ICOLC Briefing: Some European Initiatives on E-Books and Journals

1. ICOLC Briefing: Some European Initiatives on E-Books and Journals Alicia Wise Head of Development Joint Information Systems Committee

2. Contributors • Claudine Dervou, Greece • Louise Edwards, UK • Fred Friend, UK • Tommaso Giordano, Italy • Kristiina Hormia, Finland • Alison McNab, UK • Bo Ohrstrom, Denmark • Hans Roosendal, Netherlands • Kari Stange, Sweden • Hazel Woodward, UK

3. E-Books, 1 • Very little market penetration in any country. A few isolated universities have done deals in most northern European countries. One regional consortium in the UK has done a deal with Knovel. One Swedish library has done a deal with ebrary (only known ebrary deal in Europe). • UK is perceived as leading in this area. • Very active working group published a discussion document last year (http://www.jisc.ac.uk/dner/ebooks/strategy1.html) • Steered clear of early deals with aggregators (reasons = lack of UK content, chaotic international marketing) and initiated discussions direct with content owners. • A number of key publishers are now developing quality e-book services. Publishers with whom we are establishing relationships include Oxford University Press, McGraw-Hill, Palgrave, Taylor & Francis and Wiley.

4. E-Books, 2 • Have signed a perpetual national purchase agreement for Early English Books Online and a three-year deal for Wiley Reference Works (which offers institutions the flexibility to pick and mix from a range of online reference products) • Current negotiation priorities are: • Acquiring a core electronic reference collection. Negotiations are taking place with Oxford University Press, Xrefer.com, Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Palgrave. • Acquiring a collection of monographs and textbooks from leading UK publishers. Most-requested publishers = Open University Press, Palgrave, OUP, CUP, Penguin, Pearson Education, Sage, Blackwell, Kogan Page, Harcourt and McGraw-Hill. We are in the final stages of negotiation with Oxford University Press, Taylor & Francis, Wiley and McGraw-Hill. McGraw-Hill will provide key textbooks for electronic reserve collections. Contacts have also been established with Pearson and Blackwell. The Group is keen to support small presses with e-book projects. One of these is Pluto Press and we are undertaking a market research exercise with them.

5. E-Books, 3 • Need to establish the favoured means of access to e-book content, including the use of library online catalogues (OPACs), a front-end developed by a commercial provider and/or one developed by JISC. •  Our (current) preferred business models are: •  Reference works, handbooks and manuals on an annual subscription, unlimited access basis • Monograph services segmented by subject • Subscription models for monographs, ranging from annual contracts to fully flexible choice of time blocks (for example, two days, one week, one month, 90 days, one year) • Textbook pricing based on a combination of user accesses and time. For example, an institution may buy a certain number of user licences (e.g. based on the number of students on a course) for a block of time (e.g. one week).

6. E-Books, 4 • On-going market research. A pilot focus group held in early April suggests: • Key challenges in managing print book collections are access to material by users, costs, stock maintenance and administrative tasks, concerns over the quality of stock and exploitation of book material. • In adopting e-books perceived benefits include wider access (esp. for distance learners), the elimination of routine maintenance, improved quality and currency of stock. • Librarians rank heavy demand items, particularly core texts, as highest in their priorities for e-books. Reference material and specific subjects, particularly those where material dates quickly, were also identified.

7. Journals, 1 • Relatively quiet at the minute in terms of new costing models: • Efforts by publishers to set up consortia of smaller publishers to effectively market to consortia of libraries. Spear-headed by ALPSP and ingenta (working competitively rather than cooperatively?) • eIFL phase 2 negotiations with ACS, Blackwells, CUP, Highwire, IOP, Proquest • UK has done what we believe to be the first-ever consortial deal for Taylor & Francis journals • 2 year pilot agreement • based on a "self selection" model that enables libraries to acquire online titles of their choice at a flat fee of £100 per title (minimum order of 10 titles, extra discount of £25 if 100 or more titles taken) • available to institutions that have retained their current print spend with Taylor and Francis for 2002, with a 3% allowance for cancellations • access to backfiles from 1996 where available • usage statistics will be reviewed during 2002/03 to establish renewal model

8. Journals, 2 • Some ‘alternative’ models currently being explore in the UK • National license (top-sliced) • Academic • Cross-sectoral • Free access to articles via websites (e-prints) • National • Institutional • Discipline-specific • Pay as you go • Document delivery intermediaries • Publishers • Specific content selection (pay in advance) • Unlimited access to individual articles for a defined period (e.g. elec. short loan) • Moving the distribution model closer to the producer • Payment by author (personal or institutional)

9. Journals, 3 • Strategic approaches to the scholarly communication crisis • E-print and Open Archives initiatives are thriving • SPARC Europe • UK development programmes FAIR and X4L • Dutch and German rector-led initiative to develop EU-wide development programme • Budapest Open Access Initiative - the literature that should be freely accessible online is "that which scholars give to the world without expectation ofpayment.“ • Experimenting with new forms of document delivery models (e.g. electronic ILL) • Digital Preservation • Legal Deposit: currently voluntary, but moving toward new legislation • Digital Preservation Coalition • UK-wide • Partners include British Library, CURL, JISC, National Libraries of Scotland and Wales, Public Records Office, OCLC, publisher organisations, RLG.