The Serials Agent
Today & Tomorrow
Peter Rushworth
EBSCO Information Services
Topics to be covered
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Complexity of the Supply Chain
Business Characteristics of Supply Chain
Why Agents/Intermediaries Exist
The evolving marketplace
‘Agent’ Initiatives in the electronic
environment
• Who pays?
• Meeting the needs of the community
The information chain
• Author
• Publisher
• Subscription Agent
• Library
• Reader
The information chain
Author
? Publisher
? Subscription agent
? Library
Reader
The ‘Open Access’ publishing
model does just this!
Supply Chain Complexity
Publishers
over
60,000+
Libraries
000’s
Titles
285,000+
Users
000,000’s
Serials resource life cycle
Renewal
criteria/decisio
n
Management
Information
Missing
issues/no
service
Select &
Evaluate
options
Order &
pay
The
subscription
agent as
intermediary
Bibliographic
changes
Ensure
delivered
Catalogue
records
License
terms
E-resource life cycle
Libraries
Trial use
Order
Price
Assess
need/budget
Pay
Evaluate
Acquire
Evaluate
Monitor
Provide Support
Provide Access
Administer
E-resource life cycle
Libraries
IP Addresses
Register
Proxy Servers
Acquire
Catalogue
Evaluate
Monitor
Provide Support
Provide Access
Administer
Portals/Access
lists
Campus
authentication
URL
maintenance
E-resource life cycle
Libraries
Acquire
Evaluate
Monitor
Provide Support
Provide Access
Administer
User IDs
Admin module
information
Preferences
(store)
Holdings lists
Access
restrictions
View rights for
use
Claiming
E-resource life cycle
Libraries
Acquire
Evaluate
Monitor
Problem log
Hardware
needs
Software
needs
Contact info
Troubleshoot/
triage
Provide Support
Provide Access
Administer
E-resource life cycle
Libraries
User
feedback
Acquire
Usage stats
Downtime
analysis
Review
problems
Problem log
Evaluate
Monitor
Provide Support
Provide Access
Administer
License
terms
E-resource life cycle
Libraries
Trial use
Order
Price
Assess
need/budget
Pay
IP Addresses
Evaluate
Register
User
feedback
Proxy Servers
Acquire
Catalogue
Usage stats
Downtime
analysis
Review
problems
Evaluate
Monitor
Problem log
Hardware
needs
Software
needs
Contact info
Troubleshoot/
triage
Provide Support
Portals/Access
lists
Campus
authentication
URL
maintenance
Provide Access
Administer
User IDs
Admin module
information
Preferences
(store)
Holdings lists
Access
restrictions
View rights for
use
Claiming
License
terms
E-resource life cycle
Libraries
Trial use
Order
Price
Assess
need/budget
Pay
Evaluate
IP Addresses
Register
User
feedback
Proxy Servers
Acquire
Catalogue
Usage stats
Downtime
analysis
Review
problems
Evaluate
Monitor
Problem log
Provide Support
Hardware
needs
Software
needs
Contact info
Troubleshoot/
triage
New processes introduced
Provide Access
Portals/Acces
s lists
Campus
authentication
URL
maintenance
Administer
User IDs
Admin module
information
Preferences
(store)
Holdings lists
Access
restrictions
View rights for Claiming
use
License
terms
E-resource life cycle
Publishers
Offer trial
Pricing
Marketing/
Sales
Fulfillment
reports
Order
handling
Invoices
Hosting site
Registration
Acquire
IP Addresses
Title lists
Usage stats
Evaluate
Monitor
Campus
authentication
Provide Access
Metasearch/
Z39.50
Subscription
problems
Hardware
problems
Software
problems
Customer
Service
Technical
Support
Provide Support
Durable URL
Support
Administer
User IDs
IP Changes
Subscription
upgrades
Claiming
Title Lists for
packages
Enforce
License terms
Title Changes
Business Characteristics
of Serials Supply
Awareness
Acquisition
Alerting/SDI.
Catalogues.
Database.
Specimen Copies
Quotations
Inflation Forecasts
New Orders.
Transition.
Renewals.
Cancellations.
Customer Needs.
Publisher Needs.
Licensing.
Access.
Consolidation.
Payment
In-Advance.
Prompt.
Methods.
Currency.
Invoicing.
Management
Claims.
Title/Frequency &
URL Changes.
Management
Information.
Quality Assurance.
Archiving.
Authentication.
Usage Stats.
Multi Transactional & Low Margins & High Volume
So Why do ‘Agents’ Exist?
U
S
E
R
S
L
I
B
R
A
R
I
E
S
Simplify
Agent
Add Value
P
U
B
L
I
S
H
E
R
S
A
U
T
H
O
R
S
Simplify & Add Value
• Economies of Scale
• Reduced Overheads through eased administration.
• Rights Management
• Currency Management
• Outsourcing/consolidation
• Licensing & Authentication
• Awareness/Alerting
• ILS Interfaces
• Abstract & Full-text Databases
• Electronic Linking
• Industry Knowledge & Expertise
A Changing Marketplace
….an age of uncertainty….
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Declining budgets
Price increases
New technology
eJournal Management
Linking & Open URL
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Access v Holdings
Outsourcing
ILS integration
Consortia
Distance learning
The role of Intermediaries in the electronic world
‘Agent’ Initiatives in the
Supply the Electronic
Serials Information
• Aggregation Services
• Model Licenses
• Agents as negotiators
• EDI & E-commerce
• ‘Software’ services & tools
Aggregation Services
(Simple Uncluttered Access Through
a Single Entry Point)
Identification
Acquisition
Access
Management
Linking
Traditional Text Aggregators
• Full text plus A&I
– Potential one stop shop for user
– Extra revenue stream for publisher
• Business model
– Low entry cost for pubs
– Aggregator does the work & takes risk
– Recent volumes embargoed to protect
subscription revenue?
– Library widen content base & electronic
availability
EBSCOhost ‘databases’, Ovid, ProQuest & Gale
‘Contracted out’ Hosting
Aggregators
• Hosts full text in place of publisher
– Restricted to contracted publishers
• Business model
- publisher outsourcing service
– charge to publisher
– Publisher retains subscription revenue
(existing model)
MetaPress, Extenza, Highwire &
Ingenta
Gateway & Hosting aggregators
• Point and hosts full text
– Potential one stop shop for user
(headers/abstracts & full-text)
– High usage
– Avoids data ‘silos’
• Business model
– Low /No charge to Agents customers
– Publisher retains subscription revenue
(existing model)
– Library widens content base &
electronic availability
– Pay for view
– Linking
EBSCOhost EJS & SwetsWise
Model Licences
WWW.licensingmodels.com
Agents as Negotiators
• NESLI
(now replaced by non agent NESLi2)
• EBSCO & California State
University (Journal Access Core
Collection)
EDI & E-commerce
• EDIFACT & X12
– orders, claims, check-in, financial, & management
information.
• B2B business transactions
– standards & protocols
– integration with e-commerce platforms
– ( Ariba and Commerce One etc).
• Pay per View
Software services & tools
• Think of the ‘traditional role’ of the
agent as an intermediary
• Apply that thinking to the electronic
field
• Look to agent provide support in
– License negotiation
– Title management – A to Z listing
– Link resolver services (such as SFX type)
Consortia purchasing:
the tender process
• Group purchasing brings the
opportunity for economies of scale
• Electronic delivery can mean the
sharing of resources
• Tendering improves the
‘transparency’ of the process
– Providing the tender is framed
‘properly!’
The emergence of ‘The
Big Deal’
• ‘Bundling’ by publishers locking libraries
into multi-year, no cancellation
agreements
• Increasing proportion of library budget
‘ring-fenced’
• Increased availability of electronic
content
• ‘Off the shelf’ (one size fits all) license
• Role of agent?
‘The Big Deal’ (phase
two)
• (Some) libraries resistance to
renewing TBD
• Fragmentation of bundles
• ‘Bespoke’ (tailored) license
• Role of agent?
– Managing ‘bytes’ of information
The ‘Big Deal’ ?
•
“The University of… and other research libraries are holding out,
convinced that the Big Deal serves only the big publishers. Many other
university and college libraries are also investigating their options,
recognising – as we all do – that the push to build an all-electronic
collection can’t be undertaken at the risk of; 1)weakening that
collection with titles we neither need or want, and 2) increasing our
dependence on publishers who have already shown their
determination to monopolise the information marketplace.”
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Kenneth Frazier – Director of libraries U of Wisconsin. D-Lib magazine March 2001
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march01/frazier/03frazier.html
“…I was surprised to hear speaker after speaker declare that they
thought that the ‘Big Deal’ was unsustainable and likely to go sooner
rather than later
• Comment on the launce of the Ingenta Institute report “The Consortium Site
Licence – is it a sustainable model?” September 2002
Who pays?
• Agent (and all intermediaries) need resources
to develop and deliver service(s).
• Traditionally the agent’s income derived from a
combination of publisher discount and library
‘service’ charge.
• The changes we are witnessing are forcing a
revision to this traditional model.
Who pays?
• Cost to organisation of placing an order…
• Cost to organisation of raising/paying an
invoice…
• The need for profit
– To ensure stability
– To invest in new service developments
– To deliver quality service
Publisher discounts
• The high value title
– Sub price (say) £1000
– Publisher discount to agent 10%
– Income for agent £100
• The low value title
– Sub price (say) £50
– Publisher discount to agent (unlikely!) 10%
– Income to agent £5
• The importance of the ‘mix’ of titles
Publisher discounts
• Does it cost the agent (or the library for that
matter) any less to process the ‘low value’
title?
• Result is that the high value titles subsidise
the low value ones (or the departments that
subscribe to the high value titles subsidise the
departments that subscribe to the low value
titles)
Publisher discounts
• If a library decides to place such high
value subscriptions direct with the
publisher, then the subsidy is removed.
• The ‘mix’ is disturbed
• The consequence (in the long term)
could be higher (agent) charges for
libraries for the titles that remain via an
agent.
Alternative pricing models
• The need for transparency
…and to be able to determine ‘value for money’
• Cost plus models
– Where the discounted price has an agreed mark-up
added
• Low/no discount
– Where those titles that do not generate enough
revenue for the agent are marked up to an agreed
level prior to terms being applied
In a fragmented world
of change
…the value the agent/infomediary
brings to both publisher and user will
multiply as the complexity
of the information chain
grows…..
Meeting the needs of the
community
•single point of access for E-journals
•financial security
•single authentication per user
session
•value for money
•linking to fulltext
•quality assurance
•ensuring user can locate resource
•integration of EJournals, databases &
library catalogue
•single intermediary library/publisher
•licensing
•‘customisable’ access profiles - flexibility
•library ‘branding’
•publication information
•ATHENS
•usage statistics
•stability
•order generation & checking
•claim generation & processing
•‘named’ contact for customer service
•management reporting
•‘outsourcing’ journal receipt
(consolidation)
•innovative technology partnership
•invoicing flexibility
•‘validated’ links
Questions?
prushworth@ebsco.com