Re: Usage-based pricing (was ebooks in libraries a thorny problem)

[Laval Hunsucker <amoinsde@yahoo.com>]

No, don't worry, I'm not saying that at all. ( The _Verhandlungen 
des Naturforschenden Vereines in Brno, a periodical, had a 
fairly wide distribution, and the fourth volume is still to be 
found in many library collections ;  how many copies were in 
private hands in say 1900, I don't know, but it could have been 
considerable. )

Mendel was not mine, but Heather's example -- but also an example 
that one often sees cited ( I did call it "classic" ) -- of a 
research or other scholarly publication the ( full ) significance 
of which is not apparent, or recognized, in the period closely 
following its appearance. ( In Mendel's case, it took roughly a 
generation -- I'm not sure just what she meant by "about a 
century's gap". ) It was her example, then, of something that 
would normally have been passed over ( had it e.g. been a 
monograph ) by any academic library at the time that was, to use 
her words, "purchasing on the basis of demand". To this extent it 
is hardly the case, as Joe opined, that "The example of Mendel is 
silly." What I was "REALLY saying" was that it would be 
exceedingly easy to identify many thousands of other examples 
that would fall into this same category. Perhaps not so much 
nowadays in biology, but certainly in the ( humanities and social 
sciences ) areas in which
  I have been active since the sixties as faculty member, 
researcher, and librarian. I have in my time seen it go pretty 
badly wrong ( when one judges on the basis of hindsight, of 
course, but also in real time ). If I am here stating the obvious 
-- my apologies.

I by no means intended to suggest that it's a bad thing for a 
library, in Austin or anywhere else, to be "responsive to their [ 
researchers' ] needs", very far from it. Those researchers' ( 
perceived, but also not [ yet ] perceived ) needs -- but also the 
unforeseeable needs of the researchers yet to appear on the 
institution's rolls -- are the most basic criterion for 
acquisition decisions, but further factors are relevant as well. 
Nor was I making a veiled plea for "entrenched comfort levels", 
something I personally abhor. You write of the "strategic risks" 
that attach to the policy in Texas, and evidently consider them 
to be "well thought out". Far be it from me to imply that such is 
not the case ;  I would in any case naturally assume that they 
*were* well thought out. But on the basis of what Mr. Dillon had 
previously written, it was my impression that those risks were 
simply higher than I would myself have wanted to take.

I am glad that he has in the meantime responded, expansively and 
informatively and somewhat reassuringly. Perhaps I am too cynical 
or pessimistic. It may be that Texas has developed a golden 
formula, which comparable institutions will want to adopt as 
well. I'll be interested to see whether that happens, and to 
follow how it all works out in Austin or elsewhere. ( Well, I 
sincerely hope.)

Laval Hunsucker
Breukelen, Nederland