RE: Interview with Springer's Derk Haank

["Michael Zeoli" <mzeoli@ybp.com>]

This thread converges nicely with the one on 'Limitations of 
Google Search.' Reports from the field indicate that the economy 
is taking its toll on the sale of large publisher-direct book 
packages to academic libraries.  Even extraordinary discount 
offers are encountering resistance.

The business model for book aggregators in the academic library 
market, from Richard Abel, to Academic Book Center, Blackwell, 
YBP, Franklin, Midwest, Ambassador, Coutts, Casalini, 
Harrassowitz, etc., has been built around "content curation," aka 
"profiling." The profiling process has been a core service to aid 
the efficient discovery and acquisition of content.  As content 
has moved online and technological support has grown ever more 
complex, the number of traditional companies has dwindled even as 
new ones emerge (e.g. EBL, Netlibrary-EBSCO, ebrary-ProQuest).

New technology is giving rise to new models, such as Patron- or 
Demand-Driven plans, also based on profiling, which augment and 
sometimes replace portions of approval notification and books 
plans. The new models do not mean that old ones will disappear or 
that fewer books will be sold, but simply that library collecting 
has more tools at its disposal to meet its responsibilities 
(budgets and the current increased costs of eContent will 
determine whether fewer books will be sold).

Sharp declines in library budgets, extraordinary discounts being 
demanded of publishers for content packages, and emerging 
technologies supporting ever more sophisticated business models 
pose questions to libraries, library consortia, and publishers 
alike regarding the purpose and costs of some large packages. 
As Alix Vance wrote: "there will always be those who seek more 
and better."

Michael Zeoli
YBP Library Services

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Sandy Thatcher
Sent: Friday, January 21, 2011 9:23 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu; warren.holder@utoronto.ca
Subject: Re: Interview with Springer's Derk Haank

Maybe for the big publishers and maybe for some libraries, but 
certainly not for all the smaller journal publishers whose 
journals get dropped because the Big Deals cost so much, not to 
mention the publishers of monographs whose sales have flatlined 
for years because of STM journal subscription costs. And how does 
that make this the best invention for scholarship overall?

Sandy Thatcher