Consortial Purchasing

One model out of many ….

Diane Costello

Overview

CAUL/CEIRCCEIRC administrative modelSome principles

Why form a Consortium?

Reduce costs - Discount for volumeIncrease access - To all titles owned by

the consortium; to publisher’s list; to aggregator’s packages

Reduce work Information gathering Trial coordination Licence negotiation Price negotiation

Principles

Better price and/or conditions than possible as a single institution

Entry level which allows the largest number to participate

Advantages for larger institutionsInformation gathering -> web siteSimplify administration

… and the Publishers?

Single point for wide distribution of information

Single point of contact for negotiations

Single invoice… butMaintain (or increase) bottom line

CAUL

38 AVCC member libraries; 1965 - Committee formed; 1992 - name change to “Council”; 1995 - full-time executive officer, office staff now

2fte Secretariat, Committee support, Cooperative

activities (Statistics, ULA, Performance Indicators, CISC), Liaison/Representation, Current awareness, Web site, CEIRC program.

CEIRC (CAUL Electronic Information Resources Committee)

NPRF funds $2m 1993-1996 for datasets “Trials” of ISI Current Contents, Academic Press

IDEAL, IAC Expanded Academic ASAP, etc

Evolved into consortial purchasing Committee recommends policy to CAUL CAUL Office handles day-to-day

Now includes CSIRO, CONZUL (38+25 total)

CEIRC Levy

CEIRC (2)

Guidelines for external participantsGuidelines for licences - no strict

modelChecklist for “negotiations”

butNo preferred pricing modelNo minimum participationNo schedule of negotiations

CAUL Office

Instigation via member, publisher or officeDistribution of information re product,

licence, price & trial via email listNegotiation/liaison re price & conditionsMaintenance of details on web site

http://www.caul.edu.au/datasets/ Participation list, IP addresses, contactsInvoicing & payments

Decision-Making

Self-selected consortium vs National Site Licence “Buying club”

National Site Licence - an ideal which requires either top-sliced or additional fundingor internal agreement about what is wanted and

how much the individual institutions are prepared to pay for it

Decision-Making (2)

Changing environment --> Changing decision-making processes

Each product assessed independently Licence conditions Overlap between products Choice of interfaces

Datasets Coordinator - coordinates communication & decision by given date!

Cost-Sharing

Determined by publisher & passed on to group eg Subscription history (current spend) Percentage discount by volume

# Institutions# Databases# Titles

EFTSU / FTE - all or discipline-specific Carnegie Classification

Cost-Sharing (2)

Determined within Consortium eg Equal share FTE-based Usage-based Resources budget, or … a combination of the above eg 50% equal

share (entry level) + 50% FTE-based … or what it is worth to the institution eg

NAAL (Alabama)

Cost-Sharing (3)

Gaining consensus Current Contents - 50% fixed + 4 tiers

based on FTE (+ choice of interface) MathSciNet - Costs of current

subscribers reducing with added subscribers

ProQuest5000 - Minimum entry cost per institution + Minimum total cost

CAUL Agreements 1996-

55 agreements, 36 full-text, 4 factual databases, the rest bibliographic

Half commenced in 2000 or later burgeoning of available electronic products increasing willingness of publishers to deal with

consortia

Billing handled centrally (28) local office or agent

Average number of participants 20Highest number 40 (ProQuest5000, PsycINFO)

Issues

Publishers Site definition (16 Oz single-campus

univ) Bundling print with online (mainly UK) Maintaining bottom line Premium for electronic and/or enhanced

product eg WoS Access to “purchased” data & archiving

Issues (2)

Members Variation in size / wealth / research

emphasis / discipline base Cost-sharing parameters

Competition“Subsidy” of less well-resourced institutionsRelative gain, rather than the NAAL ideal

Agreement on priorities

Issues (3)

For the new consortium: content - find a product that many

own/want coordinate - volunteer, employee contribute - to the cost of running the group confide - know your starting point by

sharing information about current expenditure

communicate - web, lists

Issues (4)

(The New Consortium - cont.) knowledge about your group members -

physical sites# staff (professional & total)access mechanism eg IP addresses, intranet

requirementsgovernment/department legal/purchasing

requirements consider - whether an agent can assist, act as a

broker eg DA, EBSCO, Swets etc

Pause ....

Very similar deals being done by a wide variety of consortia internationally

Value in sharing informationValue in clubbing together in discipline-

based groupsValue in a group facilitator

not distracted by “regular job” knowledge base

Pitfalls ….

Setting unachievable deadlines rolling start-dates possible

Creating unnecessary legal obstacles with the publisher or with each other

Shift in cost centres - from personal & laboratory subscriptions to Library

Unsustainability - the “big deal” leaves little room for flexibility

… and progress

Cheaper than list pricesAccess to more titlesShift in licence conditions eg ILL,

course packs, single institution vs multi-site etc

Unbundling of print from electronicMore trust --> Simpler licences