UCL LIBRARY SERVICES
PRATT-SILS SUMMER SCHOOL 2007
Academic libraries and e-materials or
e is for everything
Liz Chapman
Deputy Director of UCL Library Services
elizabeth.chapman@ucl.ac.uk
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Overview
Definitions
E-ordering and supply
Finance
Licensing
Deals
Content provision
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Definition of terms
 Collection development
Building, acquiring, providing
Policy, priorities, budget
 Collection management
Monitoring, cancelling, weeding
Policy, priorities, space
 Big Deals
Online aggregations (bundles) of econtent from a publisher or
supplier for sale or lease on
terms which encourage total
purchase
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Information for ordering
Who provides information and who decides?
Academic input
40%
(60%)
+ reading lists / bibliographies
Library input
60%
(40%)
+ crystal ball / policy / new course plans
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Sources of information for ordering: serials
 Academic input
- The top 100
I’m on the board….and I like salami
Crucial for RAE – future metrics
Competing institutions have it
 Library input
What is used / requested
What the Big Deals are
Budget constraints
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Electronic and print?
“The library on the desktop”
Contradictions
 Personal paper copies vs. e-access
 Library as place vs. library as supplier
 Invisible supply to desktop
 Big deals supplant smaller offerings
 Big Deals curtail cancellation of print
 Move to e-only not encouraged by publishers but strategic for UCL
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Library suppliers / vendors
 Increasing reliance on decreasing number of suppliers
 All eggs in one basket / language?
 Discounts
 Services
 Effects of consortia
 Internet
 Inertia
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Finance – how much?
 What is being spent in the UK?
UK spends far less than USA, Australia, NZ
UK spends more on average than rest of Europe
– Library increases higher than HE increases overall
– Newer universities more on journals than books
– Overall books: serials ratio 45 to 37
Figures from reports in 2004 and UCL benchmarking
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Finance – how?
 Budget and Prices
 Bidding for extra funds
 Fund accounting by subject
 Too complex in big deals
 Financial year
 Subscription year
 Invoices and payment
 VAT on e
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The other side of the coin: de-selection
 A time to refrain from ordering?
 Access vs. ownership
 Cooperation and collaboration
 Open access publishing
 Cancellation
 Price hikes vs. reputation and inertia
 Usage information
 Weeding
 UK National Research Reserve
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Serials selling and pricing problems
Complex – differing models
Alphabetical order listings….
Price tie-in to historic print subscriptions
see UCL’s move to e-only in STM
Selling titles to other publishers – information needed
Changes in title – complex URLs
Big Deals obscure low use titles
Need for reliable use statistics
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A licence to licence
Complex
Long
Wrong jurisdiction
Single signature required multiple times
Preferable to work with suppliers / agents
Inability to recognize complexities of service – multiple customers - NHS
Librarians are not pirates
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National deals
JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) UK
National Electronic Site Licensing NESLi2 2002-7
Negotiates via an agent Big Deals from major publishers
Authentication and Counter compliant
Also supports: digitisation, repositories, national gateways
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Content provision
Cataloguing – do we still need MARC?
Federated searching
Licensed access for users
Digital preservation – JSTOR Portico, ARL 2005 strategy
Such changes in library practice bring challenges for Library
Technical Services and Subject Specialists
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Promotion of e-resources
New materials with expensive price tags need to be used
Need Library branding
Need proper promotion
Librarians like to differentiate:
Databases, back files, e-journals, e-books, image databanks,
reference works, sound archives (BL)
Is it important in the Google age?
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User
Interface
Optional
SubGateway
Indexing &
Metadata
Library
website
Scholarly
Gateways
e.g. Intute
VLE
(WebCT)
MetaLib
UCL owned
eUCLid
E-Prints
Reading Lists
UCL licensed
Freely available
A&I
databases
A&I
Databases
Library catalogues
SFX
Digital
Content
Paper
Content
UCL owned
Freely available
UCL licensed
Special Colls archive
E-Journals
Exam papers
E-Prints Digital Course E-Books
Readings
Books
Journals
Reading Lists
E-Journals
E-Books
Other full text
Exam Papers
Inter-connected e-services @ UCL
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And Finally…
 Happy to answer Questions
 And to discuss