RE: Building collections in a bad economy

[T Scott Plutchak <tscott@uab.edu>]

We haven't done a formal cost study in a long time, although 
we're in the process of doing one using the ARL model, so this is 
not based on actual total costs.

For purposes of this experiment, we're just looking at what we 
currently charge our patrons -- which is $15 per item.  What 
we're looking at is reducing that charge to, say, $5 (using funds 
from the content budget).  Similarly, we'd cover the first $10 of 
a pay-per-view charge and the patron would be responsible for the 
rest.  It would be up to the patron to decide if the immediacy 
advantage was worth the difference in what they would have to 
pay.

Scott


T. Scott Plutchak

Director, Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences
University of Alabama at Birmingham
tscott@uab.edu


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu [mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Mary Summerfield
Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2009 2:27 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Building collections in a bad economy

Scott (and other librarians),

It would be useful to publishers to know what you calculate as
your cost of ILL for articles so that we have a correct
perception of the tradeoff you offer to your community.

Do you include staff costs in your ILL calculations?  Are you
assuming the payment of copyright fees for articles and chapters?

In the late 1990s when I was working with Columbia Libraries on
strategic issues, including e-books, we calculated the cost of
ILL for books as roughly the cost of acquiring an average book.
I assume that the cost for articles is much less as you don't
have the high shipping charges or the need to return the
"borrowed" item.

Mary Summerfield
SPIE