Re: Usage-based pricing (was ebooks in libraries a thorny problem)

[dillon@mail.utexas.edu]

We appreciate your concern, but one of the reasons we moved to 
usage-based pricing and patron-driven initiatives is because 
we've only got 40 or so subject selectors and we long ago 
realized that 40 librarians, no matter how skilled and dedicated, 
cannot keep up with a knowledge explosion operating at Internet 
speeds in over 200 countries, multiple formats, and in over 380 
degree areas.  By adding 10,000 graduate students and 3,000 
faculty to our pool of individuals helping us to select books, we 
have been able to add new titles in emerging areas of research 
within milliseconds of anyone on campus becoming interested.

We believe that by adding these 13,000 dedicated researchers and 
subject experts to our pool of selectors, that we have less 
chance of repeating the errors of omission that afflicted Gregor 
Mendel's era, and that (in Texas) researchers will not have to 
wait 100 years to rediscover a tome that had been overlooked by 
traditional selection methods.

And while Texans do continue to employ the methods of library 
selection utilized in the late 1800's by the erstwhile librarians 
of Mendel's time, we have also opened our minds to take advantage 
of the tools and capabilities offered by the modern world.

I'd also be amiss if I didn't offer a bit of traditional Wild 
West Texas braggadocio and say that I believe the Texas selectors 
can compete with with those of any library in the world (we'll 
even spot you a 100 book lead, select our titles with one-hand 
behind our backs, and promise to clear the stadium of 
rattlesnakes before the contest -- you name the site). We are 
more than comfortable being judged by both statistical methods, 
and on the genuineness of the heartfelt appreciation of our 
faculties, students, and user communities.  In other words ... we 
believe it is perfectly OK to let in a little bit of the both the 
20th and 21st centuries into the field of library book 
selection... and that there is nothing wrong with partnering with 
your readers.

--Dennis  Dillon
Associate Director for Research Services
University of Texas at Austin

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Mendel instance is a classic one, but others of such a sort,
less spectacular, albeit significantly, are legion. One is not
inclined to envy researchers located in Austin in the coming
years, decades and generations

- Laval Hunsucker