RE: electronic journals CCC

["T. Scott Plutchak" <TSCOTT@lister2.lhl.uab.edu>]

Tom,

I think you may be overstating the obligations of resource libraries in
the NN/LM network.  We are obligated to participate in the DOCLINE
interlibrary loan network and we are obligated to provide MEDLINE searches
(for which we can be expected to charge a fee) for local healthcare
professionals.  I'm not aware of anything in the NN/LM agreements that
obligate us to provide library services to "the community" broadly defined
-- particularly not anything that extends to our providing access to
licensed resources.  Am I missing something?

Scott

T. Scott Plutchak
Director, Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences
University of Alabama at Birmingham

tscott@uab.edu


-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Williams [mailto:twilliam@bbl.usouthal.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2001 8:54 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: electronic journals CCC 

For us, cost recovery is simply, as others have stated, some of the costs
of processing the ILL request.  In our case, if a royalty applies (yes we
are copyright compliant and registered with the CCC) we don't even usually
charge enough to recoup that amount.  There was a study done some years
ago, and it's probably more now, that when factoring in all aspects each
ILL cost $17+ to process, on each end - and that DID NOT factor in
copyright royalties as per Contu guidelines.  So when we charge $5 or $10
we don't come close to full cost recovery.

We are a resource library for the National Library of Medicine's NN/LM
program and as such have a obligation to provide library services to the
community.  By community we mean everybody, non-profit and for-profit
companies and institutions.  NN/LM and NLM recognize the necessity for us
to do at least SOME partial cost recovery.  However, some publisher's take
exception to our doing this.  In a recent negotiation with Wiley, we came
to something of an impasse (although we will try to work out a side
agreement)because they refused to allow us to charge anyone for ILL's or
doc delivery (stuff we have in the library either print or E) if we get
paid a fee, then they(Wiley and some others) consider it commercial.  
This boggles my mind but, nevertheless, here we are.  We provide services
to many local hospitals who without our services would have very difficult
access to much of the medical literature.  This could have a serious
negative impact on health care since we couldn't do this without partial
cost recovery.

To add to this conundrum, it makes absolutely no sense to us that we could
provide everthing to everybody as long as we don't attempt cost recovery.  
Down the road this could increase the load on public libraries as they
must provide everything to everybody.  If a public library signs on to a
database it has to available to the entire public.

If publishers would lighten up a bit on this and put more effort into
those libraries (you know who you are) not in copyright compliance, I
think they would be amazed at the bottom-line results.  We're a relatively
small academic medical library and we paid something close to $10,000 last
year for royalties to the CCC.  On the other hand, I know of libraries
which do many times the ILL/Doc del numbers we do who pay a fraction of
what we pay - if anything.  I have little sympathy for libraries not in
CCC compliance but also have no sympathy for unreasonable (by our
guidelines) publishers.

Tom

-- 
Thomas L. Williams, AHIP
Director, Biomedical Libraries and
 Media Production Services
University of South Alabama
College of Medicine
Mobile, Al 36688-0002
tel. (334)460-6885
fax. (334)460-7638
twilliam@bbl.usouthal.edu

On Mon, 30 Apr 2001 S.MATTERN@KARGER.CH wrote:

> >Some vendors don't seem to be able to distinguish
> >between cost recovery by a library and a commercial enterprise of an
> >information broker or information company that actually makes a profit on
> >this activity.
> 
> I guess I must be one of them.
> 
> Could you please clarify what *cost recovery* means in this case? Once you
> recover the cost of the subscription, do you stop charging an ILL fee or
> does the cost recovery have to do with the administrative costs associated
> with ILL?
> 
> Thanks for your input.
> 
> ________________________________
> Sharon Mattern Buettiker,
> Internet Services Coordinator
> 
> S. Karger AG 
> BioMedical Publishers since 1890
> Allschwilerstrasse 10
> CH-4009 Basel
> Switzerland