Re: Decision making by Libraries on serials and monographs and useage (re puzzled by self-archiving thread)

["Sally Morris \(home\)" <sally@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk>]

This looks to me like fantastically good value


Sally Morris
South House, The Street, Clapham
Tel:  +44 (0) 1903 871286
Fax:  +44 (0) 8701 202806
Email:  sally@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk

----- Original Message -----
From: "Colin Steele" <Colin.Steele@anu.edu.au>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Friday, January 05, 2007 2:55 AM
Subject: Decision making by Libraries on serials and monographs and useage
(re puzzled by self-archiving thread)

> With reference to the recent emails, the list might be interested
> in the following figures extracted from the 2006 DEST funded
> study, Houghton, John and Steele, Colin and Sheehan, Peter (2006)
> 'Research communication costs in Australia : Emerging
> opportunities and benefits'. Centre for Strategic Economic
> Studies, Victoria University, Melbourne.
> http://eprints.anu.edu.au/archive/00003519/
>
> "Those Australian university libraries reporting to CAUL reported
> total expenditure of almost AUD 500 million during 2004, of which
> AUD 182 million was spent on content acquisition - AUD 125
> million on serials and AUD 56 million on non-serials. In 2004,
> total acquisition expenditures amounted to around AUD 5,180 per
> FTE academic staff. On a per item basis, access to serials titles
> cost an average AUD 76 each, while non-serial items cost an
> average AUD 60.
>
> Based on averages derived from an analysis of almost 5,000
> journal titles, the implied cost of providing higher education
> access per journal article under CAUL subscriptions was less than
> AUD 1 (i.e. 63 cents). However, it should be noted that this
> estimate is no more than approximate because not all serial items
> are journals and some of the articles included within the
> subscription packages may be open access (i.e. free within the
> bundle).
>
> The cost per download for a sample of seven of the larger
> publishers' packages subscribed to through CAUL during 2005
> ranged from a low of around AUD 1.24 to a high of AUD 10.11
> (weighted mean AUD 3.60, unweighted mean AUD 4.49).  These
> compare with the mean costs per download across four major
> publishers reported from a sample of UK academic research
> libraries of AUD 3.25 to AUD 7.30 (unweighted mean AUD 5.00)
> (Woodward and Conyers 2005).
>
> Table 3.3 Implied download costs for CAUL subscription packages,
> 2005
>
>         Downloads(Full Text, 2005)      Cost Per Download(AUD)
> Publisher A     172,353 9.02
> Publisher B     234,082 10.11
> Publisher C     339,282 1.24
> Publisher D     555,148 2.07
> Publisher E     1,067,069       5.31
> Publisher F     1,046,072       1.53
> Publisher G     323,543 2.16
>
> Mean of packages                4.49
>
> Weighted mean of downloads              3.60
>
> Note: These publishers account for around half CAUL libraries'
> serials expenditure. Not all parties to the consortia are
> Australian higher education institutions. Source: CAUL (Council
> of Australian University Librarians)
[SNIP]