[Icolcebook] evidence-based ebooks in consortia

[Thompson-Young, Alexia A]

Hi Kathi,

Evidence-based acquisition has been good for us.  Two things:  (1) You do not have to remember or monitor anything over multiple platforms (different triggers, etc…), and (2) You know exactly how much you’ll spend since you pay up front.

We have focused on:  what content is accessible (year, collection, etc…), and how the cost is calculated.  The “content” risk is discovery, and duplication between consortia and individual institutions (acquisitions, workflows, discovery KBs, MARC records in and out).  To mitigate some of this we picked a publisher with a well-known platform among users and Google, so we are not dependent on ourselves for discovery.

Regarding cost, it has to make sense to you, and you can always say no.  Our institutions have not begun to rely on us heavily for books like they do for journals, so we say no often and often.  However, once we figure out the duplication issues, then our institutions will begin to rely on our books and it will be harder to say no.

To the details, we have tried this with Elsevier and ProjectMUSE.  Both were good to work with.  With Elsevier the usage went through the roof, and it is easier for an institution to remember a publication year in their acquisition workflows (like don’t buy 2015 Elsevier books yet).  With ProjectMUSE the usage was more modest and still successful, but we couldn’t figure out a way to accommodate the recent years duplication issue.  Not all of a Press’ books are in ProjectMUSE and the only way we could know was to check the platform title by title, however now they can produce title spreadsheets.  Perhaps we will reconsider with making the long tail accessible, but this has not been a priority.

All – please feel free to question, elaborate, and take a different tack.

Have a good weekend,
Lexie


Alexia Thompson-Young
atyoung at austin.utexas.edu

Licensing Coordinator
University of Texas Libraries
University of Texas at Austin
512-495-4251

From: icolcebook-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org [mailto:icolcebook-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org] On Behalf Of Kathi Fountain
Sent: Friday, September 18, 2015 3:39 PM
To: icolcebook at lyralists.lyrasis.org
Subject: [Icolcebook] evidence-based ebooks in consortia

The Orbis Cascade Alliance's DDA program is just over 4-years old, and I'm working with our group of librarians to examine its future.  The last year has been volatile, and the growing short term loan rates and front list embargoes have created previously unseen budget instability and project overhead.
We're interested in an alternative that would bring more stability and are considering evidence-based alternatives.
For those of you that have an evidence-based arrangement, can you let me know which publishers you've worked with and whether you'd recommend others to do the same?
Thanks,
Kathi

--
Kathi Carlisle Fountain
Program Manager - electronic resources, consortial e-books, and shared collections
Orbis Cascade Alliance

kfountain at orbiscascade.org<mailto:kfountain at orbiscascade.org> | 360-931-1665
** based in the Portland metro area **

Orbis Cascade Alliance
2288 Oakmont Way | Eugene, OR 97401
http://www.orbiscascade.org

"There's more to life than books, you know, but not much more."
-The Smiths
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