Libraries, Licenses, Institutional Budgets & Consortia:

What’s a Publisher To Do

Society for Scholarly Publishing

John TaglerVice President, Account Development & Channel MarketingJune 2, 2004

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My Perspective Today• Large STM publisher (institutional market)• Heavy emphasis on electronic platform

– ScienceDirect®– 1800 journal titles – 14 A & I services (9 Elsevier + 5 third-party)– Adding reference & book series to platform– Developed a Web search engine (Scirus)

• Marketing at Elsevier– Corporate (branding, image)– Product (users, some librarians)– Channel Marketing (librarians)

• Supports Regional Sales Offices

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JT’s Basic Tenets of marketing and selling to libraries• Often the librarians know more about publishers’

products than sales & marketing people • Get to the point

– Less is more– Traditional, high-pressure tactics don’t work– Avoid hyperbole– “Slick” can work against you

• Conundrum: paper mail vs. e-mail– Depends on the message and the objective(s)– Value of personal contact names

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Basic tenets (cont’d)• Decision-making isn’t one-step process

– Patience for a long selling cycle– Hard to track for ROI, results

tracking– Purchase/renewal cycles– Librarian(s) set timeframes, not the

publisher

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Basic tenets (cont’d)• Decision-making isn’t a one-person process

– Collection management– Library advisory committees

• faculty/researchers• other librarians/subject specialists

– Long wish lists, limited funds for new purchases

• get in line– Often a new acquisition is linked to

cancellation of another title or service

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Challenges facing publishers

• Support for information needs does not keep pace with research funding trends

• Scientific output has grown at 3% -5% per year for past three decades; not the same pattern in library funding

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Growth in Research & Library Spending1976-2000

90

140

190

240

290

340

1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

Year

Ind

ex (

1976

=100

)

US Total Academic R&D(constant $)

Ave ARL Library Expenditure(constant $)

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Challenges facing publishers

• The value of librarians and library services is not always appreciated

• Researcher and students’ perception that everything on the Internet is free

• Lack of agreement as to what constitutes value worth paying for

• A lot of noise, hyperbole, distortion of facts and just plain inappropriate business discussions on lists

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Challenges facing publishers• Misperception among research and

library communities that electronic publishing is quick, simple and easy –anybody can do it cheaper, better and faster

• Publishers’ failures in messaging– about value added in the publishing

process– about increased costs in electronic

publishing process.

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The challenge of dealing with consortiaEach consortium is different• State system vs. independent alliance• Centralized administration • Centralized negotiation only• Support for other activities (e.g.,

training, marketing)• Everyone expects equal – or “the best”

-- terms

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What can publishers do?

• Marketing is not just to purchasers: Authors are another marketing target– Author gateways– Electronic peer review– Manuscript tracking systems– Articles in press – Wider distribution of articles via

electronic dissemination

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What can publishers do?Develop new business models• Consortia pricing• Subscription options: more flexibility

– Freedom collections– Complete collections– Limited collections– Subject collections– Small customer options (small colleges, BioTech

Select)– ArticleChoice– Pay-per-View for guest users

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What can publishers do? (cont’d)

Electronic Sales Process

AnalysisCall preparation

Sales call

Negotiation

Agreement

Print licenseCRM

contract

Invoice

A&EEnd user support

Sales process

Sales support E-fulfilment Helpdesk

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What can publishers do? (cont’d)

• Usage statistics– Better understand and manage

collection– Better understand user

behaviors– Quantifiable data offers proof of

ROI– COUNTER compliance

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What can publishers do? (cont’d)

• Librarian and user training programs• Customization by the user

(to increase usage and user satisfaction)– Alerting services– Personal profiles (e.g., saved

searches)

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What can publishers do? (cont’d)

1. Assist in raising awareness of the value of libraries and librarians among administrators and researchers.

2. Assist librarians in marketing electronic services

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1. Raising Awareness

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2. Marketing Support (USDA)

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Marketing Support USDA (cont’d)

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Thank you!j.tagler@elsevier.com