The changing nature of subscription agents...
and the (dreaded) GST!

Jay Glaisyer, director, Swets Blackwell Australia, 10 July 2000

Agenda

• What's going on out there?
• Electronic Journals
• EJ Pricing Models & Trends
• EJ Licensing
• Growth in Consortia
• SwetsNet v2.5 and SwetsNetNavigator
• Some 'Predictions' For the Future...and GST

What's going on out there?

• Publishers and publishing
• Libraries
• Subscription Agents
• Other intermediaries

Publishers and publishing

• Mergers and consolidation
• Evolving pricing models
• Discounts to agents continue to decline
• Publishers talking directly with our customers

CrossRef - What is it?

• Publishers' linking agreement
• 22 publishers, 3 million articles
• Director now appointed. Foundation set up
• Uses DOIs
• Threat to SwetsNet/EJN?
• Opportunities? Rights management?

E-print servers

• Scholars 'doing it themselves'
• PubMed Central, e-BioSci, Ginsparg, Growing. Plans to link Open Archives
• Free software
• Shift from conventional publishing? Government support
• Threat? Opportunity?
• SwetsNet/EJN (and other agents' services)
• Wiley, Elsevier, ACS, IoPP and some others still reluctant
• Most publishers see benefits
• Routes to fulltext by users

Libraries

• Budgets not improving. Pricing key issue
• More power to non-library purchasers
• Unhappy with major commercial publishers
• Concern about publishers' licenses and prices for e-journals

Growth of consortia

• ICOLC
• Some negotiating/dealing direct
• Many seeking our help.
• What to charge?
• Negotiate or mediate? Our relationship with publishers
• Pressure on our margins

National and regional site licensing

• UK National Electronic Site Licensing Initiative
• Canadian National Site Licensing Project
• Others eg California State, Illinois Digital Libraries, Denmark
• CAUL/CONZUL

SPARC

• 170 members worldwide
• A reaction from the library community
• Unhappy with commercial journal prices
• Low priced journal alternatives
• Seeking 'faculty' support - "Create and change"
• Impact?
• Corporate libraries seeking global agreements for electronic products
• negotiating with publishers on licensing and pricing
• more power through mergers
• Growth in tenders
• Archiving remains an issue

Subscription agents

• Swets Blackwell merger
• Turnover in excess of US $1 billion
• 2.5 million subscriptions
• 60,000 customers
• Offices in 19 countries
• Increasing opportunity to offer services to publishers
• Our partnership with CatchWord
• .. and acquiring Turpin
• New Publishers' Services Division

New roles for subscription agents: survival of the fittest

• Further rationalisation
• Declining margins
• Development of e commerce services for library managers
• Development of e access services for users
• Expansion into other markets (non STM)
• Strategic alliances
• Smaller agents in danger?
• new products - packages
• community portals
• EDI Services
• E-Media services
• Consortia services
• Licensing services

Other Intermediaries & suppliers

Electronic Journals

• Growth: some 8 - 10000 e-journals now available
• Slower than expected take-up
• Large investment for all involved
• Opportunity to be creative with pricing
• No major return on investment - yet.
• Pay-per-view: uncertainties but increasing interest
• The 'real' electronic journal (no print equivalent) developing
• New publishing 'competitors' e.g.SPARC, self publishing, pre-print publishing
• 'Linking' is essential
• Emergence of standard licences
• Many 'players': aggregators, intermediaries, third parties
• All major publishers have branded e-journal services
• E-publishing challenges traditional 'selling' of information & traditional 'customer'

Content Segments

Electronic Journal Pricing

• Print + electronic - one price
• Print + electronic - surcharge for electronic (optional)
• Electronic + print (optional) - all titles
• Electronic-only - individual titles. Print optional
• Pay-per-view
• Consortia-based

Pricing may be based on:

• Full Time Equivalent students/staff
• Number of concurrent users or workstations
• IP address range
• Geographic definition of sites
• Size of institution
• One price for print & electronic - still a common model.
• Print + electronic - average surcharge = 10 - 20% of print price
• Electronic-only versions growing: average cost = 90 or 100% of print price
• Per article fee: $16 - $20 (most common)
• All titles of a publisher, print optional
• Experimentation; learning
• 'Free' to encourage usage
• Surcharge - extra functionality; recover investment
• Type of publisher, e.g. society
• Market forces (e.g. no orders if surcharged)
• Consortia; seeking 'cross access' and 'bulk' discount

Consortia

• Publisher consortia policies - Kluwer, Blackwell Science, Academic Press, Elsevier
• National or Regional collaborations, Government funded
• From academic consortia to corporate multinationals
• Reducing library costs - pooling resources
• Generic standard licenses (http://www.licensingmodels.com)

Consortia Pricing

• 'Base price' = total collective print spend
• % surcharge on base price for e-access
• Limit on cancellations
• Electronic-only with print optional at discount
• Minimum level of spend or 'entry fee'
• Cross access to all publisher's titles
• Cap on annual price increase, multi-year agreements

NESLI
Some examples of NESLI pricing models

• Single flat fee per site (annual); access to all journals of a publisher; print subs need to be maintained
• Subject clusters. Access to non-subscribed journals in a cluster at deep discount
• Electronic content fee on top of print spend plus optional cross access fee for all journals

Archiving

• Few publishers have an archive solution
• Some working with national library e.g. Canada, Germany, UK, Australia
• Charge to access archive e.g Academic Press
• OCLC - commitment to archive data: charge to libraries
• JSTOR - older material
• NESLI - committed to explore options
• Whose responsibility? Library? Publisher? US? Is print the archive?

Swets Blackwell Consortia Services

• Already working with many consortia e.g. NESLI, HealLINK, Glaxo, KESLI
• Collating Consortium data e.g libraries, sites, title needs, numbers of copies taken
• Obtaining pricing and licensing proposals from publishers
• License administration
• Subs processing, invoicing, validation of subscriptions for e-access
• Access - IP collection, frontline support, use of 'gateway' services
• Swets Blackwell take a pro-active approach to consortia and publishers
• Customers & publishers benefit:
• As Mediator: licensing and pricing proposals; creative solutions.
• As Infomediary: data collection, analysis, presentation, solutions for access.
• As Intermediary: administrative systems, procedures, invoicing, payment, management and integration.

Subscriber Views

• Multi-year agreements unattractive
• Extended access/all titles -mixed views
• Like access to non-subscribed journals
• Single interface & linking functions
• Want an archiving solution
• Want choice of media
• Want to be content purchasers
• Want simplified licensing
• Value Added Tax in UK - a problem: GST not!

New Roles for Agents

• Aggregation of content of multiple publishers, though one source
• Provision of single interfaces, access points and searching capabilities
• Providing services that link secondary bibliographic data to related full text articles
• Handling authentication of user rights ('ease of access')
• E-commerce ('ease of purchasing')
• Acting as 'managing agents' between library consortia and publishers
• The agent as 'consultant': handling e-journal availability, licensing and pricing
• Offering 'turnkey services': aggregation with all other services and systems in the library
• The agents as 'service provider', offering services like helpdesk and training

Why Agents?

• Technical support and help desks
• E-journal access
• direct to publishers' servers
• or via third parties e.g CatchWord, OCLC, Ingenta
• or agent's own e-journals gateway/aggregation service
• Aggregation of titles from multiple publishers through a single interface
• Library administration functions, e.g usage data, holdings
• Development of interface
• Identification of a document - DOI
• Rights information management, controlling access rights
• Provide the appropriate link - static/dynamic URLs
• Linking
• Access maintenance
• Administration

The greater the 'chaos' the greater the need for the intermediary

SwetsNet version 2.5

• New search engine
• Digital Island via www.SwetsNet.com (www.digisle.net)
• TOC alerts & user favourites
• Access indicators
• Review usage statistics online per title, issue, month and year.
• Publication history per title
• Full text back files for up to 5 years
• Currently over 60 publishers
• Over 3100 full text titles, all of which can be searched on abstract and article title level.
• Automatic access to free with print journal

Multi-level linking technology

Navigator (EJN) & SwetsNet: SwetsnetNavigator

• Based on SwetsNet platform
• New interface - user test phase 1 underway
• Transitioning EJN customers
• Available from mid-July 2000
• Current discussions re 2001 pricing
• Increased content both STM and Business and Professional subject areas
• "OPAC functionalities"
• Customisation
• Cross reference linking
• E-procurement and e-payment
• Pay per View
• Subject portals
• Usage data: more detailed information
• New design
• Authorisation methods
• Administration

Electronic Journals
...'predictions' for the future

• Continued experimentation
• But increasingly customised
• Move away from prices related to print spend
• Choice of electronic-only - main format
• PPV - grow but marginal income?
• Increase in use of model licences
• NESLI-type initiatives adopted elsewhere
• Alternative e-publishing to grow
• Charges for backfiles, linking, usage statistics ('added value')
• Consortia, multi-site and global licensing will continue to grow
• Agents will play a major role in the process
• Challenge for agents and suppliers

GST issues for libraries

• GST will be charged for direct supply of overseas and Australian material to all Australian libraries
• For supply of consolidated material GST will probably be paid and reclaimed by the importer (the agent) and not the library - negotiations ongoing with ATO/customs regarding customs clearance
• GST charges will be shown as a separate line item on invoices unless otherwise required by libraries