NASIG Newsletter

TACTICS SESSION

Today’s Journal Cost: Print vs. Online

Richard Fidczuk, Production Director, Sage Publications Ltd.; and Linda Beebe, Senior Director, PsycINFO, American Psychological Association
Reported by Virginia A. Rumph 

Richard Fidczuk has twenty years experience in the production of both books and periodicals.  He has seen the shift from print-only to the volatile environment of today.  Fidczuk began by listing three costs of journal production: costs that don’t depend on format, costs for print only, and costs for online only.  Costs can also be divided into fixed costs, and variable costs.  The fixed costs incurred regardless of delivery mechanism include pre-acceptance costs, and post-acceptance costs.  

Fidczuk next examined printing costs.  Sage still prints all its journals and anticipates continuing that policy for some time.  The make-ready costs are high, but decrease as more copies are printed.  As print runs decrease, manufacturing costs increase.  Very low print runs would allow for digital printing which has a stable cost, but that cost is higher than litho printing.  Distribution costs continue to rise as mailing costs increase.  The set-up cost to print the first copy is fixed, but after that the printing costs are variable.  Consequently, so long as any copies are printed, costs remain.  Online-only costs were then examined.  These include coding, hosting, website and feature development costs, archiving costs, and more.  For those publishers with a large title list, these fees mount up to a substantial sum of money.   

Linda Beebe shared her perspective on what is happening to journal costs.  The scholarly community expected electronic publishing would be cheaper since printing and postage would be eliminated.  However, the reality is that electronic publishing costs more than anyone dreamed it would.  Beebe presented a series of charts with a cost breakdown for a hypothetical journal in print only, print + electronic, and electronic only.  The print-only costs $104 per article, print + electronic $185, and electronic-only $166. 

Beebe listed many extras that are expected with electronic publishing such as pre-print servers, linking, TOC alerts, personalization, legacy data, and supplemental material.  There are also development and infrastructure costs.  So far, some items it was hoped would save money have not worked out.  Unfortunately, the many benefits of electronic publishing have not produced dollar savings.  The bottom line is that electronic publishing is more expensive than print and will stay that way for the foreseeable future.  However, the tools are getting better, which may eventually lower costs, and technology does get cheaper. 

From the library point of view, there was also hope that cost savings would be realized with the elimination of check-in, shelving, binding, and storage.  However, the acquisitions process is more costly, collection development is more complicated, more skilled staff are required, and more training is needed.  New issues and equipment must also be considered. Beebe did find some good news for us to ponder.  Journals now reach more people, are used more often and longer, and the cost per user and per use will go down for both publisher and librarian.  Also, electronic publishing improves science.  To continue along the path of electronic publishing is our only option.  Authors, readers, and librarians demand nothing less.

TACTICS SESSION

Climbing the Mountain: Choosing the Best Path for Serials Record Management

Jennifer Edwards, Serials Cataloger Librarian, MIT Libraries; and Betsy Friesen, University of Minnesota
Reported by Peter Fletcher

Jennifer Edwards’ individual presentation title was: “Piggybacking En Masse.” At MIT, Edwards stated that the single record approach of cataloging electronic resources has been used since 1998. Furthermore she reported, as in most libraries, there is an increasing number of e-resources and less staff time to devote to the required, frequent maintenance of the cataloging records.

In order to improve timely access to and maintenance of e-resources, a method that would partly automate the maintenance of the records and add a significant number of online titles to the catalog was devised. Specifically, the method involves using the MARCit service to batch load records for electronic resources from specific packages held by MIT. The records would match on OCLC number, ISSN, and ISN.  Records for which print titles are held would import only 856 fields and holdings. Records not matching would be loaded as separate records. Successful test loads were then accomplished. MARCit will send regular bibliographic and URL updates. 

In addition, Edwards indicated that holdings are maintained by SFX at MIT, and the catalog will be implemented as an SFX source.  Benefits to be derived from these developments are that thousands of records for presently un-cataloged serials from aggregator databases will be added to the catalog, titles added to existing packages will be added to the catalog without manual intervention, and manual maintenance of URLs will be reduced. In conclusion, Edwards noted that while some tight control of the catalog will be lost, the catalog will become a more comprehensive record of MIT holdings, and the catalog, as an SFX source, will offer more comprehensive access to electronic resources.  

Betsy Friesen’s presentation, “Using Separate Records for Print and Electronic Titles,” followed. A separate record approach is being implemented at theUniversity of Minnesota Libraries as the most efficient and timely way of indicating changes and additions to electronic resources in the catalog.  The decision was made to switch from a cataloging policy of single record approach for electronic resources after evaluating the advantages and disadvantages. Friesen and her team came to the conclusion that the advantages: allowing automated/batch loading; including a complete description of e-resources; facilitating compiling statistics; standardizing cataloging practices; and easier catalog maintenance outweighed the disadvantages: preference of some users for a single record approach; potential cataloger workload increase; and vendor record costs. Thus, the policy change would be implemented, which would include splitting and de-duping records as necessary, while creating new electronic version records. 

Furthermore she reported that vendor provided records that were “fixed” via scripts at load to credibly represent online resources.  After the load, record clean-up commenced.  Serial records in need of review were identified and added to a spreadsheet, which catalogers worked with in order to remove online access elements from single record approach titles: bibliographic, holdings, item, open orders, and so on. Friesen concluded by noting that problematic titles were set aside for serials catalogers to resolve, the systems office deleted duplicate records, and the catalog would be implemented as an SFX source.

TACTICS SESSION

Open Access and Conscious Selection

Kitti Canepi,  Head of Information Resources Management; and Andrea Imre, Electronic Resources Librarian; both from Southern Illinois University Carbondale; and Harold Way, Account Services Manager, EBSCO
Reported by Wendy C. Robertson 

Kitti Canepi, Andrea Imre, and Harold Way believe open access is an experiment and it has yet to be determined if it will be sustainable in the long run. They began by explaining open access (OA) and referred the audience to the website http://www.soros.org/openaccess/read.shtml for a complete explanation.   

There are two ways to achieve open access: self archiving and publishing in OA journals. Self-archiving is the author’s responsibility, using an institutional repository, a personal web site or an institutional website.  Open access journals can include titles with all content freely available, for example, DOAJ; partial OA content, for example, BMJ and BioMedCentral; or delayed OA, for example, many Highwire titles. 

Open access benefits authors through a wider dissemination of their work, giving it a greater impact, and through faster publication.  Readers benefit from barrier free access.  For libraries, OA solves, or at least eases, the “pricing and permission crisis” (defined by Peter Suber in a 2003 C&RL article). 

Way gave some specific data based on EBSCO subscription services and databases because of his familiarity with these products, but believes they represent the industry as a whole.  He indicated that while only 10% of all the titles available to purchase through EBSCO are electronic, scholarly publishing is 40% electronic titles. 

Database providers need to consider content, not specific journals.  They try to create a database appropriate for the market and this may include OA titles. However, providers then ask for permission to include the OA titles and some OA titles are not clear about whom to contact so this can take some time. Including OA titles in databases has the advantage of further distribution of the content but the disadvantage that libraries may be paying for free content.  

Libraries have been including OA titles in journal lists, adding to the OPAC, A-Z database lists and subject pathfinders, essentially treating them like other titles. However, OA titles can be difficult to find if you don’t have a link resolver with a collection of free titles. Despite the costs of maintaining links, the presenters believe that libraries should make OA titles available because libraries support the open access publishing model.  Libraries want users to come to them and authors want their articles widely available. Librarians can provide value added service by making users aware of journals, mediating between users and materials and monitoring the quality of journals. This requires diligently selecting journals before directing people to them.  

The presenters also referred to a recent C&RL article for additional information. Furthermore, they suggested a variety of selection criteria for OA journals: content, publisher/reputation, availability of indexing, format and accessibility, longevity and currency, license restrictions, and considerations due to your consortia.  

OA titles, like gift books, have a cost because they require all the regular maintenance of a serials title and an electronic resource. The presenters encouraged librarians to take the time needed to select OA titles and to add them to their collections to help make people aware of them. 

The presentation concluded with a discussion with the audience about how librarians should treat OA titles.

TACTICS SESSION

Generating E-Collections Lists for Dummies: Creating a Better Electronic Reference Collection

Char Simser, Head of Cataloging and Serials Department; Mohan Ramaswamy, Science Librarian; and Tara Baillargeon, Social Sciences Librarian, all from Kansas State University
Reported by Kathryn Johns-Masten 

This interesting presentation was given by Char Simser, Head of Cataloging and Serials, Mohan Ramaswamy, Science Librarian, and Tara Baillargeon, Social Sciences Librarian, all from Kansas State University. 

Providing access to electronic reference collections is an important issue for libraries.  Like many libraries, Kansas State had new resources such as netLibrary, Gale reference materials and the ABC-CLIO database, which were listed individually in their OPAC, and subject guides with links to databases on their homepage.  Users were not finding these hidden gems and the public reference librarians wanted to streamline and simplify the process of retrieval for users. 

Char Simser heard a talk given at a NASIG Annual Conference by Steve Shadle from the University of Washington which sparked an idea.  They had used codes and canned searches to dynamically generate lists of materials on the fly, thereby getting users to sources they usually did not find.  Why not do the same thing at Kansas State? 

A team was formed, including subject librarians, reference generalists, a Web team member and the collection development librarian.  The goal was to link free and fee resources together to increase their visibility and get users to these hidden resources.  The CatNet page was the end result with four sections: eReference tools, Quick eReference, K-State eReference and Subject Guides.  Canned searches in Voyager provided access to e-reference books and could be searched by titles, type or subject.  Creating this “electronic reference collection” would take a great deal of time and cooperation between multiple departments in the library.  The decision about what resources to include and exclude went well.  The next step was to create the code.  While this sounds easy, it took quite a lot of checking to find a code that was not already being used and to choose subject headings and department codes.  The MARC 710 field was used for type of material and subject codes and the 730 for department codes and format of the material.  By including this code it not only enabled users to locate information quickly, it created easier maintenance of e-journal packages, group subscriptions and memberships, and lists of current subscriptions by department.  Completion of a serials cancellation project and the ability to do canned searches also benefited from the new codes.  Lists could easily be pulled from the OPAC using the code in each record and the canned searches provided users with the most up-to-date information in a format they understood. 

In conclusion, the group stated that the project is a growing organism.  Decisions need to be made about continuing maintenance, selection and evaluation of the page.  A new system will be implemented to obtain usage statistics.  Next steps involve more publicity of CatNet, a more prominent placement on the homepage and continued evaluation to meet the needs of users.  To view the CatNet page go to: http://www.lib.ksu.edu/reference/index.html.

TACTICS SESSION

Mile High to Ground Level:  Getting Projects Organized and Complete

Jennifer Marill, Office of Strategic Initiatives, Library of Congress
Reported by Rosella Thomas 

This presentation by Jennifer L. Marill, from the Office of Strategic Initiatives at the Library of Congress, focused on the process of organizing and completing a project through good project management techniques. By illustrating those established project management techniques, this session showed the multiple steps in the process of organizing and completing a project from beginning to end: how to initiate, plan, execute, monitor, complete and close the project out. 

A good project manager must be a mentor, taskmaster, cheerleader and disciplinarian to have the project done well.  Defining a project requires careful planning and a clearly identified and documented objective, together with enough training and support by the project members who provide their individualized expertise and creative energy to work collaboratively toward the finished goal. 

Using project management methods and resources such as Gantt charts, responsibility assignment matrixes (RAM), and the PMBOK® Guide, and drawing on resources from the Project Management Institute, the outcome from this session was a carefully planned series of steps to execute a project, including:  

• Planning a project and putting a team together
• Project requirements
• Work breakdown structure (WBS)
• Budget and scheduling
• Risk planning
• Executing and monitoring
• Keeping people informed and managing change
• Why projects fail
• Proper closeout of a project

Although she stated at the beginning of her presentation that her projects were not necessarily serials-related, good practical advice was offered and the audience garnered a better understanding of how to organize and execute projects they may have to initiate for their respective libraries.