RE: Interview with Springer's Derk Haank

[Sandy Thatcher <sandy.thatcher@alumni.princeton.edu>]

PDA may not mean that fewer books are sold overall, but the key 
difference between approval-plan purchasing and PDA purchasing is 
when it happens. The former is at or near the time of 
publication; the latter can stretch out over years. That makes a 
huge difference for any publisher in terms of cash flow.

Sandy Thatcher


>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