Column on licenses (OECD experience)

[David Goodman <dgoodman@Princeton.EDU>]

If you don't find Bradford's law behavior, many of us would like 
to see the data. That you will get generally higher use--possibly 
much higher use--of course. That the tail may level off more 
slowly--yes, the OhioLink data showed that also--even the lowest 
quality journals were looked at.

Class use--reserve use--should also be subject to the power law, 
(because faculty at different places will tend to use the same 
book) but I'm not sure it's been studied. Naturally, reserve use 
does require multi-user licenses. Everyone reads the book the day 
before the exam.

David Goodman, Ph.D., M.L.S.
dgoodman@princeton.edu


----- Original Message -----
From: Toby.GREEN@oecd.org
Date: Tuesday, October 24, 2006 5:05 pm
Subject: RE: Column on licenses
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu

> David,
>
> I agree that usage of books in libraries was rather like the old
> adage about spending money on advertising - only half of it
> works, the trouble is knowing which! However, rather as Google
> and others are changing the way advertising works (advertisers
> now pay just when the ad gets a response), we're seeing that
> e-books are changing the way books work.
>
> Rather than languishing on shelves, we're finding that delivery
> via the desktop (ie eliminating the need to walk to the library)
> is increasing the frequency of use. (This no-walk factor was
> noted by Tenopir and King as a key driver in increasing usage for
> journals too.) If librarians wait for users to ask for a book
> then there's a high chance the user will not bother - perhaps
> choosing to read something that is more accessible and the
> opportunity for use is lost. This is not in anyone's interest.
> Thus the goal is to work with librarians to get as many books to
> be accessible as possible. This means breaking the old monograph
> book price spiral and the costly buying-title-by-title mentality.
> (Yes, I know Open Access would deliver this, and we've got some
> OA titles thanks to generous funding from project sponsors, but
> this is the exception, not the rule, and from what I hear from
> our main project sponsors, is not about to change anytime soon.)
>
> Our model offers institutions subject-based collections of books
> on an multiple-user, all-you-can-eat basis, charging less than
> the sum of the list prices (print is an option). The institution
> not only can afford to buy more titles because of the lower
> per-title cost, they also save administration costs because they
> no longer have to make decisions on a title-by-title basis.
> Judging by the number of new libraries choosing to buy books from
> us in this way, it's an affordable option and consequently more
> of our titles are available to be read by more readers at their
> desks. What's interesting is that we're finding that
> multiple-simultaneous use is happening: presumably because it's
> so much easier now than in the past, classes are beginning to use
> our monographs more. This shows that multiple-user e-rights are
> useful for monographs in a way we rarely saw with print.
>
> Toby Green
> Head of Dissemination and Marketing
> OECD Publishing
> Public Affairs and Communications Directorate