OCUL, Scholars Portal and e-resources

1. OCUL, Scholars Portal and e-resources Kathy Scardellato OCUL Executive Director kathy.scardellato@ocul.on.ca

2. Outline • About OCUL: structure, governance, goals, budgets • About Scholars Portal: what it is, projects • How do we do this; successes and challenges • Digital content purchasing • E-Books Project • OCUL Future Plans

3. Algoma University Brock University Carleton University Guelph, University of Lakehead University Laurentian University McMaster University Nipissing University Ontario College of Art & Design Ontario Institute of Technology, University of 925 15,053 20,540 19,379 7,172 8,556 22,798 5,211 2,886 2,880 FTE (students, faculty, staff): c. 383,000

4. Ottawa, University of Queen’s University Royal Military College Ryerson University Toronto, University of Trent University Waterloo, University of Western Ontario, University of Wilfrid Laurier University Windsor, University of York University 29,986 19,743 1,941 23,596 64,831 7,474 24,102 32,743 12,907 15,215 44,918 FTE (students, faculty, staff): c. 383,000

5. OCUL Governance • Established in 1967 • The member libraries cooperate to enhance information services through resource sharing, collective purchasing, document delivery and many other similar activities. • Council of Ontario Universities (COU) affiliate

7. Active Working Groups and Ad Hoc Committees • OCUL-IR (Information Resources) • Map Group • OCUL Data Group (DINO) • Consortium of Ontario Academic Health Libraries (COAHL) • Groups for current projects: ODESI, E-books implementation

8. OCUL Vision To be a recognized leader in provincial, national and international post-secondary communities for the collaborative development & delivery of outstanding and innovative library services that are critical to the success of Ontario’s universities

9. OCUL Goals • Effective practices and strategies for advocacy, collaboration, and organizational development • A robust, sustainable and innovative access and delivery service • Comprehensive and integrated digital collections

10. Ontario university libraries’ spend in FY 2006-07:

11. Digital v. Print in 2006-07 Estimated Spend on Digital in 07-08 is 60%

12. Budget • $2.9 M / year for OCUL and Scholars Portal • $1.5 M over 3 years for 2 projects • OCUL manages about $11M / year for consortial purchases of digital resources • OCUL members also spend about $39M / year through CRKN consortial purchases

13. Scholars Portal is… • A suite of information resources and services on a shared infrastructure • Resources seamlessly integrate with the library and campus information systems • Acquired and managed centrally by our consortium • An infrastructure that truly supports archiving for perpetuity • Co-operative decision making

14. Scholars Portal is… • Scholars Portal Search • About 190M searchable citations • About 11.5M searches /year • E-Journals • About 13.5M full-text articles • About 4.2M downloads/year

15. 3. RefWorks – 65 sites 16 21 2 26

16. 4. RACER – ILL / document delivery • Common system for all Ontario universities • Active user accounts registered for use is over 300,000 • Searches 41 library catalogues • More than 250,000 requests in 2007 • 14 schools use auto-mediation

17. Also, behind the scenes… • SFX (url resolver) is managed centrally so that our members do not have to manage it locally • Shibboleth (Authentication) implementation • Verde (Electronic Resource Management) • Ozone – D-Space institutional repository /archive for learning objects, Ontario gov’t documents, DLI training materials

18. Scholars Portal projects… • ODESI • social sciences datasets in one central repository system (StatsCan, Gallup, IPSOS-Reid) • best practices and standards for data mark up and management • accessible to OCUL member institutions • NOW IN USE in 2008/09 academic year

19. Scholars Portal projects… • E-Books • Software platform and storage implementation • Consortial purchases of c. 50,000 commercial e-books • Open Content Alliance Internet Archive Canadian Collection (150,000+ digitized books) • IN DEVELOPMENT 2008/09 academic year

20. Scholars Portal projects… • New generation e-journals management system (Mark Logic) • Data loaders development - DONE • User interface development – UNDERWAY • IN DEVELOPMENT 2008/09 academic year

21. OCUL project… • Internet Archive digitization for Ontario government documents • Getting underway this fall • Space savings • Improved access • Collection management savings • Agreement to retain last print copies of journals

22. What makes us different? We control our destiny! • Majority of resources are centrally loaded and archived (negotiated with vendors) • A serious commitment to archiving of e-journals that no jurisdiction anywhere in the world can match • Single search engine can be used to search all resources • Services are supported and managed centrally

23. Advantages • Access to the high quality of IT management, equally available to all OCUL  schools regardless of size and local staffing • Share a great negotiator in our Projects Officer • Each school has input into decisions regarding purchases and is able to ‘opt out’

24. What does it mean to our users? Scholars Portal provides a single point of entry into an integrated and inter-connecting environment of high quality scholarly resources and sophisticated user focused services that enables: • rapid access to resources, services and tools • long term stewardship and archiving

25. Challenges • Difficult to find software that can manage our archive because of its size • Find out what our users want - MINES survey methodology used to get feedback • All publishers don’t ship their metadata in the same format • Consortial buying isn’t always easy • Being on the bleeding edge is not comfortable

26. It’s not perfect

27. Decision-making • Committees, task groups, ad hoc committees • Organization, re-organization • Discussion, education, think and re-think • Mostly done by a combination of volunteers (or voluntolds) and central staff

28. E-resources / digital content • Libraries need to re-gain control for purchasing, collection management, access and delivery • Challenges for researchers

30. How we buy: a few details • OCUL negotiates when its members ask it to do so • Rule of thumb: 3 or more members for a consortial deal • When publishers approach OCUL, we send them back to the members to make their pitch • Small OCUL committees evaluate offers

31. How we buy: a few details • When possible, we buy for all of OCUL and apply our own formula for cost share (rare) • We share similar values, problems and structures with other Canadian consortia and this is really helpful for working out deals together • Largest libraries have been the “anchor” schools for the big deals

32. Great successes? • So much to do with timing – great opportunities in the past • Members make provisions in their own individual contracts to convert to an OCUL license in the reasonably near future • Member-run organization – the members make the decisions • Opportunities to let your feelings be heard

33. Great successes? • Try to work with the publishing industry, not to be at odds with them • Look for innovative ways for both sides to succeed • Prefer multi-year contracts because license negotiations take a long time • Try to ensure caps on future years • Try to find ways to include as many members as possible

34. Product payments Each is different: • Tiers • Flat rates for all • Single price and cost formula • FTE-based • Unlimited and simultaneous users

35. Savings? • List price vs real price (we do our research first) • The real price is what is agreed • Typically, we see 5-10% but sometimes much more (up to 30%) • Costs to do this: Full-time negotiator + .3 FTE clerk + COU accounts payable & receivable

36. Pro’s and con’s • 21 bright, experienced people who bring their insight to the table • We have more expertise than the vendors • People volunteer for negotiations • TRUST amongst the group cannot be over-valued. We work on this all the time. _______________________________________ • BUT, the lapse time is slower than doing this individually at each school (communications, decision-making)

37. E-books Project Goals Libraries have been buying e-books as one-off’s and from some aggregators • Need to acquire a critical mass and bring the prices in line by doing this together • Wanted a common user interface and back-end system • Wanted to load locally in our repository

38. E-books Project Challenges • MARC records for local catalogues are a challenge still – availability, quality, loading • Have to plan for persistence – always able to locate the book when you link to it • Local budgets for e-books vary because of size and make it difficult to get good deals for all members • Developing our own user interface on Scholars Portal

39. E-Book Project: how we succeed • Try hard to find solutions • Acknowledge that we can’t get everyone into all agreements • Work with other consortia

40. OCUL Future Plans • Expand ODESI to include other kinds of data • Support researchers by providing various tools to help them to collaborate and use library resources • Consortial purchasing for print materials – pilot

41. Thanks kathy.scardellato@ocul.on.ca