Consortial Purchasing

1. Consortial Purchasing One model out of many …. Diane Costello

2. Overview • CAUL/CEIRC • CEIRC administrative model • Some principles

3. Why form a Consortium? • Reduce costs - Discount for volume • Increase access - To all titles owned by the consortium; to publisher’s list; to aggregator’s packages • Reduce work • Information gathering • Trial coordination • Licence negotiation • Price negotiation

4. Principles • Better price and/or conditions than possible as a single institution • Entry level which allows the largest number to participate • Advantages for larger institutions • Information gathering -> web site • Simplify administration

5. … and the Publishers? • Single point for wide distribution of information • Single point of contact for negotiations • Single invoice … but • Maintain (or increase) bottom line

6. CAUL • 38 AVCC member libraries; • 1965 - Committee formed; • 1992 - name change to “Council”; • 1995 - full-time executive officer, office staff now 2fte • Secretariat, Committee support, Cooperative activities (Statistics, ULA, Performance Indicators, CISC), Liaison/Representation, Current awareness, Web site, CEIRC program.

7. CEIRC (CAUL Electronic Information Resources Committee) • NPRF funds $2m 1993-1996 for datasets • “Trials” of ISI Current Contents, Academic Press IDEAL, IAC Expanded Academic ASAP, etc • Evolved into consortial purchasing • Committee recommends policy to CAUL • CAUL Office handles day-to-day • Now includes CSIRO, CONZUL (38+25 total) • CEIRC Levy

8. CEIRC (2) • Guidelines for external participants • Guidelines for licences - no strict model • Checklist for “negotiations”but • No preferred pricing model • No minimum participation • No schedule of negotiations

9. CAUL Office • Instigation via member, publisher or office • Distribution of information re product, licence, price & trial via email list • Negotiation/liaison re price & conditions • Maintenance of details on web site http://www.caul.edu.au/datasets/ • Participation list, IP addresses, contacts • Invoicing & payments

10. Decision-Making • Self-selected consortium vs National Site Licence • “Buying club” • National Site Licence - an ideal which requires either • top-sliced or additional funding or • internal agreement about what is wanted and how much the individual institutions are prepared to pay for it

11. Decision-Making (2) • Changing environment --> Changing decision-making processes • Each product assessed independently • Licence conditions • Overlap between products • Choice of interfaces • Datasets Coordinator - coordinates communication & decision by given date!

12. Cost-Sharing • Determined by publisher & passed on to group eg • Subscription history (current spend) • Percentage discount by volume • # Institutions • # Databases • # Titles • EFTSU / FTE - all or discipline-specific • Carnegie Classification

13. Cost-Sharing (2) • Determined within Consortium eg • Equal share • FTE-based • Usage-based • Resources budget, or • … a combination of the above eg 50% equal share (entry level) + 50% FTE-based • … or what it is worth to the institution eg NAAL (Alabama)

14. Cost-Sharing (3) • Gaining consensus • Current Contents - 50% fixed + 4 tiers based on FTE (+ choice of interface) • MathSciNet - Costs of current subscribers reducing with added subscribers • ProQuest5000 - Minimum entry cost per institution + Minimum total cost

15. CAUL Agreements 1996- • 55 agreements, 36 full-text, 4 factual databases, the rest bibliographic • Half commenced in 2000 or later • burgeoning of available electronic products • increasing willingness of publishers to deal with consortia • Billing handled centrally (28) • local office or agent • Average number of participants 20 • Highest number 40 (ProQuest5000, PsycINFO)

16. Issues • Publishers • Site definition (16 Oz single-campus univ) • Bundling print with online (mainly UK) • Maintaining bottom line • Premium for electronic and/or enhanced product eg WoS • Access to “purchased” data & archiving

17. Issues (2) • Members • Variation in size / wealth / research emphasis / discipline base • Cost-sharing parameters • Competition • “Subsidy” of less well-resourced institutions • Relative gain, rather than the NAAL ideal • Agreement on priorities

18. Issues (3) • For the new consortium: • content - find a product that many own/want • coordinate - volunteer, employee • contribute - to the cost of running the group • confide - know your starting point by sharing information about current expenditure • communicate - web, lists

19. Issues (4) • (The New Consortium - cont.) • knowledge about your group members - • physical sites • # staff (professional & total) • access mechanism eg IP addresses, intranet requirements • government/department legal/purchasing requirements • consider - whether an agent can assist, act as a broker eg DA, EBSCO, Swets etc

20. Pause .... • Very similar deals being done by a wide variety of consortia internationally • Value in sharing information • Value in clubbing together in discipline-based groups • Value in a group facilitator • not distracted by “regular job” • knowledge base

21. Pitfalls …. • Setting unachievable deadlines • rolling start-dates possible • Creating unnecessary legal obstacles • with the publisher or with each other • Shift in cost centres - from personal & laboratory subscriptions to Library • Unsustainability - the “big deal” leaves little room for flexibility

22. … and progress • Cheaper than list prices • Access to more titles • Shift in licence conditions eg ILL, course packs, single institution vs multi-site etc • Unbundling of print from electronic • More trust --> Simpler licences