go by. It can equally apply to sub-sets of
the publisher’s list licensed as subject collections or bundles.
7.4.2 Variations on the title subscription price
In the case of multi-institutional consortia, the subscription price of each journal may
be discounted in respect of both the number of titles included in the deal and the
number of participating members of the consortium. Using a discount based on the
number of members tends to apply to consortia deals where members can choose
whether or not to participate in a particular deal, and is the second most widely used
method of defining the consortium price. It can be illustrated as follows:
a. Discounts applied to consortia members:
1-4 5-19 20-39 40-59 60-99 100+
Discount 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%
b. Discounts applied to the number of journals
1-3 4-10 11-20 21-40 41-60 61-80 81-100 101/ more
0% 10% 25% 35% 50% 60% 70% negotiated
c. Discount matrix applied to both titles and members
If they are put together, a matrix provides a single discount off the aggregate list
price of all the journals concerned, to establish price per site or member institution:
Subscribing Sites / Members
1-3 4-10 11-20 21-40 41-60 61-80 81-100 101 and more
No. of 1-5 0% 10% 25% 35% 50% 60% 70% by negotiation
journals 6-10 20% 28% 40% 48% 60% 68% 76% by negotiation
11-15 30% 37% 47% 54% 65% 72% 79% by negotiation
16-20 40% 46% 55% 61% 70% 76% 82% by negotiation
21-25 50% 55% 62% 67% 75% 80% 85% by negotiation
26+: BY NEGOTIATION
It should be noted that the ALPSP survey indicates that the use of the model based
purely on discounting off the single title subscription price is in decline. With
twenty HEI members, SHEDL will certainly be offered discounted pricing, but this
particular methodology is unlikely to be the optimum.
17
7.4.3 Simultaneous users
Pricing by simultaneous user is considered by many to be inappropriate in the
research journal environment, where usage is typically thinly spread across a broad
range of content. Nevertheless, it has been adopted by a few publishers (notably
Emerald and Inderscience), on the basis that the real issue is not the number of sites
but the number of readers accessing the same information at the same time.
7.4.4 Population based models
A model that has attracted much attention in recent years, but appears to be less
widely used than one might have suspected, is based on population: full-time
equivalents (FTEs), which are defined as full time faculty, staff and student
enrolments in education, or number of employees in corporate, government and
professional libraries. OUP’s Oxford English Dictionary online is a subscription-
based product. Its pricing scheme for the USA and Canada not only relates to the
number of FTEs, but also attributes different weights to different types of
institution. This should be borne in mind if SHEDL’s scope is to be extended
beyond HE, to FE, public libraries or even schools. OUP’s scheme is as follows:
4-yr Academic Institutions: 100% of FTE staff/faculty/students
2-yr Academic/Specialised & Tribal Institutions: 50% of FTE staff/faculty/students
Public & State Libraries: 4% of population served up to 100,000;
3.5% 100,001-200,000;
3% 200,000-500,000;
2.5% 500,000-1m;
2% 1million+
Corporations/Government./Military Agencies: 100% of employees with network access
Non-Profit Organisations: 50% of employees with network access
7.4.5 Pricing by institutional classification
As an alternative to FTE-based pricing, other “size”-based structures use
categorisation and banding methods that have been developed within the university
community, including the Carnegie classification system in the USA that
categorises universities and colleges by size and type, and the JISC Charging Bands
in the UK. JISC Charging Bands are based on the level of funding from the
Funding Councils, and do not reflect the overall resources available, particularly for
those universities that derive the largest proportion of their funding from non-
governmental sources or student fees. From SHEDL’s point of view the use of JISC
Charging Bands is generally accepted and represents an appropriate mechanism for
apportioning both administrative and information costs between members.
JISC Band Institution
A University of Edinburgh, University of Glasgow
B University of Strathclyde
C University of Aberdeen, University of Dundee
D Glasgow Caledonian University, Heriot Watt University, Napier University, UHI
Millennium Institute, University of St Andrews, University of West of Scotland (Paisley)
E Robert Gordon University, University of Stirling
F Queen Margaret University, University of Abertay Dundee
H Edinburgh College of Art, Glasgow School of Art, Scottish Agricultural College
I Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama
7.4.6 Usage-based pricing
A superficially attractive alternative to fixed pricing is one based wholly on usage.
The early anecdotal evidence, from a variety of consortia and individual
universities, is that, where a package of journals is opened up to users – epitomised
by the “Big Deal” - the pattern of usage is spread across the entire list. Smaller
18
libraries benefit from access to volumes of journal literature that were previously
unavailable. OhioLINK’s major ARL libraries (Ohio State, Cincinnati and Case
Western Reserve) now regard access as more important than selection (Sanville T, A
Method out of the Madness: OhioLINK’s Collaborative response to the Serials Crisis– a
Progress Report, Serials 14:2, UKSG Newbury 2001). It is possible to envisage usage-
based pricing as a subscription to a bundle of articles, rather than to journal titles.
Project MUSE introduced such a model, based on quarterly usage, in 2005. Taylor
& Francis began to experiment with such a model in 2004; a trial with eight UK
universities was run in 2005. In the event, it was found to be difficult for both
libraries and publishers to budget for, and that it tended to cut across library budgets
allocated to different disciplines or departments. Usage was seriously distorted by
the heavy usage of articles used in undergraduate teaching. T&F has discontinued
the model in that form. It can only be concluded that usage-based pricing is fraught
with difficulty, and has certainly not yet found acceptance in the library community
as an acceptable model on which pricing can be based. Although superficially
attractive, usage-based pricing is judged not to be practicable for SHEDL.
7.5 As can be seen from the following graph, the most widely used pricing model for consortia is
the prior aggregate revenue derived from member institution subscriptions (usually print),
plus a modest premium:
Pricing Models for Consortia - All Publishers
Percentage of Publishers Offering Consortia
70.0%
60.0%
50.0%
Pricing
40.0%
30.0%
20.0%
10.0%
0.0%
n
rs
rs
t
t
n
ge
er
in
un
ti o
io
se
be
Pr
th
sa
at
co
la
U
em
O
pu
us
U
ific
is
s
D
ou
M
io
Po
ss
ev
ne
of
la
Pr
C
ta
o.
N
ul
m
Si
7.6 An important aspect of multi-year consortia licence agreements is a common provision
capping price increases. It is a commonplace observation to note that library budgets are
under pressure and that they cannot afford to purchase all the information that they need.
Although the volume of peer-reviewed literature is expanding by 3%+ per year, library
budgets rarely exceed the prevailing rate of inflation. As a result, consortia seek to stabilise
at least part of their expenditure by providing for price caps in multi-year licence agreements.
Just over half of all publishers cap prices during the term of the licence, some based on a
recognised public inflation rate of to some arbitrary but agreed percentage. Nevertheless, it
should be recognised that nearly half of all consortia licences are made for one year at a time,
and this only applies substantively to the 40% that are made for three years.
7.7 Some publishers, notably Elsevier and Wiley, bundle in a set number of individual article
downloads into an overall discounted price, particularly when licensing subject collections or
19
bundles of journals as a Core + Peripheral model. The price of the “core” may be based on
any of the models described above – though usually on the Prior Year plus a Premium model
– while access to the “peripheral” titles will be on a pay-per-view basis at a discounted price
set out in the licence agreement
7.8 This overview has taken a global perspective on business terms between publishers and
consortia. In respect of the UK itself, in 2005 JISC published a study on business models
commissioned from Rightscom (Rightscom, Business Models for Journal Content, JISC, London, 2005:
www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/JBM.pdf). It rather unsurprisingly found that publishers like
predictability as much as libraries, and that most publishers find the existing NESLi2 licence
policy prevents them from offering better pricing because it is expensive to sell and support
an opt-in regime – sell to NESLi2, then sell to individual institutions, and invoice each
individually - and take-up has not been as high as they may have expected. As well as some
varieties of open access, the study looked at four “subscription-based” models: a national
licence with a single payment based on prior revenue plus a premium (typified by the Big
Deal involving the publisher’s entire output), pay-per-view converting to a subscription, pre-
purchased pay-per-view, and core + peripheral. It found that no single model was ideal for
all institutions, but that the Big Deal was satisfactory to most, with the substantial caveat that
it is inflexible and does not generally allow for cancellation or substitution.
In 2006 JISC published a further report, by Content Complete Ltd (Content Complete Ltd, Journal
Business Models Trials, JISC, London, 2007: www.jisc-collections.ac.uk/media/documents/jisc_collections/
business%20models%20trials%20report%20public%20version%207%206%2007.pdf). This was designed
to study just two of the Rightscom models: Pay-per-view converting to subscription, and core
+ peripheral. The trials found that both models imposed a significant administrative burden
on both publishers and libraries, and that the core + peripheral model presented too much
risk and uncertainty in respect of budgeting. The Big Deal provides budget predictability,
straightforward administration and access to all the publisher’s titles.
7.9 In reviewing publishers’ pricing strategies, and the context in which they may be applied in
SHEDL’s case, the assumption must be that there will be no more money to spend on
information than is currently the case within Scottish higher education. The SCONUL
statistics for 2005-06 indicate that SHEDL members spent approximately £22 million a year
on information provision, of which £16.4 million was spent on electronic information – over
£13 million on journals and £3 million on other digital products. The objective has to be to
secure more content, accessible to all SHEDL institutions, for the same amount that is being
spent at present. The “prior revenue plus premium” model is the most suited to SHEDL’s
circumstances, with the “premium” coming from internal library savings, better pricing or
more access from NESLi2 publishers, Research Pool contributions and the participation of
other research libraries; these are considered in 12.6 below. However, it may not be
appropriate in all cases, especially for small specialist publishers.
7.10 The “ecology” of publishers’ practice in licensing consortia can be summarised as follows:
Both commercial and not-for-profit publishers offer subject collections or sub-sets of
their lists. In general, the larger the publisher, the more likely that it offers such
collections. Many small publishers are now participating in multi-publisher collections
and are starting to create their own collections for library consortia.
In pricing for consortia, most publishers adopt a model where the principal base is
previous aggregate subscription revenue. Large commercial companies have the most
uniform models.
20
The vast majority of publishers either make agreements for one year at a time or for three
years, often with undertakings to cap price increases at an agreed percentage.
Many publishers offer a variety of deals to consortia, 61% license the whole journal list
to consortia. 28% license a sub-set selected by the publisher (e.g. a subject bundle). 41%
allow the customer to select the titles they want, and then base the consortium offer on
that aggregate selection.
80% of publishers confine the offer to journals, while 20% include other content, notably
e-books, reference works and databases.
90% of publishers include access to some or all back volumes as part of the deal; two-
thirds include all back volumes available online.
8. SHEDL’s interface with the JISC
8.1 JISC Collections provides UK-wide collective purchasing of electronic information, with the
NESLi2 journal scheme using a negotiating agent, Content Complete Ltd. JISC Collections
itself licenses other products such as e-books, indexes and datasets. Its licences are
constructed around a central negotiation for discounted prices, and an opt-in regime for
individual institutions. As already noted, the opt-in regime does not achieve optimum
pricing and is ill-suited to Scottish HEIs’ requirement for a common information resource to
support cross-institutional collaboration. Moreover, NESLi2 is limited to a set number of
publishers. That the feasibility of SHEDL is under consideration suggests a certain lack of
confidence in the JISC’s procurement output. Nevertheless, it provides a focus for UK-wide
collaborative activity, and is supported by all the funding councils, including SFC.
8.2 Despite the possible temptation for Scottish HEIs to break away from JISC Collections and
establish SHEDL as a replacement for JISC Collections in Scotland, there was a consensus
among all the university librarians, academics and administrators interviewed as part of this
assignment that SHEDL should co-exist with, complement, and work within the JISC
Collections framework. This was strongly reinforced by the SFC.
8.3 The management of JISC Collections itself does not appear to be threatened or negative
about SHEDL, and is keen to work with SHEDL. There is an appreciation of the particular
requirements of Scottish HEIs, and there is no problem with SHEDL acting as a collective
unit within any JISC or NESLi2 licence acting on behalf of all Scottish HEIs. Whether this
means that JISC or the NESLi2 negotiating agent re-negotiates terms on behalf of SHEDL,
or SHEDL undertakes its own negotiations, will need to be clarified at the time SHEDL is set
up. It should be noted that the current JISC licensing regime is being reviewed and
reformed, and JISC can accommodate SHEDL within all of the following developments:
a. JISC has now introduced a single payment model for NESLi2 and JISC Collections
licence opt-in institutions, especially to accommodate US societies that find it difficult to
deal with a multiplicity of UK accounts.
b. JISC is also developing a licensing scheme for small and medium-sized journal
publishers that are currently excluded from NESLi2.
8.4 From JISC’s perspective, SHEDL’s priority should be to “fill in the gaps” in the take-up of
existing NESLi2 licences. Other observations by JISC included the following:
Provision should be made for those institutions that want to retain printed issues for some
titles, with a deeply-discounted price for print subscriptions to any of the licensed titles;
21
Long term preservation has emerged as a significant issue for librarians within JISC. The
issue needs to be addressed in SHEDL’s licensing framework;
Subscription agents must be taken into account. Some NESLi2 institutions use Swets to
handle payments to publishers and use SwetsWise as their chosen portal through which
licensed content is accessed. Swets charges £1.00 per title per institution to load the data
into SwetsWise. This seems to cut across the use of federated search and link resolver
technology, but it has proved to be a real issue in the context of NESLi2. JISC believes
that SHEDL should consult the major subscription agents beforehand to avoid disruption
to the implementation of licences. This appears to be more of a problem with Swets than
with EBSCO. It is not entirely clear whether any Scottish HEIs would need to rely on a
subscription agent for SHEDL transactions, in that a collective “all-in” licence is
negotiated directly with the publisher, which submits a single annual invoice to SHEDL;
There has to be general acceptance of the principle that the largest institutions are likely
to gain least; this is very much a JISC perspective. It is not borne out by the interviews
with the larger Scottish HEIs; both Edinburgh and Glasgow Universities, from Principal
downwards, see SHEDL as a means to enhance their own collections, as well as creating
the common information environment required for cross-institutional research
collaboration;
Access for further education colleges may be added to most licences at no extra cost;
while this is not an immediate priority for SHEDL, this requires further investigation at
the appropriate time.
8.5 SHEDL could be a useful model for advancing JISC’s policy of building “consortia of
consortia” across Europe. The Knowledge Exchange is a consortium of the JISC, DEFF
(Denmark), DFG (Germany) and the SURF Foundation (The Netherlands). It will use two
business models for collaborative licensing, a National “top-down” and an Opt-in “bottom-
up” licence, based on a structure of “Core Institutions” (universities) and “Extended List”
institutions (research councils, appropriate public libraries etc):
The National Licence is a “top-down” licence for each country for all institutions, funded
by top-slicing to cover both administrative and product costs. Core Institutions are
automatically included as licensed institutions, plus Extended List institutions that
commit to the licence beforehand. A premium is paid for Extended List bodies, which
will never be more than 10% of the Core Institution price.
The Opt-in “bottom-up” licence is more formal than the NESLi2 licence; each participant
makes a commitment to buy before the licence is negotiated. The terms of the licences
comprise a “basic price” (apportioned by JISC Charging Band) discounted by the number
of Core Institutions; Extended List institutions can buy at the discounted price.
8.6 The conclusion has to be drawn that there is no realistic alternative for SHEDL other than
working within the JISC Collections framework, to complement existing licences by
operating as a collective unit to re-negotiate terms for the SHEDL bloc of libraries within
NESLi2 and JISC licences, and to extend collective acquisition to publishers outside the
current UK purchasing regime, where there are clearly significant opportunities for SHEDL
to secure further value for money for its members.
22
9. Policies and purchasing practices of comparable procurement consortia: models for
SHEDL
9.1 The 1990s saw a period of severe journal price inflation and the simultaneous emergence of
the Internet as a medium of delivery for journal content. In reaction, academic libraries
started to form procurement consortia and pool their purchasing power in order to negotiate
lower pricing and better terms of use for online journals and other digital information
products. This has been particularly noteworthy in the USA and Canada, where there are
currently 156 consortia (out of a worldwide total of 304) actively purchasing content for their
constituent libraries (Cox L, Consortium Purchasing Directory, Edition III, Frontline Global Marketing
Services Ltd, Towcester, 2007). The impact on the cost of journals acquired, and the number of
titles in the average US university research library collection, has been dramatic, as recorded
by ARL (ARL Statistics, www.arl.org/stats/annualsurveys/arlstats/ Association of Research Libraries,
Washington DC, viewed 29 June 2007):
The average number of serials held in an ARL collection increased from 14,541 titles in
2000 to 22,404 in 2005, or by 54%.
The unit cost of acquiring each serial title fell from $310.62 in 2000 to $239.58 in 2005 –
a decrease of 23%.
The increased number and declining unit cost of journals purchased ‘in bulk’ by library
consortia, often providing additional titles, with the cost being spread across all member
institutions, is a major factor, and shows how important consortia have become to both
23
libraries and publishers. Since 1999 the number of consortia actively buying electronic
journals, e-Books and aggregated databases has increased from 100 to more than 300 in
2007; while the rate of increase has slackened, new consortia are still emerging.
9.2 The acquisition by library consortia of complete journal lists in Big Deal licences has
resulted in more content reaching the reader than was ever possible with acquisitions based
on subscriptions to selected titles. The evidence is that, where a package of journals is
opened up to users, the pattern of usage does not follow the journals actually purchased by
the library. The first documented evidence of this came from OhioLINK in 2001 (Sanville T, A
Method out of the Madness: OhioLINK’s Collaborative response to the Serials Crisis– a Progress
Report, Serials 14:2, UKSG Newbury 2001), based on three years’ usage:
85% of usage came from 40% of the titles available online via OhioLINK
52% of usage was from titles not previously held on subscription at the user’s campus;
at Ohio State, with a huge collection, the figure was 30%.
This experience has been repeated internationally at the Universities of Toronto, Warwick
and Macquarie University, Sydney. The most recent analysis at the University of Glasgow
indicates that usage of titles not previously held on subscription follows the same pattern:
Elsevier: 45%
Wiley: 44%
American Chemical Society: 44%
Blackwell Publishing: 34%
OUP: 22%
The differences between publishers can be explained by the proportion of each publisher’s
list held on subscription; Glasgow subscribed to a higher proportion of OUP titles and to a
lower proportion of both Elsevier and Wiley titles before the library opted into the respective
NESLi2 licences. This experience shows that providing access to a large package of material
leads to a democratised information service in which choice is not mediated by the library.
9.3 Electronic journals not only bring service benefits (information at the reader’s desktop,
access to which is not dependent on library opening hours or the location of the reader), they
also create savings and productivity gains in the library going well beyond eliminating
binding costs. These savings were examined in a study by Montgomery & King at Drexel
University, Philadelphia (Montgomery & King, Comparing Library and User Related Costs of Print and
Electronic Journal Collections – A First Step Towards a Comprehensive Analysis, D-Lib Magazine 2002 8:10):
Subscription Cost per Recorded Subscription Operational Total Cost
Journal Type
Cost Title Use Cost / Use Cost / Use per Use
Electronic Journals
Individual Subscriptions $ 73,000 $432 23,000 $ 3.20 $ 0.45 $ 4.00
Publisher's Packages $304,000 $134 134,000 $ 2.25 $ 0.45 $ 3.00
Multi-publisher Packages $ 27,000 $ 60 20,000 $ 1.35 $ 0.45 $ 2.00
Total $404,000 $147 177,000 $ 2.30 $ 0.45 $ 2.75
Print Journals
Current Journals $ 38,000 $100 15,000 $ 2.50 $ 6.00 $ 8.50
Bound Journals N/A N/A 8,800 N/A $30.00 $30.00
Total $ 38,000 $100 24,000 $ 2.50 $15.00 $17.50
Drexel was early in moving to a predominantly electronic journal collection: 8,600 electronic
and 370 print journal titles in 2002. The table above not only demonstrates that the
subscription cost per use of electronic material was below that of print – confirmed by the
24
later ARL Statistics in 8.1 above - but also that library’s operating costs, including overhead
and fixed costs, were dramatically reduced when online journals were accessed. The study
was conducted before agreed standards for the definition and measurement of usage data
were published in the COUNTER Code of Practice (www.projectcounter.org/code_practice.html).
Nevertheless, the large differences in operational costs per use are significant: $30 for bound
print titles (where 80% of this cost is attributable to the space they occupy) and $6 for current
print subscriptions, compared with $0.45 per use for electronic journals.
9.4 In looking for models on which SHEDL might base its structure, governance and acquisition
policy, it is somewhat unnerving to find that each consortium is different. Some are highly
centralised, ‘tight’ organisations, while others are loose membership organisations:
OhioLINK PALCI
Founded 1989; licensing from 1996 1997
85 institutions, comprising: 17 public 60 institutions in Pennsylvania, New Jersey
Number of
universities, 44 private universities/colleges, & West Virginia: public universities, private
Members
23 community/2 year colleges universities/colleges
Governance central state agency self-governing
Funding central (+ member fees) members only
Purchasing centralised (+ member fees) opt-in by each member
Union catalogue and borrowing
Common OhioLINK platform Union catalogue and borrowing (Z39.50)
Programmes
E-information: purchased centrally & E-information: negotiated pricing
mounted on local server
Hirshon, Arnold: 1998: Presentation on http://www.lehigh.edu/~inpalci/presentations/falltmg_1/; updated 2007
OhioLINK is a 'tight' consortium that is able to contract with publishers in its own right and
bind its members as a bloc; it was originally established by the State government, which still
provides significant funding. In contrast, PALCI is a loose, membership-funded organisation
that operates by consensus; such organisations are often characterised by a rotating
‘volunteer’ chair, with each licence being approved by each member before a licence can be
agreed. There are many consortia that have characteristics drawn from both categories.
9.5 In preparing this report, a number of consortia, some with very similar demographic and
membership characteristics to SHEDL, have been profiled in Appendix C. The following
characteristics are noteworthy:
a. In terms of structure, most of the consortia in the Nordic countries and Germany are led
and managed by the local state or national library, with administrative costs funded
directly out of government funds (i.e. top-sliced). In some cases, top-sliced government
funding also covers licensed product costs as well, with varying degrees of member
institution funding. The Irish consortium IReL is funded by significant grants from
Science Foundation Ireland, and is operated by a separate company owned by the Irish
universities;
b. Consortia that are run by volunteers (e.g. PALCI, Konsortium in Österreich) have
managed to negotiate fewer licences than those with dedicated staff;
c. The number of licences negotiated by virtually all of the consortia profiled greatly
exceeds the number of NESLi2 licences on offer. This demonstrates that the strategy of
filling the gaps in NESLi2 licences and extending the range of publishers licensed is
eminently practicable;
25
d. Some of the consortia profiled enjoy apparently high levels of staffing. It is not clear
from information currently available how many full time equivalents are wholly
employed on consortium acquisition activity, but an educated guess would be 3-4 FTEs.
It is superficially attractive to extract clear benchmarks from existing consortium practice.
However, it is clear from nature and characteristics of these consortia that local funding
sources, political initiatives and library organisation vary from one country to another, and
that each has been structured and is governed according to local circumstances. What is
clear is that:
a dedicated team can negotiate licences to a wide range of online journals and other
digital information products on an all-in basis, and improve the accessibility of research
information significantly across each consortium’s constituent libraries;
member institutions, through their libraries, can and should be involved in product
selection decisions through the use of consultative committees and expert groups, within
a clear governance structure with a Board or Steering Committee establishing strategy;
it is possible and practical to operate collective purchasing across library sectors, as long
as the primary objective and strategy is clear.
10. Governance and management
10.1 One option for the organisation and management of SHEDL is to operate it as an informal
sub-committee of SCURL, using volunteer effort from the staff employed in SCURL
member libraries. The day-to-day operations of both SCABS and SNIPES are handled in
this way. However, it is clear from consultations with librarians with direct experience of
their operations that the workload can be onerous, and difficult to accommodate alongside
their full-time responsibilities. This is the case even though they are concerned with only
one or two negotiations per year. The volume of work implicit in the objectives of SHEDL
will be considerably more. In order to fulfil the need for a significant number of publisher
licences within a relatively short period, SHEDL will be handling ten or fifteen negotiations
at any one time. It is considered that such a volume of work requires dedicated staff as well
as input from member library staff. Furthermore, the skill sets required of staff negotiating a
range of licence agreements within budget requires management and negotiation skills that
differ somewhat from those of the professional librarian. That is not to say that there may
not be suitable personnel already employed within a SHEDL library, but that SHEDL
requires a different combination of skills and experience from the typical university librarian.
For these reasons, the option of basing SHEDL on volunteer labour has been discarded; it
needs dedicated staff and an appropriate management structure.
10.2 A second option is that SHEDL could be operated by a single university within SHEDL on
behalf of all its members. It would act as fiscal agent, and employ such dedicated staff as it
required. The University of Toronto operates just such an arrangement for the collective
acquisition of information on behalf of itself and some thirty hospital libraries within the
Greater Toronto area. However, it is clearly the dominant partner, with its medical school
acting as a centre of clinical excellence within the local hospital structure. In SHEDL’s case,
there is no such dominant partner. In spite of the history of extensive cross-institutional
collaboration within Scottish higher education, the HEIs in SHEDL are institutions that
seriously value their independence; the programme of interviews clearly indicated that
considerations of geographical location, size and academic priorities would make such an
arrangement unacceptable to university administrations. This option is therefore not
recommended for further consideration.
26
10.3 Based on the experiences of other comparable consortia, with particular reference to those
profiled in Appendix C, there are three possible structures that would provide an environment
within which SHEDL could operate and be accountable to its members. They are:
The National Library of Scotland (NLS) as convenor and agent for SHEDL members,
with staff employed by the NLS.
The establishment of a separate not-for-profit company owned by SHEDL members.
SHEDL operating as a unit of APUC (Advanced Procurement for Universities and
Colleges), the new company established in response to the McClelland Report on public
sector procurement in Scotland.
10.4 The National Library of Scotland is keen to participate in SHEDL. It already provides
services to HEIs in Scotland in that it currently hosts the secretariat of SCURL, which
currently is a sub-committee of the NLS Trustees. Organising SHEDL around administration
provided by NLS has the following advantages:
Such an organisational structure follows the precedent established in the Nordic countries
and Germany, in which the local national or state library has assumed the responsibility
for leading and managing the collective purchasing process.
NLS wants to participate in SHEDL, in order to secure reading room access to online
journals for unaffiliated researchers, as part of a collective purchasing initiative; it will
contribute proportionate funds for such acquisitions.
NLS provides the employment and contractual status for dedicated staff, and presents
publishers with a recognised entity with which to negotiate.
It may well assume responsibility, in whole or in part, for SHEDL’s administrative costs:
employment of staff and associated overhead.
However, there are the following disadvantages to placing SHEDL with NLS:
NLS is not an HEI, and is not directly responsible to the SFC. It is not accountable to the
university principals through Universities Scotland.
While a significant research library in its own right, its culture is oriented to collecting,
curation and outreach rather than research.
Its ability to manage the process of collective consultation and negotiation that is
required of SHEDL is unproven.
Issues of governance and of priorities may arise that may not be acceptable to HEIs.
10.5 Creating a separate non-profit organisation, in which each HEI would be a shareholder, is a
conventional model for organising collective efforts such as purchasing consortia. It is the
approach adopted by many charities to provide a structure to their trading activities. The
usual vehicle is to create a company limited by guarantee. Shareholders elect the Board of
Directors or Trustees; it may be politic to co-opt representatives of other organisations (such
as the SFC, SLIC etc) to the Board. In addition, it would be usual for SHEDL’s Director or
27
Project Manager to sit on the Board ex officio. SHEDL’s dedicated staff would be employed
by the company. Such an organisational structure has the following advantages:
There is an important and successful precedent: IReL, the Irish Consortium, is managed
by IRIS Ltd, a company created by and for Irish universities and colleges.
The scope of its activities need not be confined to HEIs; as a company, it is the creature
of its shareholders. Its Memorandum and Articles of Association may provide criteria for
qualifying for membership of the company. Its activities can include collective
information procurement for non-HEI organisations such as the NLS, NHS Education
Scotland, major public libraries etc, as and when it is appropriate to do so.
Company law provides for General Meetings of shareholder to be held at least once a
year; there is no reason why General Meetings could not be held quarterly, to coincide
with meetings of SCURL.
The company would be separate from its individual members, but responsible to them.
Its activities would be transparent, with audited accounts and a reporting structure. It
would not be beholden to any one stakeholder.
It can be located anywhere in Scotland.
It provides an appropriate structure for the employment of dedicated staff and acts as a
legal entity with which publishers can negotiate and contract.
The establishment of a separate company can be used to send a message to publishers
that SHEDL is a serious venture, and separate from, though complementary to, JISC
Collections.
It creates a flexible vehicle to exploit new opportunities and activities as and when
priorities change.
However, there are obstacles or disadvantages:
Universities Scotland is of the view that the university principals would be disinclined to
create an independent entity if it could be avoided. Nevertheless, they would be open to
a well argued and robust case if an independent entity would have clear advantages.
The members (i.e. the HEIs) would have to fund the operating costs of SHEDL
themselves.
A company incurs legal and accounting costs that may not be relevant to the alternative
structures.
10.6 The third option is particular to Scotland. The recent creation of Advanced Procurement for
Universities and Colleges (APUC) provides a collective procurement vehicle specifically
targeted at getting better value for money from all Scottish HE and FE expenditure. APUC
has been established as a result of the McClelland Report on public sector procurement. It is
one of three Centres of Procurement Excellence in Scotland endorsed by Scottish Ministers,
with its progress being monitored by the Public Procurement Reform Board. Although it is a
newly established body, plans are in place to ensure that APUC is operationally self-
sufficient once it has reached a mature steady state. It should be noted that John McClelland
28
is not only the author of the report, but also Chairman of the SFC. APUC has recently
appointed a procurement specialist with responsibility for libraries. Organising SHEDL as a
unit of APUC has some clear advantages:
It is an official body, bringing an element of compulsion with it. It is likely to be
unproductive to stand in the way of such an unambiguous policy initiative.
It is owned by all the HE and FE institutions in Scotland, and so will automatically
encompass all HEIs in Scotland.
It has the infrastructure to support SHEDL: premises, and financial, human resources and
IT management.
It provides a vehicle for creating working partnerships, with a particular emphasis on
multi-institutional and cross-sectoral purchasing.
APUC would consider funding SHEDL’s operating costs if sufficient benefit to the HE
sector can be demonstrated, and would support the collaborative work of its programme.
This is consistent with the McClelland Report, which points to the need for investment in
order to bring in best practice and achieve optimum results.
Whatever structure is adopted for SHEDL, the approval of APUC is likely to be required
in respect of its practice and procedures. Public Sector procurement must be conducted
within a framework that complies with EU procurement legislation, and APUC has the
specialist procurement expertise to support SHEDL, ensure compliance and bring
discipline and best practice to SHEDL’s processes.
However, the involvement of conventional purchasing practice and a procurement
organisation brings with it some disadvantages:
Purchasing and supply professionals operate in an environment where there are usually a
range of suppliers that can a specification for a required product or service. Some find
the nature and complexity of information procurement for libraries difficult. By
definition, any journal or book has only one source of supply: its publisher. That is the
nature of research information and of many other products and services based in
exclusive intellectual property rights, ranging from books and journals to music, film,
video and performances. To take but one example, the purchase of a full-text aggregated
database is not a substitute for subscriptions to the journals included in them; researchers
depend on the immediacy and authenticity of the primary journal, as well as the archival
access, citation linking and other functionality inherent in the journal itself (see 13.9
below). The experience and skill that professional procurement processes brings to
SHEDL is important, but the substance of the activity – selection and acquisition –
requires dedicated specialist staff.
APUC has been established for HE and FE. Other research libraries in membership of
SCURL – NLS, NHS, and the major public libraries – fall outside its remit.
APUC may find it difficult to manage an activity that is untypical and requires a “semi-
detached” organisation within APUC.
Accountability and responsiveness to HEI library requirements is unproven. It is unclear
whether the University Principals would accept APUC as the vehicle for SHEDL.
29
10.7 None of the three options set out in 10.4-6 above is mutually exclusive. It is not
inconceivable that a company could be established that would subcontract its operation to the
NLS, or be a subsidiary of APUC. In addition, it might be the case that, within any of the
three models, a decision is taken to delegate at least some of the negotiations to a closely-
supervised negotiating agent, as happens with NESLi2, IReL, and some other consortia.
11. The requirement for consultative machinery
11.1 Whatever structure is adopted for SHEDL, machinery for consulting member institutions,
using the expertise of their library staff, will be required in order to:
ensure that SHEDL is responsive to each institution’s information requirements;
utilise the experience and knowledge of subject librarians within HEI libraries; and
involve and give ownership of the collective acquisitions process to librarians at middle
management level.
11.2 In 13 below, SHEDL’s content acquisition strategy is considered in detail. In 13.2, it is
suggested that there are three stages to the acquisition process:
selection of information and invitation to publishers to submit proposals;
evaluation of proposals; and
monitoring and feedback.
A variety of options recommend themselves:
A Steering Committee, with a membership involving most or all HEIs, could consider the
options and make decisions on acquisitions. This is a typical model followed by many of
the consortia profiled in Appendix C. Such a Steering Committee could meet in
conjunction with regular quarterly meetings of SHEDL. However, a single Steering
Committee may find it difficult to engage in the level of detail that the acquisition
process requires.
Three separate committees, respectively responsible for selection, evaluation and
monitoring, could be established. This has the disadvantage of involving increased
bureaucracy, but has the advantage of involving a broad range of middle management
librarians drawn from all SHEDL members.
Three separate committees, responsible for the entire selection, evaluation and
monitoring process, with responsibilities for the large multi-discipline publishers, for
humanities and social sciences and for science, technology and medicine respectively.
In respect of the second and third options, if each committee comprises nine or ten members,
each HEI can be represented in the acquisition process by at least one staff member.
12. Funding SHEDL
12.1 Although there was some interest in funding SHEDL by top-slicing at the Funding Council
level, it has been made clear by the SFC that, although it sees SHEDL as a welcome
initiative, HE and FE institutions in Scotland are fully funded to establish whatever
mechanisms they see fit to secure value for money. This would apply to SHEDL. As a
30
result, the SFC will not fund SHEDL by top-slicing. This view was reinforced by
Universities Scotland: the University Principals are adamantly opposed to an extension of
top-slicing. SHEDL will have to operate within its existing budget framework.
12.2 While the SFC has funds earmarked for initiating change, any funding to “prime SHEDL’s
pump” would be modest and short term. Such set-up funding would depend on a strong case
being made to the SFC at the time of establishment. It should be assumed for planning
purposes that the establishment and operation of SHEDL will have to be funded by the HEIs
through some form of membership fee payable annually to cover the costs of employing
dedicated staff and associated overhead.
12.3 It is considered that SHEDL administration can initially be based on a Director/Project
Manager, plus one administrative assistant, with some consultancy assistance in respect of
negotiating and licensing content. The indicative annual running costs should be budgeted as
follows:
Description £000
Director/Project Manager: salary 50.0
Administrative Assistant: salary 25.0
Employment on-costs 15.0
Office overhead including premises, travel & other expenses 25.0
Consultancy, including negotiating services 35.0
Total office costs 150.0
12.4 The interview programme indicated a consensus on the need for a mechanism for
apportioning the annual cost of £150,000 between members of SHEDL, based on size or
resources. It was agreed that the larger universities should pay a higher contribution than
smaller institutions. It is considered pointless to negotiate and agree a new scheme when
such apportionment mechanisms already exist and operate within Scotland. There are the
following options:
a. to apportion SHEDL running costs in proportion to the funding granted to each member
institution by the SFC;
b. to apportion them in proportion to the library budget allocated in each institution, as is
the model proposed for use with CASS;
c. to apportion them in accordance with JISC Charging Bands allocated to each institution;
d. to apportion them in accordance with the charging structure adopted by APUC for each
institution.
Whichever option is chosen, agreement will be needed with any non-HE/FE library
participating in SHEDL on their proportion of overhead (and product cost). JISC Charging
Bands were regarded by most interviewees as the preferred model, as they are familiar, in
current library use, and seen as broadly fair. They are used in connection with current JISC
Collections and NESLi2 licences; it is considered that to use an alternative model will lead to
complications and confusion, especially in respect of extending existing NESLi2 licences to
all Scottish HEIs.
12.5 In order to dovetail SHEDL licences with existing JISC licences, product costs should be
apportioned between SHEDL members using JISC Charging Bands as the preferred method.
31
12.6 It is clear that SHEDL has to stand largely on its own feet. However, other sources of
funding from both inside and outside current library expenditure on information provision
should be considered:
a. The chosen structure of SHEDL may influence sources of funding to defray some of the
costs of SHEDL administration; both the NLS and APUC options (see 9.5-6 above) may
involve a contribution to such overheads;
b. A case should be presented to the SFC for pump-priming funds to initiate this change;
c. In relation to the costs of individual publisher licences, additional funding may be found
from the following sources:
Some savings in the £1 million spent (in 2005-06) on binding and inter-library loan;
Better pricing or more access from those publishers within the JISC Collections/
NESLi2 licensing regime, reflecting the savings in their selling and administrative
costs incurred in the JISC opt-in regime by an “all-in” SHEDL licence with a single
point of commercial contact and a single annual invoice for each publisher;
The possible participation of other research libraries in some or all SHEDL licences
(see 6.4 above), where their interests and needs coincide with those of SHEDL;
Economies in library overhead costs: the cost of managing online information is
considerably lower than the cost of managing print collections (see 9.3 above). These
economies are principally savings in premises costs, and the redeployment of library
staff to improve liaison with faculty on e-learning and research requirements;
Some input from Research Pool funds for information products on a case by case
basis; this was suggested by some of the academic staff interviewed. There is a
precedent for this: Eastchem funded an extension of the ACS licence to SciFinder
Scholar to cover its members. As the profiles of Research Pools in 3.3 above record,
their funding dwarfs the aggregate expenditure of Scottish HE libraries, yet, a
supporting information infrastructure does not appear to have been provided for.
12.7 The costs, savings and benefits can be summarised as follows:
Annual costs of implementing Annual savings & potential Non-cash benefits to member
SHEDL additional funding institutions
Cost of SHEDL office: £150K Savings in binding & ILL costs: one More journal content accessible in all
third of £1m = £300K + institutions
Premium to pay for all-in access Improved pricing per institution for all- Common information environment
to NESLi2 publisher licences: will in licence extended across Scottish HE to support
vary - say up to 5% Research Pools
Premium to pay for all-in access Additional funding contribution from Common information environment
to non-NESLi2 publishers: not other research libraries participating in extended across Scottish HE to support
likely to exceed 10% selected licences all other research
Savings in library premises costs Redeployment of library staff to improve
faculty liaison
Additional funding from Research
Pools to support particular product
licences
Potential bid for SFC pump-priming
funds to establish SHEDL
32
13. Content acquisition strategy
13.1 In developing a coherent acquisition strategy for SHEDL, it is important that such a strategy
should:
provide desktop online access for lecturers and researchers to an optimum range of
scholarly and research publications that exceeds the capability of any individual
institution alone;
meet the needs of all SHEDL stakeholders, so that each participating institution derives a
clear benefit from its participation, both financial and managerial;
meet the information requirements of the institutional participants in the Research Pools
that have been established, and those that are currently being planned;
demonstrate a significant cost-benefit in aggregate to Scottish Higher Education – i.e.
more content to more users within existing aggregate expenditure on information
provision.
13.2 The processes required to identify, select, acquire and review/renew information products
involves a cycle of activities that should be organized on an annual cycle.
New and existing journal and
information products online
Product evaluation
and selection
Acquisition and “Technical” evaluation: Negotiation of
selection processes of publisher proposals business terms
Implementation
Maintenance and review
This flowchart is based on functions identified in a report published by the US Digital
Library Foundation (DLF) in 2004 (Jewell T D et al, Electronic Resource Management: Report of the
DLF ERM Initiative, Digital Library Foundation, Washington DC, 2004: http://www.diglib.org/pubs/dlf102). It
represents the input of some 33 academic libraries in DLF, and is a useful model for planning
SHEDL’s content acquisition strategy and managing the ongoing process of managing the
SHEDL collection.
13.3 In applying this model to SHEDL, it is recommended that, irrespective of the formal
governance structure that is adopted, the content acquisition process should broadly follow
the DLF cycle:
a. Available new and existing product
At the outset, it is critical that SHEDL identifies the core titles that are required by
SHEDL members, irrespective of their publishers. This should be done by polling each
33
member to ask them what are their respective critical areas of research and the titles
required to support that research, in order to identify what titles are core, and what
publishers dominate that core collection. OhioLINK, as part of its original planning
process, identified 4,824 titles from 25 publishers as being their initial target list. Of
those titles, only one library held more than half on subscription; the average across the
OhioLINK membership was 25% (Sanville T J, A method out of the madness: OhioLINK's
collaborative response to the serials crisis, Serials 14:2 pp 163-177). This does not mean that the
result will be a “closed” list of publishers, but that it will indicate priorities in
implementing a strategic acquisition plan. The importance and utility of this
preliminary process has been confirmed by the more recent experience of IReL in
Ireland. It involves significant initial effort, but pays off in establishing clear
acquisition priorities.
b. Product evaluation and selection
The poll of SHEDL members should be collated and the principal publishers identified
for approach. It is important to establish common ground within the SHEDL
membership. It is notable that a number of publishers (both within the NESLi2 regime
and outside) meet a number of the following criteria at the same time, and meet
differing needs simultaneously. These needs and priorities are discussed in more detail
in 13.4-7 below. In evaluating publishers, the following criteria should be useful:
Publishers that, in the short and medium term, offer a programme of greatest
interest to the majority of researchers in SHEDL institutions;
Publishers that offer the SHEDL libraries the greatest financial benefit overall;
Publishers that are already available under NESLi2 licences, with a view to
extending take-up across SHEDL;
Relevance to the research needs of the Scottish Research Pools;
Relevance to disciplines outside those of Research Pools, primarily in the
humanities and social sciences;
Publishers that are not included in the NESLi2 regime, but which complement the
existing licences negotiated by NESLi2;
Publishers whose licensing terms already meet, or are close to, those required by
SHEDL (see 15 below)
Publishers that will offer SHEDL trials, if required.
c. Acquisition processes
There are three inter-connected processes to be undertaken once the primary selection
has been made:
A technical evaluation of the proposed products, to ensure that they can be
implemented;
Identification of the licensing issues that will arise in respect of usage terms and
publisher/institution rights and obligations, with reference to each selected
publisher;
34
Securing the funding necessary to make the purchase, and negotiating the business
terms with the publisher;
Address transition issues that may arise in respect of publishers that already license
content via NESLi2 (see 13.4 below).
d. Implementation
The implementation process involves establishing appropriate access and
authentication for each product, the necessary IT configuration including link resolvers
and proxy servers, where relevant, and the preparation of cataloguing data and entries
for individual SHEDL library catalogues and web pages.
e. Maintenance and review
As SHEDL becomes established, there will be an annual review of existing licences
with renewal or re-negotiation of those licences coming to the end of their respective
current term. A critical part of the review is the usage made of the licensed materials,
with a view to decisions on renewal, termination, or re-negotiation. Re-negotiation
should cover the following, amongst other issues that may arise:
Price on renewal
Licence term
Coverage, including cancellation or substitution of titles within the licensed
material
New members of SHEDL
13.4 Extending access to existing NESLi2 publishers is an important priority. The current list of
NESLi2 publishers comprises:
AAAS (Science Online) Institute of Physics (IoPP)
American Chemical Society (ACS) Nature Publishing Group
American Institute of Physics (AIP) New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM)
Annual Reviews Oxford University Press
Blackwell Publishing Ltd (BPL) Project MUSE
BMJ Publishing Group Royal Society of Chemistry
British Psychological Society (BPS) SAGE Publications
Cambridge University Press Springer
Cell Press Taylor & Francis
Elsevier (ScienceDirect) Wiley (Wiley Interscience)
Appendix A, Part a, sets out the current take-up of NESLi2 offers by each institution
participating in Research Pools. In addition, the NESLi2 regime includes British
Psychological Society (taken up three SHEDL members) and Project MUSE (taken up by
two). In order to create the common information environment required, SHEDL should
address that need to renegotiate each of these licences as a bloc within the framework of the
NESLi2 regime.
13.5 The JISC Collections strategy is to limit the number of journal licences negotiated per year.
This results in a substantial number of publishers that regularly negotiate licences with
consortia worldwide being excluded from NESLi2 coverage – the non-NESLi2 publishers.
(It should also be noted that Eduserv CHEST negotiates some consortium journal deals in
35
which SHEDL should participate, e.g. for Emerald and IET/IEEE). The following partial list
illustrates the point, and lists comparable European consortia - i.e. DEFF (Denmark), IReL
(Ireland), FinELib (Finland), ABM (Norway), BIBSAM (Sweden), Hvar (Iceland),
Konsortien in Österreich (KiÖ, Austria), HeBIS (Germany), and UKB (The Netherlands) -
that have concluded licences with these publishers:
Publisher Consortium licences
DEFF FinELib IReL ABM BIBSAM KiO Hvar HeBIS UKB
American Mathematical Society ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻
American Medical Association ☻ ☻
American Physical Society ☻
Association for Computing ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻
Machinery
BioOne ☻
Brill ☻ ☻
Emerald ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻
Institute of Engineering and ☻ ☻
Technology
IEEE ☻
Karger ☻ ☻ ☻
NRC Research Press ☻ ☻
Optical Society of America ☻
Palgrave Macmillan ☻
Portland Press ☻
Thieme Medical Publishers ☻ ☻ ☻
Walter de Gruyter ☻
Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻
Williams & Wilkins
This list does not include a large number of UK, European and US society publishers with
major journals in their fields. There is clearly a substantial list of publishers outside the
NESLi2 scheme that are targets for SHEDL; they are listed in Appendix A Part b (relevant to
Research Pools) and Appendix B (other disciplines).
13.6 An analysis of the “non-Research Pool” teaching and research needs of SHEDL members has
been undertaken, in order to identify other information requirements across Scottish HE.
Sixteen broad groups of disciplines have been identified where four or more institutions have
programmes; these are set out in Appendix B, along with a further list of publishers that
actively publish in each of these disciplines. It should be noted that, as well as additional
specialist publishers, the existing NESLi2 licences cover a significant range of large
publishers that publish in these disciplines, notably Blackwell, CUP, Elsevier, OUP, SAGE,
Springer, Taylor & Francis and Wiley.
13.7 There has been a significant amount of activity by publishers in retro-digitising journals back
to Volume 1; there are now 47 publishers offering digital journal archives, providing online
access to journals published before the mid to late 1990s, when the majority of current online
journal services were established. Nevertheless, JISC Collections has licensed relatively few
digital journal archive products from publishers:
Institute of Physics Publishing
JSTOR
36
Oxford University Press
Royal Society of Chemistry
Institution of Civil Engineers
In some cases, it has not yet negotiated licences for the archives (often referred to by
publishers as “back volumes”) available from the publishers with which it has negotiated
licences to current content. Given the service (and space-saving) benefits that accrue from
offering back volumes online, SHEDL may consider that selectively licensing of digital
journal archives from key publishers should complement the licensing priorities set out in
this section of the report. It should be noted that this may raise two significant issues for
consideration:
a. Different funding arrangements may be needed to take account of the outright purchase
of some back volume collections by member institutions, notably the Universities of
Edinburgh and Glasgow;
b. The acquisition of digital archive products may affect the archiving strategy adopted by
COSMIC in its Digital Access Scotland initiative adopted in June 2007.
13.8 Aggregated databases – i.e. compilations of full text periodicals, including peer-reviewed
journals, magazines and newspapers, are now a conventional part of the university library
collection. Discussions with librarians in the UK, USA and Australasia indicate strongly that
the journals in the collection, either in print or online, and the aggregated databases meet
different needs within the institution:
Journals themselves are used principally by faculty, graduate students and other accessing
the collection for research purposes. Information is required just as soon as it is
available, a requirement being met by many publishers in providing access to papers just
as soon as they have been accepted for publication.
Aggregated databases are generally used by undergraduates as they are single ‘gateways’
fronted by easy-to-use search engines and comprehensive indexes. They provide access
to large volumes of full text information, often containing newspaper and magazine
content as well as academic journals, albeit embargoed.
The principal aggregators of full text journal content are EBSCO Publishing, ProQuest,
Thomson Gale, Wilson and Ovid. JISC Collections has licensed such databases very
selectively, mainly from Thomson Gale and ProQuest. It does not appear to have licensed
any databases from EBSCO Publishing, even though EBSCO has by far the largest coverage
of full text peer-reviewed journals of the five companies. The interview programme revealed
that a number of institutions would like aggregated databases to be included in the SHEDL
strategy, to supplement its primary journal acquisition objectives, particularly to support
teaching.
14. Priorities for SHEDL’s licensing
14.1 In developing a strategy for licensing initiatives over the first three years, it is suggested that
SHEDL’s objective should be to remedy gaps in coverage of existing NESLi2 licences, to
seek licences from others actively publishing in the Research Pool disciplines, and to seek
licences from other key publishers in other disciplines to match other disciplines for which
literature support is required. Based on the foregoing analysis, it is suggested that the
strategy falls into four distinct categories of publisher, subject to the needs analysis described
in 13.3 a above:
37
a. The existing NESLi2 licences should be re-negotiated to be extended to all Scottish HE
libraries in order to provide equal access to scientific and scholarly information for all
participants in the research Pools, and to improve coverage in other disciplines (i.e. BPS,
Project MUSE) in respect of the major commercial publishers that operate in the
humanities and social sciences as well as STM (i.e. major lists from Blackwell, CUP,
Elsevier, OUP, SAGE, Springer, Taylor & Francis and Wiley);
b. Seek licences from other important publishers active in the Research Pool disciplines that
already have active licensing arrangements with other European consortia, as they will
already be familiar with the issues that arise in negotiating such licences;
c. Seek licences from other publishers that currently do not have licensing arrangements
with many consortia; many of them are actively seeking consortia sales. This category
includes: Berg, CSIRO, Haworth Press, Inderscience, Intellect, Manchester UP, Maney,
M E Sharpe, Multilingual Matters, U of California Press, U of Chicago Press, U of
Illinois Press, and Walter de Gruyter.
d. Seek licences from other publishers specialising in individual disciplines, including:
American Historical Association, American Psychological Association, American
Sociological Association, British Institute of Radiology, Mary Ann Liebert,
Pharmaceutical Press, Peeters, Philosophical Documentation Center, Pion, IWA
Publishing, RCN Publishing, and Thomas Telford.
15. Establishing appropriate licensing terms
15.1 Negotiating consortia licences for the acquisition of journals is an onerous and time-
consuming process. Licences rarely take less than six months to complete. Some publishers
have internal approval processes to follow. There are lengthy consultation processes with
member libraries that are invariably found within consortia. The legal work in finalising
licence agreements always takes longer than expected.
15.2 It is important for SHEDL to establish a detailed licensing policy in order to maintain
consistency of terms across all publishers. This will ease the burden of compliance
administration within SHEDL libraries and ensure consistency across a range of publisher
licences. It is notable from discussions with a wide range of publishers and library consortia
that many of the licences have been negotiated individually, and that consistency of
substantive provisions often vary from one licence to another. This presents a particular
burden on library staff expected to ensure compliance with licence terms. Sometimes,
variations are in matters of detail, which makes compliance more difficult to administer.
15.3 Current NESLi2 licences (www.nesli2.ac.uk/ModelNESLi2LicenceMay07final.doc), and those
negotiated by its predecessor licensing schemes, have been based on a standard licence
agreement to ensure such consistency. A common licence provides consistency and
predictability for those that are responsible for implementation and compliance. JISC
Collections was right to create its own standard licence, and the NESLi2 practice is strongly
recommended. It is very likely that the SHEDL licence will follow closely the NESLi2
licence, given its general acceptability within the UK context, and the likely initial
concentration on extending existing NESLi2 deals.
15.4 Licensing policy should not only set out the types of information that SHEDL requires, but
also should encompass the financial terms and usage rights required by libraries participating
in the consortium. In SHEDL’s case, this must include remote access by faculty and by
38
distance learning students, and students in overseas campuses that have been established by,
and are part of, SHEDL member institutions. Usage rights were a matter of spirited
discussion between publishers and consortia in the early days of licensing in the mid-1990s.
As a result, a number of statements from library groups such as ALA, LIBER, ICOLC and
IFLA, were published that have been influential in governing library expectations and
improving publishers’ understanding of the requirements of their institutional customers.
15.5 Today’s environment is more stable. The majority of publishers now use licensing regimes
that recognise and permit all the uses for teaching and research that academic institutions
reasonably require in order to ensure that those functions are facilitated properly and
professionally. These can be summarised as follows:
a. Access control: the allocation of ID numbers and passwords places an overwhelming
burden on libraries that is regarded as wholly unacceptable. In the UK the use of
Athens as an authentication system is almost universally catered for. Any SHEDL
licence should provide for Athens (or its adopted successor technology) as the chosen
access and authentication control method.
b. Authorised users should be defined to include all faculty, staff and students of the
institution, including those working under contract. Off-campus/remote access for both
faculty, when off campus, and students, especially distance learning students, will be
required. 'Walk-in' users such as alumni, local business staff and indeed members of
the public, should be included, but for access only from terminals within the library
premises. This is now widely accepted. SHEDL licensing policy should provide for
access for faculty, staff and students registered with and affiliated to SHEDL member
institutions, including campuses established outside the UK by SHEDL member
institutions (e.g. GCU, Heriot-Watt).
c. Availability of articles should be no later than the print publication date. This is
important in relation to titles published outside the European Union, when delivery
times for the printed journal can be long. SHEDL should insist that, where the
publisher operates a scheme to make articles available online as soon as they have been
accepted and processed for publication, that scheme should be extended to SHEDL.
d. Continuing access to the volumes/issues that have been licensed and paid for, even
though the subscription is then cancelled is standard. There are some publishers that
operate a “moving wall” that provides access to the current year and a set number of
prior years. The ALPSP survey indicated that all large publishers offer this, but only
half of the smaller publishers. Neither a refusal to grant continuing access nor an offer
of a moving wall should be regarded as acceptable by SHEDL; they do not represent
best practice. This should be treated as a deal-breaker.
e. Course packs and electronic reserve: the use of online files both for making multiple
copies for course packs and for local storage of individual articles or items for the
electronic reserve should be an integral part of the licence at no further cost. The
licence should be explicit on this point, and should include the use of articles or
excerpts in VLEs when required.
f. Supply to other libraries (inter-library loan) is a normal provision in most publishers’
licences. Many allow the use of licensed online files for inter-library loan but require
the article to be printed for transmission by mail or fax. While this practice has been
accepted by most libraries and adopted by most significant publishers, SHEDL should
39
seek the right to transmit the electronic file online, as this reduces costs, manual
intervention and the time taken to supply.
g. Usage data should be supplied on a regular basis, by institution and fully COUNTER-
compliant. Usage data is increasingly seen as providing a new and additional metric
upon which collection management decisions can be made. There is already anecdotal
evidence of its use from a telephone survey undertaken by John Cox Associates in early
2004 of nine UK/European and fourteen US academic librarians; half of the US
libraries indicated that they had started, or were about to start, using usage data as one
of the determining factors in acquisition, renewal and cancellation decisions. One
cogent example of an emerging practice is the University of North Carolina at
Greensboro (UNCG). The library is using usage of both journals and aggregated
databases to decide the form of access to a journal: journal subscription, aggregated
database or pay-per-view/document delivery. Subscriptions have been cancelled
because of low usage. Titles have been selected on the basis of high usage in an
aggregated database. If usage is low, an expensive title may be cancelled and replaced
by pay-per-view/document delivery; UNCG uses data to make decisions based on value
for money. In the case of SHEDL, usage by institutions within Research Pools would
be a critical sub-set of usage across all HEIs
15.6 In addition, there are a number of other provisions that should be addressed in any SHEDL
licensing agreement. These reflect good practice, and are summarised by the US Council on
Library & Information Resources (CLIR: www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/table.shtmlin):
a. Confidentiality of user data must be maintained; users should not be identifiable from
such data, and the content used, must not be disclosed to any third party.
b. Term of the licence: The licence term should normally be for three years. SHEDL
should not accept any provision for automatic renewal, which is a ‘negative option’
putting the burden on SHEDL to cancel or negotiate different terms at the right time. As
negative options are unlawful in consumer law, they should be regarded as unacceptable
in any licence.
c. No-print-cancellation clauses should not be accepted; SHEDL is seeking an online
licence.
d. Deeply-discounted- print subscriptions are sometimes offered as an adjunct to an online
consortium licence, where an individual institution wishes to retain its subscription to
selected titles covered in a licence. While the raison d’être of SHEDL is to seek online
licences, it should ask for such a clause; discounts may well vary from publisher to
publisher, but should be not less than 75%, and may be as high as 90% off the
institutional print subscription price.
e. Maintenance of existing copyright privileges under law: the licence should explicitly
provide that nothing in its terms affects or restricts fair dealing or library privilege rights
under UK copyright law.
f. Content must be complete. The licensed material should be complete as published by
the publisher, and include any supplementary material such as multi-media adjuncts or
datasets if they are part of the standard online ‘publication’.
40
g. Continuing access to the content (i.e. volumes and issues) actually licensed and paid for
must be provided by the publisher with limitation in time, even if a title is deleted from
the licence and therefore discontinued.
h. Collaborative archiving, as set out in the NESLi2 Licence Agreement, provides a range
of options in the event that the licence is terminated, some or all of the licensed material
ceases to be published or is acquired by another publisher, or if the publisher ceases to
trade. These provisions are comprehensive and only need to be set in SHEDL’s particular
context.
i. Performance obligations should be set out in the licence, providing for:
Complete and uninterrupted access to all the content (except for designated downtime
or events beyond the control of the publisher or its online host)
Appropriate capacity to meet demand
Adequate back-up facilities
Designated downtime; if this exceeds agreed limits, it is unacceptable and may be
treated by SHEDL as a breach of contract.
j. Jurisdiction should be specified as the laws of Scotland, and that any dispute is subject
to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Scottish courts. Most publishers agree to apply the
jurisdiction of the customer. It is not good practice to agree a licence that is silent on
jurisdiction (except in the case of International Governmental Organisations (IGOs) such
as the UN, OECD or World Bank, which may be constitutionally unable to subject
themselves to any country’s jurisdiction).
15.7 SHEDL should also seek to “push the licensing envelope” by seeking extensions to the rights
set out above, or by seeking additional rights, including:
a. Authorised users: the definition should be wide enough to cater for the highest common
factor of likely needs of SHEDL members. This should include remote access, even from
overseas, for all faculty, staff and students, whether on campus or distance learners, and
should encompass organisations with which the institution has an established working
relationship. The definition should be based on registration with or formal affiliation to
the SHEDL member institution.
b. Annual cancellation and substitution rights are already provided for in the NESLi2
standard licence, albeit in vague terms. This provides the consortium with some
flexibility in excluding some material, especially in subjects that are not of any interest.
Only 30 per cent of publishers that responded to the ALPSP Survey allow cancellation or
substitution of titles in a subject collection or a ‘Big Deal’; nevertheless this represents an
increase on the position in 2003. Notable is the finding that half of the large publishers
(100 or more titles) do allow cancellation or substitution. This is a right that is worth
securing.
c. Extension of SHEDL membership at SHEDL’s sole discretion should be allowed,
subject only to appropriate notice and any agreed adjustment in the licence fee upon
renewal of the licence. If participation in SHEDL is to be extended in the future to non-
HEI research libraries, FE, NHS Scotland, public libraries or schools, it is suggested that
a marker be laid down in the licence, though this is not likely until SHEDL is established.
41
d. Data and text mining rights, subject to careful consideration of the definition of such
rights. Most publishers have shied away from granting such rights, principally because
of a lack of precise definition. Data mining identifies patterns in large datasets. Text
mining includes natural language processing and information extraction for analysing and
extracting names or terms (JISC Text Mining Briefing Paper, JISC 2006: www.jisc.ac.uk/
publications/publications/pub_textmining.aspx). They provide powerful additional
functionality; SHEDL members need to decide what precise rights are needed, and then
seek their inclusion in all SHEDL licences.
e. Pay-per-view at discounted rates in respect of the publisher’s titles not included in the
licence, where only a sub-set of titles, rather than the Big Deal, is sought. Three quarters
of publishers offer pay-per-view article purchase as standard (ALPSP survey). Several
publishers, including Elsevier and Wiley-Blackwell, already include such provisions as
standard features in many licences, and SHEDL should seek to establish this across all its
licences. In essence, this is the Core + Peripheral model, and is only applicable if a
subject collection or sub-set of publisher’s list is licensed. The comments in 7.8 above
about the risks inherent in pay-per-view models should also be noted.
15.8 Most publishers use their own standard licence agreements. Most of them contain standard
terms, with a predictable set of rights and obligations. In almost every other area of
procurement, the terms of supply are set out by the customer and form part of the purchase
order. As JISC has already demonstrated, it is not unreasonable for SHEDL to create its own
licensing agreement and insist that publishers use it as the basis of any contractual
relationship with SHEDL. The NESLi2 licence provides an excellent precedent, and is seen
as a reasonable agreement that any publisher is able to sign up to. In creating its own
licence, the administration and monitoring of, and compliance with, the terms of the licence
by SHEDL members will be made easier, and initial negotiations will be expedited.
16. Summary of key decisions required
16.1 This report has deliberately avoided making firm recommendations on what decisions are
needed in respect of SHEDL. This is because there is no single correct answer to the
questions posed by structure, governance or acquisition strategy. It is designed to provide a
range of options to HEIs in Scotland with the objective of securing better value for money in
procuring research information. It follows that a number of key decisions need to be made:
16.1.1 Dissemination of the report
The report needs to be disseminated to the HEIs and those affected by the possible
implementation of SHEDL, in order to encourage discussion, facilitate
implementation and create understanding of what SHEDL implies for all its
stakeholders;
16.1.2 Proof of concept
The SHEDL concept is that Scottish research is characterised by institutional
cooperation, and that it provides the mechanism whereby access to the broadest
possible range of content to all HEIs can be effected, to create a common research
information environment for Scotland;
16.1.3 Structure
If it is decided that the concept has been proven, a decision is required on which of
the three options for structure (or combinations of characteristics from different
options) is to be adopted:
42
A separate not-for-profit organisation (company limited by guarantee) owned by
all Scottish HEIs;
The National Library of Scotland operating SHEDL on behalf of Scottish HEIs;
Advanced Procurement for Universities and Colleges operating SHEDL on behalf
of HEIs;
16.1.3 Governance
Depending on the structure adopted, the governance of SHEDL needs to be
established:
Board of directors/trustees: membership and process for appointment or election
Memorandum of Agreement between each member institution and SHEDL,
defining mutual obligations, governance structure, funding and scope of activity
The process of election and/or appointment to the SHEDL Board and to its sub-
committees.
16.1.4 Funding of SHEDL
Depending on the structure to be adopted, sources of operational funding and the
method of apportioning both running costs and product licensing costs between
members need to be established;
16.1.5 Consultative mechanisms required
Consultative committees’ remit and representation must be established;
16.1.6 Content acquisition strategy
The process of establishing the collective needs of the HEIs in aggregate, across all
disciplines, must be established, from which a target list of publishers should be
agreed;
16.1.7 Non-HEI participation
The criteria by which non-HEI participation in SHEDL licences should be invited
must be laid down, both for institutions that wish to participate in all SHEDL licences
and those that will ask or be invited to participate in individual licence agreements on
a case-by-case basis.
17. Roadmap
17.1 Whatever structure and acquisition policy is adopted, the establishment and operation of
SHEDL involves a number of steps to be taken by the HEIs collectively, by each HEI
individually, and by the SHEDL management, including an ongoing process for review of
performance by SHEDL members, in order to verify that value for money is being delivered.
17.2 The diagram that follows is a “roadmap” of the decisions and actions that are required to
bring SHEDL to fruition. It is suggested that SHEDL Board Meetings should be convened
on a monthly basis to begin with, although frequency might be relaxed in the future as and
when SHEDL is fully established. SHEDL General Meetings might be held on a quarterly
basis, to coincide with SCURL meetings, to ensure that all stakeholder institutions are fully
engaged in ensuring that SHEDL’s activities reflect the needs of its stakeholder institutions.
43
Collective action by HEIs Individual action by HEIs SHEDL Management
Dissemination to all SCURL
members, Principals, SFC,
Universities Scotland, SLIC, Consider report and cost /
APUC; press releases benefit to institution
Decision: proof of concept Consider decision on proof of
(If not proven, no further action) concept (if not proven no further
action)
Recommend structure: separate
entity, NLS or APUC
Consider size / composition of
Board of Directors / Trustees;
Establish size / composition of establish process of election or
Board of Directors / Trustees appointment to Board
Agree terms of SHEDL-HEI Negotiate and agree
Memorandum of Agreement Memorandum of Agreement
Establish funding and initial Approve funding for SHEDL
budget for SHEDL & method of running costs and budget
apportioning running costs
Draw up job descriptions and
recruit SHEDL staff
Set up SHEDL office and
facilities
Establish process for
Establish composition/ remit of appointment to consultative
consultative committees committees Establish working relations
with JISC Collections
Monthly/quarterly Board
meetings: Create model SHEDL licence
set strategy and review
management performance Establish ‘needs list’ of journals
establish content acquisition to support research
strategy based on ‘needs list’ Input / implement content
acquisition strategy
establish publisher priorities
Non-HEI participation: terms Negotiation with publishers:
NESLi2 publishers
Non-NESLi2 publishers
Consultative committees select,
evaluate & monitor acquisitions
General Meeting of Stakeholders: at least once a year; preferably quarterly
44
Acknowledgements
This report has been made possible by the Steering Group appointed to direct this study:
Tony Kidd, Assistant Director, Financial & Corporate Services, Glasgow University Library
Sheila Cannell, Director of Library Services, University of Edinburgh
Gillian Anderson, Librarian, UHI Millennium Institute
Peter Kemp, Director of Information Services & University Librarian, Stirling University
Grateful acknowledgement is also made to the following that participated in the interview
programme and gave information and advice unstintingly:
APUC Frank Rowell, Head of Collaborative Procurement
Karen Anderson, Procurement Portfolio Specialist, Library Services
Edinburgh College of Art Wilson Smith, Librarian
Gordon Andrew, Technical Services Librarian
Tim O’Reilly Bennett, Reader Services Librarian
Glasgow Caledonian University Dr. Louise Garden, Director of Learning Resources
Jan Howden, Associate Librarian, Learning Support
Marion Miller, Senior Librarian & Resource Manager
Glasgow City Libraries Karen Cunningham, Librarian
Gordon Anderson, Service Development Manager
Glasgow School of Art Catherine Nicholson, Head of Learning Resources
Heriot-Watt University Michael Breaks, University Librarian
Derek Stephen, Resources & Systems Manager
Gill MacDonald, Reader Services Manager
Highland Council Christopher Phillips, Head of Library Service & President, CILIP
JISC Collections Ltd Lorraine Estelle, Chief Executive
Napier University Chris Pinder, University Librarian
Alison Redpath, Acquisitions Manager
Malcolm Jones, Information Resources Manager
National Library of Scotland Martyn Wade, National Librarian
Cate Newton, Director of Collections
NHS Education for Scotland Ann Wales, Programme Director, Knowledge Management
Queen Margaret University Fraser Muir, Director of Information Services
Jo Rowley, University Librarian
Barbara Houston, Technical Services Manager
David Oliver, User Services Manager
Robert Gordon University Professor John Harper, Senior Vice Principal
Carol Munro, Director, Knowledge & Information Services
Judith Moynagh, Associate Director of Operational Services
RSAMD Caroline Cochrane, Head of Information services
Scottish Funding Council Judith Henderson, Assistant Director Research Policy & Strategy
David Beards, Senior Policy Officer, Learning & Teaching
SLIC Elaine Fulton, Director
St. Andrews University Jeremy Upton, Deputy Director Library Services / Chair, SNIPES
Vickie Cormie, Science & Medicine Liaison Librarian
Professor Stephen Lee, Head of Physics / SUPRA Research Pool
Stirling University Professor Ian Simpson, Deputy Principal for Research
Lisa Haddow, Senior Subject Librarian, Science
The Open University Nicky Whitsed, University Librarian
UHI Millennium Institute Alun Hughes, Director of Learning Resources & Information Services
Elizabeth McHugh, E-resource Manager
Universities Scotland David Caldwell, Director
University of Aberdeen Professor Christopher Gane, Vice Principal, Library & Info. Services
Dr. Peter Murray, Deputy University Secretary
Wendy Pirie, Acting Librarian & Manager
45
Chris Banks, University Librarian designate
Sheona Farquahar, Technical Services Librarian
Ross Hayworth, E-Resources Librarian
University of Abertay Dundee Ivor Lloyd, Deputy Principal (Planning & Resources) & Librarian
Shirley Miller, Senior Information Officer
University of Dundee James Calderhead, Vice Principal, Learning & Teaching
John Bagnall, University Librarian
Denise Jackson, Associate Librarian
Chris Backler, Senior Assistant Librarian
Lorraine Douglas, Principal Library Assistant
Kirsty Beveridge, Liaison Librarian, Life Sciences & Engineering
Andy Jackson, Principal Assistant Librarian
University of Edinburgh Professor Jeff Haywood, Vice Principal Knowledge Management/CIO
Professor Steve Chapman, Vice Principal, Planning / Eastchem
Research Pool
Liz Stevenson, Electronic Resources Librarian
Elize Rowan, Acquisitions & Metadata Services Librarian
John MacColl, Head of Digital Library Division
Frances Abercromby, College Librarian, CHSS
Richard Battersby, College Librarian, CSE
Irene McGowan, College Librarian, CMVM
Dr. Norman Poyser, Library Committee
Professor John Moncrieff, Library Committee
Professor John Usher, Library Committee
University of Glasgow Sir Muir Russell, Principal
Professor Steve Beaumont, Vice Principal, Research & Enterprise
Helen Durndell, University Librarian
Susan Ashworth, Assistant Director
Declan Diver, Reader in Physics & Astronomy / Library Committee
University of Paisley Teresa Gilbert, Acting Librarian
Phil Miller, Deputy Librarian
University of Strathclyde Keith Davis, Director, Library Services
Nick Joint, Head of Division, Reference
Michael Roberts, Head of Division, Serials
Dr. Dennis Nicholson, Director, CDLR
John Cox
24 September 2007
46
Research Pool institutions: information provision Appendix A
a. Coverage of NESLi2 publishers
Institution Disciplines AAAS ACS AIP Ann Rev Blackwell BMJ CUP Cell Pr Elsevier IOPP Nature NEJM OUP RSC SAGE Springer T&F Wiley
Aberdeen Chem Eng/Ma E/S
Econ Life Med Pol ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻
Abertay E/S Pol
☻ ☻
Dundee Chem Eng/Ma E/S
Econ Life Med Pol ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻
Edinburgh Phys Chem Eng/Ma
E/S Econ Life Med ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻
Pol
GCU Eng/Ma Pol
☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻
Glasgow Phys Chem Eng/Ma
E/S Econ Life Med ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻
Pol
Heriot-Watt Phys Chem Eng/Ma
Econ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻
Napier E/S Econ Pol
☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻
Paisley / Bell
College
Phys Eng/MA E/S
Econ Pol ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻
RGU Eng/Ma Pol
☻ ☻
St Andrews Phys Chem E/S
Econ Life Med Pol ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻
Stirling E/S Econ Med Pol
☻ ☻
Strathclyde Phys Chem Eng/Ma
Econ Life Pol ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻
UHI E/S
☻
Total no of 3 10 3 4 9 6 3 5 16 7 5 2 5 7 4 9 3 5
licences [Note} [Note] [Note] [Note] [Note] [Note]
Key to disciplines: Phys = physics Chem = chemistry Eng/Ma = engineering & mathematics Econ = economics Life = life sciences E/S = earth sciences Med = medicine (clinical & imaging) Pol = policing
NOTE: Scottish Agricultural College, though not a participant in any Research Pools, has opted into Elsevier and Springer; GCU has opted into BMJ, Cell Press, NEJM and RSC, and QMU has opted into BMJ and Elsevier,
though these are not concerned with specific participation in Research Pools. These opt-ins are included in the totals.
47
b. NESLi2 publishers not licensed, and non-NESLi2 publishers with key coverage in the disciplines
Institutional scientific research commitment Publishers with important journals in participated Research Pool disciplines
Institution Research Pool Discipline NESLi2 publishers not held Relevant non-NESLi2 publishers
Aberdeen Scotchem, Scottish Research Chem Eng/Ma Annual Reviews, BMJ, Nature, NEJM, SAGE AEA, AGU, AMS, [ACM licensed], AMA, BioOne, Brill, Co of Biologists, CSIRO, Duke UP,
Partnership, SAGES, SULSA, E/S Econ Life Emerald, EDP Sc, Geological Soc of America/of GB, IET, IEEE, Karger, Lippincott WW,
SINAPSE, Scottish Inst. for Research Med Pol Maney/IM³, MA Liebert, MIT Pr, NRC Research Pr, OSA, Palgrave Macmillan, Portland Press,
in Economics, SIPR Royal Society, SIAM, Thieme, U Chicago P, Walter de Gruyter, other US/GB learned societies
Abertay SAGES, SIPR E/S Pol AAAS, Annual Reviews, CUP, Nature AGU, CSIRO, Geological Society of America/of GB, NRC Research Pr, other US/GB learned
societies
Dundee Scotchem, Scottish Research Chem Eng/Ma Annual Reviews, CUP, NEJM, OUP, RSC, AEA, AGU, AMS, ACM, Brill, Co of Biologists, CSIRO, Duke UP, Geological Society of
Partnership, SAGES, Scottish Inst. E/S Econ Life SAGE, Springer, Taylor & Francis, Wiley America/of GB, IET, IEEE, Karger, Lippincott WW, M A Liebert, MIT Press, NRC Research Pr,
For Research in Economics, SULSA, Med Pol OSA, Palgrave Macmillan, Maney/IM³, Portland Press, Royal Society, SIAM, Thieme, U
SINAPSE, SIPR Chicago Press, Walter de Gruyter, other US/GB learned societies
Edinburgh SUPA, Eastchem, Scottish Research Phys Chem AIP, CUP, Cell Press, NEJM, OUP, SAGE, Taylor AEA, AGU, AMS, APS, AMA, Brill, Co of Biologists, CSIRO, Duke UP, EDP Sc, Geological
Partnership, SAGES, Scottish Inst. for Eng/Ma E/S & Francis Society of America/of GB, IET, IEEE, Karger, Lippincott WW, M A Liebert, Maney/IM³, MIT
Research in Economics, SULSA, Econ Life Med Press, NRC Research Pr, OSA, Palgrave Macmillan, Portland Press, Royal Society, SIAM,
SINAPSE, SIPR Pol Thieme, U Chicago Press, Walter de Gruyter, other US/GB learned societies
GCU Scottish Research Partnership, SIPR Eng/Ma Pol AAAS, AIP AMS, ACM, Brill, Duke UP, IET, IEEE, Royal Society, SIAM, Walter de Gruyter, other US/GB
learned societies
Glasgow SUPA, Westchem, Scottish Research Phys Chem AIP, NEJM AEA, AGU, AMS, ACM, APS, Brill, Co of Biologists, CSIRO, Duke UP, EDP Sc, Geological
Partnership, SAGES, Scottish Inst. for Eng/Ma E/S Society of America/ of GB, IET, IEEE, Karger, Lippincott WW, Maney/IM³, M A Liebert, MIT
Research in Economics, SULSA, Econ Life Med Press, NRC Research Pr, OSA, Palgrave Macmillan, Portland Press, Royal Society, SIAM,
SINAPSE, SIPR Pol Thieme, U Chicago Press, Walter de Gruyter, other US/GB learned societies
Heriot-Watt SUPA, Scotchem, Scottish Research Phys Chem AAAS, Annual Reviews, Blackwell, CUP, Nature, AEA, AMS, APS, ACM, Brill, Duke UP, EDP Sc, IET, IEEE, Maney/IM³, MIT Press, NRC
Partnership, SAGES, Scottish Inst. for Eng/Ma Econ OUP, SAGE, Springer, Taylor & Francis, Wiley Research Pr, OSA, Palgrave Macmillan, Royal Society, SIAM, U Chicago Press, Walter de
Research in Economics Gruyter, other US/GB learned societies
Napier SAGES, Scottish Inst. for Research in E/S Econ Pol AAAS, Annual Reviews, CUP, Nature, OUP, AEA, AGU, CSIRO, Geological Society of America/ of GB, MIT Press, NRC Research Pr,
Economics, SPIR Taylor & Francis, Wiley Palgrave Macmillan, U Chicago Press, other US/GB learned societies
Paisley / Bell SUPA, Scottish Research Phys Eng/MA AAAS, AIP, Annual Reviews, CUP, IOPP, Nature, AEA, AGU, AMS, ACM, Brill, CSIRO, Duke UP, EDP Sc, Geological Society of America/of GB,
College Partnership, SAGES, Scottish Inst. E/S Econ Pol Wiley IET, IEEE, Maney/IM³, MIT Press, NRC Research Pr, OSA, Palgrave Macmillan, Royal Society,
For Research in Economics, SIPR SIAM, U Chicago Press, other US/GB learned societies
RGU Scottish Research Partnership, SIPR Eng/Ma Pol AAAS, Annual Reviews, Blackwell, CUP, OUP, AMS, ACM, Brill, Duke UP, IET, IEEE, Maney/IM³, Royal Society, SIAM, Walter de Gruyter,
Springer, Taylor & Francis, Wiley other US/GB learned societies
St Andrews SUPA, Eastchem, SAGES, Scottish Phys Chem E/S AAAS, ACS, Blackwell, BMJ, CUP, SAGE, Taylor AEA, AGU, APS, Co of Biologists, CSIRO, EDP Sc, Geological Society of America/of GB,
Inst. for Research in Economics, Econ Life Med & Francis Karger, Lippincott WW, M A Liebert, MIT Press, NRC Research Pr, OSA, Palgrave Macmillan,
SULSA, SINAPSE, SIPR Pol Portland Press, Royal Society, SIAM, Thieme, U Chicago Press, Walter de Gruyter, other
US/GB learned societies
Stirling SAGES, Scottish Inst. for Research in E/S Econ Med AAAS, Annual Reviews, BMJ, CUP, Nature, AEA, AGU, CSIRO, Geological Society of America/of GB, Karger, Lippincott WW, MIT Press,
Economics, SINAPSE, SIPR Pol NEJM, OUP, SAGE, Springer, Taylor & Francis, M A Liebert, Palgrave Macmillan, Thieme, U Chicago Press, Walter de Gruyter, other US/GB
Wiley learned societies
Strathclyde SUPA, Westchem, Scottish Research Phys Chem AAAS, AIP, Annual Reviews, CUP, Cell Press, AEA, AMS, APS, ACM, Co of Biologists, CSIRO, Duke UP, EDP Sc, IET, IEEE, Karger,
Partnership, SAGES, Scottish Inst. for Eng/Ma Econ Nature, OUP, RSC, SAGE, Springer, Taylor & Maney/IM³, MIT Press, NRC Research Pr, OSA, Palgrave Macmillan, Portland Press, Royal
Research in Economics, SULSA , SIPR Life Pol Francis, Wiley Society, SIAM, Thieme, U Chicago Press, Walter de Gruyter, other US/GB learned societies
UHI SAGES E/S AAAS, Annual Reviews, Blackwell, CUP, Nature, AGU, CSIRO, Geological Society of America/of GB
Springer, Taylor & Francis, Wiley
48
Disciplines outside Research Pools: activity and publishers Appendix B
Discipline Universities Publishers and comment
The Arts: Fine & Applied Arts, Architecture, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, RGU, QMU, Glasgow School of Art, U California Press, U Chicago Press, Berg, Maney, T&F, SAGE, U Illinois Pr, CUP, MUSE,
Design, Performing Arts, Film & TV Aberdeen, RSAMD, St Andrews, Edinburgh College of Art, Napier, Blackwell. E-books important as journals. See Media Studies
Strathclyde, Stirling, UHI
Music Aberdeen, RSAMD, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Strathclyde, Paisley, Napier, CUP, OUP, MUSE, T&F & UPs of Illinois and California. May be appropriate to combine with
Stirling The Arts
English, Modern languages and Linguistics Dundee, Heriot-Watt, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Paisley, Stirling, T&F, OUP, CUP, Maney, Walter de Gruyter, Modern Lang Assoc, Blackwell, MUSE, Manchester
Strathclyde, Napier, Aberdeen, St Andrews UP, Multilingual Matters
History and Archaeology Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, GCU, Strathclyde, Aberdeen, St Blackwell, Brill, CUP, OUP, Maney, Am. Historical Assoc, ME Sharpe, Manchester UP, MUSE,
Andrews, UHI T&F, Springer, Wiley
Politics & International Relations Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, GCU, St Andrews, Blackwell, Brill, CUP, OUP, ME Sharpe, Heldref, MUSE, Palgrave Macmillan, T&F, SAGE,
Strathclyde Springer
Geography, Built Environment, Planning & Land Dundee, Scottish Agriculture College, GCU, Glasgow, Strathclyde, Blackwell, CUP, Elsevier, Springer, SAGE, Pion, T&F, Liverpool UP, Maney, MUSE,
Use Heriot-Watt, Edinburgh, Napier, RGU, Aberdeen, St Andrews Geographical Association, American Geographical Society
Law Aberdeen, Dundee, Abertay, Edinburgh, Glasgow, GCU, Napier, Thomson WestLaw/W Green, LexisNexis/Butterworths, Kluwer Law, Blackwell, Hart, CUP, OUP,
Stirling, Strathclyde Wiley, T&F, SAGE, Springer, US university presses & societies
Psychology Heriot-Watt, Edinburgh, Glasgow, QMU, GCU, Paisley, Stirling, Dominant publishers: APA and BPS. Others: Elsevier, T&F (inc Psychology Press * Lawrence
Strathclyde, Abertay, Dundee, RGU, Napier, Aberdeen Erlbaum), Springer, SAGE, Wiley, Guilford, Brill, CUP, Heldref, Haworth Press, Human Kinetics,
MUSE, U Illinois Press, Canadian Psychological Association
Anthropology, Sociology and Applied Social Dundee, QMU, GCU, Glasgow, Paisley, Stirling, Strathclyde, Abertay, Blackwell, Berg, Brill, Elsevier, SAGE, Wiley, Springer, T&F, ME Sharpe, Emerald, CUP,
Science RGU, Edinburgh, Napier, Aberdeen, UHI Multilingual Matters, U Chicago Press, U Calif. Press, MUSE, American Sociological Assoc.
Business, Management and Accounting Heriot-Watt, Edinburgh, Glasgow, QMU, GCU, Paisley, UHI, Stirling, Emerald, Springer, Blackwell, Elsevier, SAGE, T&F, Palgrave Macmillan, Wiley, NOW Publs.
Strathclyde, Abertay, RGU, Lauder College, Napier, Aberdeen, St OUP, ME Sharpe, INFORMS, Inderscience, Kluwer Law, Harvard Business School, MUSE, Idea
Andrews Group
Media Studies QMU, Glasgow, Strathclyde, GCU, Paisley, Stirling, RGU, Napier Publishers: T&F, SAGE, OUP, U Illinois P, Intellect, MUSE. See Performing Arts, Film & TV
above
Philosophy and Religion Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, UHI, Stirling, Aberdeen Blackwell, Brill, Berg, CUP, Elsevier, Springer, SAGE, OUP, T&F, Peeters, Haworth Press,
Maney, Philosophy Documentation Center, MUSE
Education Edinburgh, Glasgow, Paisley, UHI, Stirling, Strathclyde, Dundee, T&F, SAGE, Blackwell, Elsevier, Wiley, AERA, ITCE, Palgrave Macmillan, IRA, Emerald,
Aberdeen Inderscience, Multilingual Matters, MUSE, OUP, U Chicago Press
Nursing and para-medical professions including Dundee, QMU, Glasgow, Strathclyde, GCU, Paisley, Stirling, Abertay, Bentham, Blackwell, T&F, SAGE, Elsevier, LWW, CUP, Wiley, Nature, Mary Ann Liebert, RCN
Pharmacy RGU, Napier, Aberdeen, UHI Publishing, Pharmaceutical Press, British Institute of Radiology
Environmental science including Marine Science Dundee, Glasgow, Strathclyde, Heriot-Watt, GCU, Paisley, UHI, Elsevier, Springer, Blackwell, T&F, OUP, CUP, Wiley, SAGE, Pion, CSIRO, IEEE, ASCE, NRC
Stirling, Abertay, RGU, Aberdeen, Scottish Agricultural College Research Press, Inderscience, Heldref, EDP Sciences, World Scientific, Thomas Telford, IWA
Publishing, Mary Ann Liebert, Geological Society of America, Manchester UP
Agriculture and Veterinary Science Scottish Agriculture College, Edinburgh, Glasgow, UHI, Aberdeen ASAE, Elsevier, Blackwell, Wiley, Springer, CUP, OUP, CSIRO, T&F, RSNZ Publ., EDP
Sciences, British Veterinary Association
49
Selected consortia profiles: Appendix C
a. Governance and funding
Consortium Set up Territory Membership Structure Staffing Governance Financing Consultative
date machinery
IReL 2004 Republic of 23 Higher Ed: Partnership of HEA & Manager + Sub-group of IUA Librarians; HEA & SFI fund €20m Acq. Librarians
Irish Ireland 7 universities + SFI, managed by assistant reports to SFI & HEA. 2004-8 + €15m 2006-9. working group meet
Research 15 institutes of technology + IRIS Ltd, a non-profit Monthly librarian meeting to Matched by top-slicing monthly; selection
electronic Royal College of Surgeons of company owned by approve acquisitions. library budgets made collaboratively
Library Ireland Irish universities by members
ABM 2003: Norway 1800 multisectoral: Public body under Director + Board of Directors, of Direct public funding: Centrally managed
Archive previously 7 universities + Min of Culture & 65 staff incl. Director + eight appointed by €30m: consultative
Library & RBT 275 special libraries + Church Affairs Norwegian Ministry €11m regular grants + committees
Museum 892 public libraries + Digital Library €11m operating + €4m
Authority 6291 museums lottery + €3m special
projects
DEFF 1998; Denmark 180 research libs: Partnership of Nine staff: some Coordinating Committee of Government funded: Licences Programme
Danish became 2 national libraries. + research libraries are part-time ministerial, library & DEFF annual budget of Committee is
Electronic permanent 16 universities + under Danish Consultants or secretariat representatives £1.5m, of which £450K responsible for
Research agency in 78 special libraries + National Library National Library set strategy; Steering covers operating costs content licensing and
Library 2003 100 business schools/HE Authority staff Committee provides member & licensing. 30% top consultation
centres participation; secretariat up from member
manages day-to-day libraries
business.
BIBSAM 1996 Sweden 75 HE & research libraries: Department of Royal Eleven staff Department of Royal Library Government funded: Informal cooperation
Royal Library 38 university & college Library. and under Royal Library annual budget of £2m; is the norm
of Sweden: libraries + Swedish Expert management and control. £580K to Expert
Dept. for 37 special libraries Libraries Libraries.
National Co- administered by
operation BIBSAM.
FINELIB 1999 Finland 63 HE/research institutions: Department of Twelve staff Part of National Library. Administrative costs Expert groups select,
National 21 universities + National Library to Steering Group of Min of Ed funded by Min of based on feedback
Electronic 31 polytechnics + provide online library + sector representatives set Education. Members from member libraries
Library of 11 research institutes services strategy; Consortium Group fund acquisitions out of
Finland and 21 public/regional put projects to Steering their library budgets.
libraries Group for approval.
50
Consortium Set up Territory Membership Structure Staffing Governance Financing Consultative
date machinery
HVAR 2000 Iceland All university, college, school Division of National Operated by Operated by National Government funded via Iceland is a small
Iceland & public libraries, + all Library National Library Library, advised by Steering National Library country; Steering
National residents staff Committee of university, Group provides
Consortium medical and public librarians consultative
machinery.
Konsortium 2002 Austria 30 HE inst: all universities Informal, None: run by Committee of member Funded by member Informal.
in Österreich and HE colleges unincorporated group volunteers librarians institutions.
based at University of
Innsbruck
UKB 1976 The Royal (National) Library + 13 Membership Operated by General meetings of Funded by members Standing committees
Dutch Library Netherlands univs organisation run by Royal Library members 6 times per year. and steering groups;
Consortium Royal Library staff + Executive Committee UKB operates by
volunteers from (Chair/Sec/Treasurer) consensus; no deals
members manages day-to-day. unless unanimous
member approval.
HeBIS 1998 Hessen, Fourteen HE institutions in Centralised Three staff from Steering Committee of all Admin funded by State Consultation via
Hessische Germany Hessen consortium with HQ State/Univ members meets twice a year Ministry; licences partly Steering Committee
Bibiotheks- at State/ Univ Library, Library and approves all licences or fully funded by
verbund Frankfurt Ministry
VIVA 1994 Virginia, 76 HE institutions: Collaborative venture Five staff Steering Committee of 15 Funded in two-year Resources for Users
Virtual Library USA 39 state univ/colleges + supported by State sets policy and makes final cycles: $10m from state Committee
of Virginia 33 independent univ/colleges Council of Higher decision on all acquisitions. government and $3m consults/identifies
+ state library & 3 research Educ’n (SCHEV). from member budgets resources for
institutes acquisition.
OhioLINK 1996 Ohio, USA 85 HE institutions: State Cooperative under Executive Governing Board of 13 from State funded Extensive
Ohio Library Library + 17 public univs + authority of Ohio Director + 16 members & Board of consultation with
& Information 23 community colls + 44 Board of Regents (a staff, including Regents, with Executive libraries before
Network private colleges State Body IT team Committee overseeing day- acquisitions/renewals
to-day operations approved
PALCI 1997 PA, NJ and 60 public and private Non-profit company Executive Board of Trustees of 8 Funded entirely by Extensive
Pennsylvania WV, USA universities and colleges Director members member libraries consultation; all
Academic decisions made
Library collegially.
Consortium
51
b. E-content licensing
Consortium Territory E-content Type of Licences negotiated: publishers
policy licence
IReL Republic Biotech.ICT; now Single licence AAAS (Science); American Chemical Society; American Institute of Physics; American Mathematical Society; American Medical
Irish of Ireland extended to for all seven Association; American Physical Society; American Society of Mechanical Engineers; Annual Reviews; Association for Computing
Research Humanities & universities; Machinery; Blackwell Publishing (STM Titles); BMJ Publishing Group; Brown University (Women Writers Online); CABI; Elsevier
electronic Social Sciences. institutes of (ScienceDirect, Compendex, Embase); Emerald; ESDU Engineering; GeoScienceWorld; HeinOnline; IET (IEL, Inspec); Institute of
Library Currently 2850 technology Physics Publishing; Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; Nature Publishing Group; Optical Society of America; Oxford University Press
journals licensed not included journals; Project MUSE; ProQuest (CSA, LiOn); Royal Society of Chemistry; SAGE Publications; Scientific American; Springer;
automatically Thomson Gale; Thomson Scientific (Web of Knowledge); Wiley InterScience; Zentralblatt für Mathematik
ABM Norway Access to core Single licence AAAS (Science); Association of Computing Machinery; ARKDOK & KONKDOK (Norwegian reference database); Atekst; Blackwell
Archive resources for for all Publishing; Cambridge University Press; Columbia University Press (CIAO); Economist Intelligence Unit; Elsevier (ScienceDirect);
Library & univs, research & members Emerald; Encyclopaedia Britannica; Institute of Physics Publishing; JSTOR; Nature Publishing Group; OCLC (netLibrary, FirstSearch
Museum public libraries ECO, ERIC, GPO, MEDLINE); Ordnett; Ovid; Oxford University Press (Grove Art/Music, OED, Oxford Reference); ProQuest (CSA,
Authority Safari); SAGE Publications; Springer; Store norske leksikon; Taylor & Francis; Thomson Scientific (Web of Science); World Bank
DEFF Denmark License research Some single AAAS (Science); Association of Computing Machinery; Alexander Street Press; American Academy of Pediatrics; American
Danish information, esp in national Association for Cancer Research; American Chemical Society, American Council of Learned Societies (e-books); American Institute
Electronic STM. Licences licences for all of Physics; American Physiological Society; American Psychological Association; American Society for Biochemistry & Microbiology;
Research from most major members; American Society for Cell Biology; American Society for Clinical Nutrition; American Society for Investigative Pathology; American
Library publishers for most are opt- Society for Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutics; American Society of Civil Engineers; American Society of Clinical Oncology;
journal & in American Society of Microbiology; Annual Reviews; BioOne; Blackwell Publishing; BMJ Publishing Group; Bonnier Business
reference Information; Brill; Cambridge University Press; Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press; Crossfire (Beilstein/Gmelin/Autonom); ebrary;
collection EBSCO Publishing; Elsevier (Cell, ScienceDirect); Emerald; Encyclopaedia Britannica; FASEB; Genetics Society of America; H W
Wilson; Histochemical Society; Hjælpemiddelinstituttet; InfoMedia; Institute of Physics Publishing; IOS Press; JSTOR; Keesing;
Kluwer Law; Lexis-Nexis; Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; Mary Ann Liebert; McGraw-Hill (Harrison, Access Science); Nature Publishing
Group; NRC Press; OECD; Oxford University Press (OED, DNB, Grove Art/Music, ORO, Scholarship Online); Palgrave Macmillan;
PNAS; Portland Press; Project MUSE; ProQuest (CSA etc); Rockefeller University Press; Royal Society of Chemistry; SAGE
Publications; Springer; Taylor & Francis; The Biophysical Society; Thieme; Thomson Scientific (BIOSIS, Derwent, Web of Science);
Walter de Gruyter; Wiley (Cochrane, Interscience) ; XreferPlus.
BIBSAM Sweden To negotiate Opt-in Affärsdata; American Chemical Society; Blackwell Publishing; Brill; Cambridge University Press; Elsevier (ScienceDirect); Emerald;
Royal Library national licences Encyclopaedia Britannica; Helsinki School of Economics: Helecon; Keesing´s Worldwide; Lantmäteriet; Mediearkivet;
of Sweden: for journals/e- Nationalencyklopedin; Nature Publishing Group; Oxford University Press; PressText; Project MUSE; ProQuest (inc CSA); SAGE
Dept. for books/databases; Publications; Springer; Thomson Scientific (Web of Knowledge). For expert libraries: Association of Computing Machinery;
National Co- to develop Expert Elsevier (EI Compendex, Inspec, Cell, Embase); IEEE Xplore; American Psychological Association; Columbia University Press
operation Libraries. (CIAO); Norstedts Juridiks Online; Thomson Fakta; BioMedCentral; BMJ Publishing Group; Mary Ann Liebert; Wiley (e-Books,
Current protocols, Journals)
FINELIB Finland To acquire Single licence AAAS, ABC-CLIO, ACS incl. SciFinder Scholar, Annual Reviews, ACM, Blackwell Publishing, ebrary, EBSCO Publishing, EDILEX,
National information for for all Elsevier, Emerald, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Helecon, IEEE/IET: IEL Online, JSTOR, Knovel, Nature Publishing Group, OECD, Ovid,
Electronic research, teaching members OUP: Grove Art/Music, OED, Oxford Reference Online, Project MUSE, ProQuest, incl CSA & Safari Books, SAGE Publications,
Library of and learning Springer, Thomson Gale, Thomson Scientific: ISI Web of Knowledge, Wiley Interscience
Finland
52
Consortium Territory E-content policy Type of Licences negotiated: publishers
licence
HVAR Iceland Licences to e- For all Iceland American Society of Chemical Engineers; American Society of Mechanical Engineers; Blackwell Publishing; EBSCO Publishing;
Iceland journals & libraries and Elsevier (ScienceDirect, EI, Compendex); Encyclopaedia Britannica; Karger; Mbi.is; Ovid; Oxford U P (Grove Art/Music); ProQuest;
National reference for entire residents SAGE Publications; Springer; Thomson Scientific (Web of Science); Timarit.is
Consortium population
Konsortium Austria To collectively Opt-in American Chemical Society; American Mathematical Society; Blackwell Publishing; EBSCO Publishing; Elsevier (ScienceDirect,
in Österreich negotiate Scopus, Compendex); European Mathematical Society (Zentralblatt für Mathematik); IEEE; Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; Nature
discounted pricing Publishing Group; Ovid (INSPEC, BIOSIS); ProQuest (CSA); Springer; Thieme; Thomson Scientific (Web of Knowledge); Wiley
InterScience; Walter de Gruyter (e-books)
UKB The To negotiate joint For all member ABC Clio; American Chemical Society (CAS); American Mathematical Society; American Psychological Association; Annual
Dutch Library Netherlands licences to content libraries Reviews; Blackwell Publishing; Elsevier (ScienceDirect); Emerald; JSTOR; Karger; LexisNexis; Ovid; ProQuest; Springer;
Consortium at best prices Thomson Scientific(Web of Science); Wiley Interscience
HeBIS Hessen, Collectively to Some for all AAAS (Science); American Chemical Society; American Institute of Physics; American Mathematical Society; Annual Reviews;
Hessische Germany negotiate licences members; other Association for Computing Machinery; Beck (beck-online); Beuth: Perinorm bib. Database); Blackwell Publishing; Brepols;
Bibiotheks- to core journals & opt-in Columbia University Press (CIAO); DIPF (FIS Bildung); EBSCO Publishing; Elsevier (ScienceDirect, MDL-Crossfire Beilstein); FIZ
verbund databases Karlsruhe (STN); FIZ Technik (RSWB, TEMA); Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ.-Biblio.Net); GBI-Genios; Hogrefe & Huber;
Institute of Physics Publishing; IWF Wissen und Medien GmbH; juris GmbH; Karger; Klostermann (BDSL); LexisNexis; Lippincott
Williams & Wilkins; Munzinger (reference works); Nature Publishing Group; Ovid: LWW, SilverPlatter); Oxford University Press
(OED, Journals, ORO); Project Muse; Prometheus (paintings); ProQuest (CSA, Deutsche Literatur); Royal Society of Chemistry;
Saur Verlag; Semantics (BLLDB); SIAM; Springer; Thieme; Thomson Scientific (Web of Science); Wiley InterScience
VIVA Virginia, Equitable access Central licence AAAS (Science); ABC Clio; Association for Computing Machinery; American Chemical Society; American Mathematical Society;
Virtual Library USA across all VA HE for all Annual Reviews; BioOne; Blackwell Publishing; Encyclopaedia Britannica; Cambridge University Press; Duke University Press;
of Virginia institutions, with institutions in EBSCO Publishing; Factiva; Institute of Physics Publishing; LexisNexis; Nature Publishing Group; Ovid; Oxford University Press
beneficial pricing VA (OED, ORO, journals); Project Muse; ProQuest (inc CSA); STAT-USA; Thomson Gale
OhioLINK Ohio, USA Comprehensive Central licence AAAS (Science); ABC Clio; Associated Press (AccuNet Archive); Association for Computing Machinery; Adis International;
Ohio Library & acquisitions for all Ohio HE American Chemical Society; American Mathematical Society; Bartleby.com; American Institute of Physics; American Physical
Information strategy: 6,900 member Society; American Psychological Association; ATLA; Berkeley Electronic Press; BioOne ; Blackwell Publishing; Brill; British
Network journals, 19,000 e- institutions Psychological Society; Cambridge University Press; CABI; EBSCO Publishing; Elsevier(ScienceDirect, Compendex); Emerald;
books including Encyclopaedia Britannica; ERIC; Funk & Wagnalls; GeoRef; HarpWeek; IET/IEEE: INSPEC; Institute of Physics Publishing;
reference, theses LANDSAT 7 Satellite Images; LearningExpress Library; LexisNexis; McGraw-Hill (AccessScience); MEDLINE; Mergent; Multi-
database Science Publishing; Naxos Music Library; NewsBank; OCLC (FirstSearch, netLibrary, RLG); Optical Society of America; Oxford
University Press ( ANB, OED, ORO, journals); Project MUSE; ProQuest (inc Chadwyck Healey, SIRS, Safari, CSA); Rodopi; Royal
Society of Chemistry; Royal Society of Medicine Press; SAGE Publications; Sanborn Digital Maps; Springer; Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy; STAT-USA ; Taylor & Francis (Erlbaum); The Royal Society; Thieme; Thomson Scientific (ISI, Biosis);
Transaction Publishers; Urban & Fischer; Wiley
PALCI PA, NJ and Seeks discounts to Opt-in. Limited ABC Clio; American Chemical Society; American Mathematical Society; Annual Reviews; Association for Computing Machinery;
Pennsylvania WV, USA journals, e-books, take-up on BioOne; CQ Press; ebrary; EBSCO Publishing ("The Nation" Archive); Ethnic Newswatch Backfiles; IEEE; ProQuest (inc CSA);
Academic & databases many products Thomson Gale; STAT-USA; Wiley Interscience
Library
Consortium
53
