1 of 14Information AccessReducing Costs

© FAO 2005

IMARK Investing in Information for Development

Information Access

Reducing Costs

2 of 14Information AccessReducing Costs

Learning ObjectivesLearning Objectives

At the end of this lesson you will:

identify some possibilities for acquiring free or low-cost information;

recognize management challenges involved in trying to minimize the costs of information access: and

describe the main features of library consortia.

3 of 14Information AccessReducing Costs

If an organization has little or no financial resources, its staff may have problems acquiring the needed information.

There are two main reasons for this:

the costs of peer-reviewed scientific journals and reference publications have risen; and

considerable ongoing investments are needed for infrastructure and connectivity, in order to acquire access to the Internet (required for an increasing proportion of the world’s literature).

IntroductionIntroduction

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High subscription costs: which solutions?High subscription costs: which solutions?

What can organizations do about the high costs of literature? Here are two possibilities:

LOW-COST ACCESS TO SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE

LIBRARY CONSORTIA

The approach is not directly affected by the quality of the Internet connection available.

The approach will vary according to the quality of

the Internet connection available.

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Low cost access to scientific literatureLow cost access to scientific literature

One option to reduce the costs of information acquisition is through forms of “Document Delivery”.

It is a service allowing users to order copies of materials, such as journal articles or chapters of books, from their libraries.

Related services are: “Interlibrary loan” and “Document Exchange”.

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Low cost access to scientific literatureLow cost access to scientific literature

Where Internet access is poor, there are information services that offer free and open access to scientific literature, such as the “e-Journals Delivery Service” (eJDS).

It is a programme designed to facilitate no-cost access to current scientific literature: it allows access to single scientific articles via e-mail.

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Low cost access to scientific literatureLow cost access to scientific literature

AGORAAGORA HINARIHINARI INASP-PERIINASP-PERI

Where the connection is good, there are several initiatives that offer free or low-cost access to scientific literature:

Agricultural Sciences General SciencesHealth

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Options and parametersOptions and parameters

LOWAbility to pay

HIGHAbility to pay

HIGHQUALITYInternet

Connection

Free/low-cost products and services on the Internet or via email

Commercial products and

services on the Internet or via

email

LOWQUALITYInternet

Connection

Free/low-cost products and

services in printed

format or on CD-ROM

Commercial products and services in

printed format or on CD-ROM

For access to scientific literature, specific options exist for different combinations of:

ability to pay; and

quality of Internet access.

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Problems and solutionsProblems and solutions

Let us suppose that your organization has decided to participate in one of these initiatives. What management issues might you face? Here are some:

How to integrate existing resources with new resources (particularly in the library)?

How to serve the needs of those faculty and students who are not primarily researchers?

How to allocate scarce IT resources when many faculty and students have so many demands on existing IT?

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Library consortiaLibrary consortia

Another option for reducing costs is a library consortium.

It is an association of independent libraries formed to share resources and to negotiate with publishers on journal/database subscriptions and book purchases.

The main advantage of a consortium for the member libraries is that they can negotiate with publishers from a position of strength.

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Library consortiaLibrary consortia

Consortia are often informal at the beginning.

Their initial objective is usually to make deals with publishers, but as they evolve, they develop structures to perform tasks like:

Negotiation on longer-term prices and licenses;

Development of common interfaces to catalogues and databases;

Training.

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Library consortiaLibrary consortia

Are all library consortia all similar? No.

Some are public (created by government), while others are private.

Some are commercial, while others are non-profit.

Some are centralized and tightly structured, while others are de-centralized and loosely structured.

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Library consortiaLibrary consortia

Forming consortia is usually not easy. Here are some of the challenges:

Making compromises between institutions

Making compromises between institutions

Getting fundsGetting funds

Overcoming political obstacles

Overcoming political obstacles

Legal and structural issuesLegal and structural issues

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Summary

Access to scientific and technical information is a major problem for organizations. Two of the main problems regarding information acquisition are:

• high costs of scientific literature; and • high costs of good quality Internet connection.

Options for reducing information acquisition costs are: - Document delivery (and related services); - Low-cost access to scientific literature: and - Library consortia.