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Consortial Licensing of Digital Resources: Implications for Cooperative Collection Develop- ment: A Program Sponsored by the ALCTS CMDS Education for Collection Development Committee

For this program a panel of experts looked at models of library cooperation and how they have been adapted to the online environment. Anthony Ferguson, Associate University Librarian, Columbia University, using the Triangle Research Libraries Network (TRLN) of North Carolina as his example, sought to identify the factors leading to a successful cooperative venture and to see whether those factors were the same or different when applied to electronic resources. He posited need, geographical proximity, visionary leadership, shared bibliographic information, and daily document delivery as the environmental success factors when TRLN was founded. In the digital world, all of these factors apply, though sometimes in new contexts. For example, shared bibliographic information takes the form of mutually accessible virtual catalogs rather than exchanged catalog cards, and geographical proximity stills seems important for political and psychological reasons, even though delivery of physical items may be unnecessary.

Ferguson also updated and elaborated on a set of "success principles" originally outlined by Downs and Branscomb, the librarians at UNC and Duke, respectively, when those institutions were first starting to cooperate. He found that the principle of self-interest still rules, in the sense that an institution must feel that it is contributing to the cooperative those materials that it would like to provide to its own users. It is similarly valid that forced collaboration still fails. It is best to allow members of a cooperative to selectively participate in licensing electronic materials, just as it was wise in the past to make sure that any agreement to purchase certain materials for the cooperative would not restrict partners from buying whatever additional books and journals they wished for their own patrons. The emphasis on graduate materials is no longer appropriate, since aggregate buying power makes the purchase of a wider range of materials possible. Flexibility is still important, and the principle of duplication avoidance is slightly altered, in that networks allow different institutions local access to the exact same resources but duplicative loading of such resources on local servers can be avoided. The principle that each institution must allocate staff time to cooperative ventures is still true, and libraries still believe in faculty involvement, though mostly as an act of faith.

Ferguson finished by asserting that the aggregated buying power afforded by cooperatives should be a win/win situation for libraries and for publishers, despite the fact that some vendors may be uncomfortable with cooperation and may resort to "divide and conquer" strategies. Overlapping constituencies and the fluidity of pricing in the digital realm make this possible. However, he stressed that we should continue to increase the range of materials we make available to our users, reduce the amount of time required to provide them, and be flexible.

Karen Schmidt, Acquisitions Librarian and Coordinator of Collection Development, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, then spoke about the experience of a multi-consortial environ- ment. Her institution is a member of ILCSO (Illinois Library Computer Systems Organization), the statewide library cooperative catalog and network; CCMP (Cooperative Collection Management Program), a multi-type consortium of over 50 libraries in Illinois; and CIC (Committee on Institutional Cooperation), a regional consortium of large research libraries. Schmidt proposed three principles for making licensing work in this kind of environment: primacy, the principle that your first commitment is to your institution; pragmatism, the principle of keeping the number of databases and interfaces manageable; and partnership, the principle of commitment to making the cooperative work.

UIUC is in the position of choosing which consortium to contract with for a particular electronic product. Price is, of course, important in making this decision, but the timing of the offer also is

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a factor. Schmidt feels that cooperative licensing is just beginning to settle down, libraries are getting more confident in negotiating with vendors, and vendors are getting better at it. She believes that, while cooperation in the print arena is not going to stop, digital projects are also not going to go away.

Patricia Iannuzzi, Head of the Reference Department, Florida International University Libraries, also spoke about working in a multi-consortial setting. She stressed the importance of planning, setting priorities, and achieving consensus. Problems arise if your institution is a member of several consortia, and multi-type consortia are especially difficult. Budget cycles may not coincide, and consensus may be strained because the user populations will be so different. Trying to find a set of core databases may result in a lowest-common-denominator selection that no one is pleased with. Turnover in membership can be a problem, as well as technical infrastructure issues, such as trying to negotiate an common platform (telnet or web-based products?). There can also be a conflict between the role of consortium staff and the role of the individual institutions, and even within institutions, in the sense that reference and/or collection development may be involved.

There are several factors that make consortial licensing work. Of course, pricing is a factor, since the savings to individual libraries may be very great, but also clout, since major concessions, such as a hook to holdings, can be negotiated. And remote access makes possible things that were never possible with earlier cooperatives. Iannuzzi recommended that members of a consortium engage in an ongoing discussion to maintain a wish list and deal with platform issues. Coordinating an internal evaluation process, preferably involving users, can also be helpful. In closing, she made the point that libraries should realize that sometimes deciding not to participate is the right decision, although it can be difficult to overcome the inertia that exists if a platform is in place. Sometimes the time is not right, and sometimes libraries should face the fact that a particular program has served its purpose and is now over. Each proposal may not work, and that's ok, but consortial licensing in general is worth the effort.

PII S0364-6408(97)00102-6 Steve Alleman Collection Management Librarian

University of New Orleans Lakefront New Orleans 70148

Internet: spali @ uno.edu

Something Old, Something New: The Evolution of the Out-of-Print Book Business: A Report of the ALCTS Out.of-Print Discussion Group

This well-thought-out panel produced an outstanding afternoon, despite its being after lunch in a warm, filled-to-capacity room (producing some lapses in reporting coverage and a plea to ALA for a bigger room next time). Discussion focused on the ways in which automated applications have transformed the out-of-print market and the players in it and what the implications of this might be for the future of the out-of-print book business.

The panel included Jacob Chernofsky, editor of the venerable A. B. Bookman's Weekly, Joel Chapman of Acorn Books, an established San Francisco store, and Sam McDonald of Amazon Books, more commonly referred to as "amazon.dot.corn" and resorted to with some guilt by this writer when not up to the drive to the local independent bookseller. The panel also represented three generations of book men-- the reader should not have much trouble sorting out which generation was which.