JISC Collections staff have spent the last week speaking to e-book publishers and aggregators about the four PDA models that David Kay outlined in his post on 8^th January 2013 (below). We were hoping to find out the view from their side about PDA and working with consortia, and to learn some of the realities of how such a set-up could operate, in order to build this into the guidelines for institutions that the EBASS25 project will provide.

We spoke to small, specialist publishers such as Woodhouse; as well as larger players such as Elsevier and Taylor & Francis. On the aggregator side we spoke to Ebrary and 123Doc. All-in-all we spoke to nine different companies, giving us a representative cross-section of the academic e-book marketplace.

We asked them which of the models they found most appealing, and for details of any  PDA models they already use. We also wanted to know how they would handle the day-to-day practicalities of a consortium agreement (in terms of managing orders, invoicing and providing usage statistics, for example.)

All had interesting things to say about the four models, and about their view of e-books in general, and all were happy to help with our research.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Evidence-Based Selection proved popular with the publishers, as it would be relatively straightforward to implement, and guarantees them some upfront payment. Although some pointed to the comparative fairness of the PDA models (in that libraries are paying only for content that is actually being used), there was a general feeling that the mechanics involve a fair amount of work on the publisher’s or aggregator’s part, with no guarantee of return. It was also felt that these models can potentially provide a great deal of content for free before payment triggers are reached, and that some degree of mediation by the library is necessary to control acquisition and spending. Although the EBS model was so popular, it was interesting to learn that only two of the organisations we spoke to currently offer it.

The potential threat posed by e-books to print sales is still a commonly expressed concern, and any consortial agreement that involves shared copies is seen to magnify this. There is also the question of how a single copy shared between several institutions affects the royalty payment paid to authors: not a problem that might occur to  those on the library side perhaps, but clearly a real issue to publishers that can contribute to a general wariness surrounding this sort of agreement.

It should be said, however, that although their opinions varied quite considerably, one thing all our interviewees shared was an enthusiasm for the project, and a willingness to work with institutions in order to be part of any agreements that may come of it.

The companies we interviewed were:

• 123Doc
• Cambridge University Press
• Cengage Learning
• Ebrary
• Elsevier
• Hodder Education
• Palgrave
• Taylor & Francis
• Woodhouse

Full details of all their responses will be published in our final report.

Ben Taplin – Licensing Manager, JISC Collections

The Oxford English Dictionary describes an expert as ‘someone who is very knowledgeable about or skilful in a particular area’. The structure of the E-BASS25 project is dependent on experts for its success. This is clearly stated within the application made to JISC. ‘Within an M25 Consortium project management framework, work will be carried out by a designated lead expert…and by other associate experts…leading specific workpackages’.

Experts, like talented footballers, are much in demand. Their expertise is well known in the community and their involvement in projects such as those funded by JISC can enhance reputations and broaden visibility.

In The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde penned the following well know sentence. “To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”  Well, we at E-BASS25 have ‘lost’ three of our experts since the project began in August 2012. We are delighted for the individuals concerned: Anna Grigson moving from Royal Holloway to the post of Head of Collection Services Group at LSE Library; Anna Vernon from JISC Collections to become Licensing and Copyright Assurance Manager at the British Library and Rupert Williams soon to move from the Science Museum to take up a new post as Head of Library Services at UCL’s new international branch campus in Doha, Qatar.

There is no transfer window or deadline. We are in an open market. The window, already closing as the cold spell snaps, is the project deadline date, kindly extended until the end of February by JISC. Fortunately, the migrating experts have delivered much to the project and we have been able to act quickly with our partners to recruit new expertise.

There is no doubt that qualities of agility and flexibility are vital skills for project managers to have. They, their project teams and funders have to move quickly to fill gaps, reprioritise and provide cover. The rewarding thing is that in the library and information community, there is not only strength in depth and lots of expertise; there is also an almost innate willingness to adapt and engage with interesting projects such as E-BASS25.

Looking back at the E-BASS25 risk register, I see the following entry which has some relevance to the issue described above and where probability and severity are marked as low.

A lesson to learn for a short-term project is not to underestimate the attraction of rare birds of passage and be alert to this risk.

John Tuck – 24th January 2013

The following draft document is intended to outline the most prominent models available for patron-driven acquisition of e-books within a consortium of libraries.  This document is very much in draft format and we welcome comments from all interested parties.

 Models

1. 1.    PDA Purchase

• The library sets up a PDA agreement with a supplier to make a range of e-books available to users

Typically, libraries create a profile based on a set of parameters (such as subject, date of publication, publisher, price, language, readership level etc.), and the suppliers makes all e-books matching these criteria available to users. Alternatively, library staff may select a publisher’s collection, or a list of individual titles.

• Once the titles have been selected, the library makes the content visible and discoverable to users.

Libraries may import MARC records into the catalogue and/or by activate resources in the link resolver so that they are visible in the library’s discovery system. Typically the e-books are presented in the catalogue in the same way as pre-purchased or subscribed e-books, so to the user they simply appear to be part of the library collection, even though the library has not purchased them

• Users have full access to the e-books. Limited usage is allowed without charge, but if usage of a particular book passes a threshold level, a payment is triggered and the book is automatically purchased by the library.

Different suppliers may use different criteria and set different levels to define the purchase threshold. Typically, there are two elements which determine the threshold:

• The extent of use which counts as a ‘significant use’. Typically, viewing a book for just a few minutes or viewing a small number of pages does not counts as a significant use and does not trigger payment. Viewing for more than few minutes, or any downloading or printing from the book is counted as a significant use.
• The number of significant uses before purchase is triggered. Typically, the first significant use is free, but a second significant use triggers a purchase.

So for example:

• User 1 views two pages of a book. This does not count as a significant use.
• User 2 views the book for ten minutes, and prints two pages. This does count as a significant use, but at this stage no payment is triggered.
• User 3 views the book for one minute. This does not count as a significant use.
• User 4 downloads a chapter of the book. This counts as a second significant use, and at this point the book is automatically purchased and payment is made by the library.
• Once purchased, the e-book becomes permanently available to all library users, typically with the same limits on the maximum number of users / uses that would apply if the book were purchased under a traditional model.
• If the library decides to end the PDA agreement, access to any books which have not been purchased is withdrawn, and the library removes records for these books from the catalogue.

In this model, the library typically has control over a limited number of the settings.

• The library may decide whether or not to require the user to ‘click to continue reading’ beyond the significant use threshold, alerting them that the book will be purchased and a charge incurred by the library.
• The library may be able to limit the maximum significant use per user per day.

The library does not normally control the number of significant uses which triggers a purchase, which is set by the supplier.

Examples

• Arizona University Libraries (closed consortium)
• Ontario Council of University libraries (2010 pilot, closed consortium)
• CTW Library Consortium, Connecticut (2010 pilot, closed consortium)

2.    PDA Rental (or PDA short-term-loan)

• The library sets up a PDA agreement with a supplier to make a range of e-books available to users

Typically, libraries create a profile based on a set of parameters (such as subject, date of publication, publisher, price, language, readership level etc.), and the suppliers makes all e-books matching these criteria available to users. Alternatively, library staff may select a publisher’s collection, or a list of individual titles.

• Once the titles have been selected, the library makes the content visible and discoverable to users.

Libraries may import MARC records into the catalogue and/or by activate resources in the link resolver so that they are visible in the library’s discovery system. Typically the e-books are presented in the catalogue in the same way as pre-purchased or subscribed e-books, so to the user they simply appear to be part of the library collection, even though the library has not purchased them

• Users have full access to the e-books. Limited usage is allowed without charge, provided that it falls below the threshold of ‘significant use’.

Different suppliers may use different criteria and set different levels to define ‘significant use’. Typically, viewing a book for just a few minutes or viewing a small number of pages does not count as a significant use. Viewing for more than few minutes, or any downloading or printing from the book is counted as a significant use and triggers a payment.

•  If a user continues to use a book beyond the threshold of ‘significant use’, a rental or short-term loan is triggered:
  • The book is temporarily ‘loaned’ to the user, and for the duration of the loan period that user can make full use of it without triggering any further fees.
  • The library pays a fee for the loan, typically a percentage of the full list price
  • The fee depends on the duration of the short-term loan. For example, if the user has access to the e-book for just one day, the library pays 10% of the list price, but if the user gets access for seven days, the library may pay 25% of the list price.
• Further significant use triggers further loans and payments. So if a book is used a second time, or by a second user, a second short-term loan is triggered and a second fee is payable.
• After a given number of loans, the next significant use triggers an automatic purchase and the library pays the full list price of the book.

Once purchased, the book becomes part of the library’s collection and is permanently available to all library users, typically with the same limits on the maximum number of users / uses that would apply if the book were purchased under a traditional model.

• If the library decides to end the PDA agreement, access to any books which have not been purchased is withdrawn, and the library removes records for these books from the catalogue.

In this model, the library typically has control over several of the settings.

• The library may decide whether or not to require the user to ‘click to continue reading’ beyond the significant use threshold, alerting them that a short-term loan or purchase will be triggered and a charge incurred by the library.
• The library may decide whether or not to require approval (mediation) from a librarian before the user is able to continue reading beyond the significant use threshold. Depending on the model, it may be possible to apply mediation to all requests that trigger a payment, or only to use that triggers a purchase, or only to use that triggers a payment over a certain amount.
• The library may be able to limit the maximum significant use per user per day, for example by limiting the number of short-term loans per user.
• The duration of the short-term loan can be chosen by the library, from a range of options, giving the library some control over the size of the fee payable for each short-term loan.
• The number of loans made before a purchase is triggered can be chosen by the library, giving the library some control over the point at which usage is considered sufficient to warrant purchase of the e-book.

Examples

• Orbis Cascade (2010 pilot now regular service, closed consortium)
• Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries (2010 pilot, closed consortium)
• Western New York Library Resources Council (2012), Boston Library Consortium (2012)
• No known UK consortial examples

3.    PDA Usage

• The library sets up a PDA agreement with a supplier to make a range of e-books available to users

Typically, libraries create a profile based on a set of parameters (such as subject, date of publication, publisher, price, language, readership level etc.), and the suppliers makes all e-books matching these criteria available to users. Alternatively, library staff may select a publisher’s collection, or a list of individual titles.

• Once the titles have been selected, the library makes the content visible and discoverable to users.

Libraries may import MARC records into the catalogue and/or by activate resources in the link resolver so that they are visible in the library’s discovery system. Typically the e-books are presented in the catalogue in the same way as pre-purchased or subscribed e-books, so to the user they simply appear to be part of the library collection, even though the library has not purchased them

• Users have full access to the e-books. Each significant use of a book triggers a charge to the library.

Different suppliers may use different criteria and set different levels to define ‘significant use’. In some models, viewing a book for a few minutes may be free, but viewing for more than few minutes, or any downloading or printing may be counted as a significant use and trigger a payment, for example 10% of the list price. In some models, any use may trigger a micro-payment, for example a cost per page viewed.

• If the total charges payable for the book reach a given level, then the book is deemed purchased and becomes a permanent part of the library’s collection.

In some models, the purchase threshold may be the same as the list price of the book, but in other models it may be greater than the list price.

• If the library decides to end the PDA agreement, access to any books which have not been purchased is withdrawn, and the library removes records for these books from the catalogue.

The library may have the option to pay an extra fee to purchase books which have seen high usage but have not quite reached the purchase threshold.

Examples

• JISC e-books for FE (closed consortium)
• JISC Collections 123 e-books deal (open consortium offer)
• York / Springer (non-consortial)
• No known US examples

1. 4.      Evidence-Based Selection

• The library sets up a PDA agreement with a publisher to make a range of e-books available to users for a defined period.

This model is currently only available directly from publishers. Typically, libraries select one or more of the publishers’ collections to be made available for a year.

• The library pays a fee upfront.

The fee is typically greater than the cost of subscribing to the collection, but less than the cost of purchasing the collection. This fee will eventually be used to purchase books, but no titles are selected at this stage.

• The library makes the content visible and discoverable to users.

Libraries may import MARC records into the catalogue and/or by activate resources in the link resolver so that they are visible in the library’s discovery system. Typically the e-books are presented in the catalogue in the same way as pre-purchased or subscribed e-books, so to the user they simply appear to be part of the library collection, even though the library has not purchased them

• Users have full access to the e-books. Any usage during the year is recorded.
• At the end of the year, librarians review the ‘evidence’ of usage statistics and select the books they wish to own as part of the library’s collection. The library can select titles up to the value of the fee originally paid at the start of the year, and each title is typically charged at list price.
• If the library decides not to continue with the agreement, access to books not purchased is withdrawn and the records removed from the library catalogue.
• Alternatively, if the library decides to continue with the agreement, another fee is paid and users continue to have access to the full range of books for a further year. At the end of the second year, a second batch of books may be selected for purchase, and so on.

Examples

• No known consortial examples (yet)
• Royal Holloway (2012, non-consortial)
• Open University (2010?) and others in UK

David Kay, Sero Consulting