icolc presentation new orleans, la bob lawless march 15, 2004

ICOLC PresentationNew Orleans, LA

Bob LawlessMarch 15, 2004

Presentation Outline

• Brief restatement of the request• Archival/historical electronic collections• Essential content and technical abilities• Business aspects:

– Data rights and licensing terms and conditions– Pricing

• Roles that consortia play in pricing and distribution

• Summary• Questions

Restatement of Presentation Request

• Focus on ProQuest’s large archival and/or historical electronic collections.

• What is essential about the content and technical capabilities of the products and services.

• What are the business aspects of pricing, data rights, and other terms and conditions associated with licensing.

• What roles that library consortia play in pricing and distribution.

Archival and/or Historical Electronic Collections

• ProQuest has significant archival and historical collections that have been formatted electronically.

• Electronic collections have either originated at ProQuest or been acquired through merger/acquisition activity.

• Electronic collections are diverse.

Archival and/or Historical Electronic Collections

• Electronic collections are also available in other formats.

• Electronic collections are initiated and manufactured based on various factors.

• All material in the ProQuest vault are candidates for electronic collections.

Essential Content and Technical Abilities

• Essential collection content has to:– Contain complete information pertinent to

collection.– Have a level of sophisticated technical ability

and functionality.


• Early collection electronic formatting was CD-ROM.

• Technical ability and functionality for these early CD-ROM based collections are not the same as recent product releases.


• Electronic formatting issues based on time frame is really no different than any other medium as technology and standards change.


• Decisions on electronic collections content and technical aspects are made collaboratively with:– Librarians

– End-users

– Knowledge workers

– Researchers

– Original publishers

Throughout the world through various avenues (i.e. advisory panels, focus groups, etc.).

Data Rights and Licensing Terms and Conditions

• When a product has been collaboratively defined, determined to have value to our market, and is economically viable, content acquisition activities are increased. In some cases, content does not have any copyright restrictions, but is an original collection residing at a museum, university, or in a private collection.

• Negotiations with the information holder includes availability of data for manufacturing, distribution rights (with or without restrictions), and royalty and/or guarantees.


• Even though ProQuest may have rights and permissions for information in microform:– New permissions with accompanying royalty

and guarantees have to be negotiated with a change in format.

– Format changes often result in different distribution requirements and restrictions.


• An example of this is the New York Times Historical Newspaper products that ProQuest introduced.

• ProQuest had microfilm permissions to market and distribute the content in microform. The format change to electronic resulted in substantial royalty guarantees and restrictions on distribution.


• Additional Product Publisher requirements:– Determine the arrangement of data

– Indexing/Abstracting

– Compilation

– Selection

– Manage and design project

– Assign risk assessment

– Determine distribution channels with/without restrictions.

Pricing

• Digitization projects are extreme in their expense and carry a high risk.

– ProQuest has historically weighed these risk and undertaken projects with significant upfront expense exposure. ROI is calculated over a period of years, usually not less than five nor more than ten.

Pricing

• Pricing of a particular electronic collection must:

– Be reasonable in relation to the market opportunity.

– Meet or exceed market expectations.

– Follow original publisher or information owner requirements and requests.

– Allow discounts for customers who currently own the information in another format.

– Provide for individual institutions.

– Provide for Consortia groups.

Pricing

• All of our pricing for electronic collections takes into account customer ownership of the content in another format.

• All of our pricing for electronic collections are available on a single institutional level as well as a consortium level.

• All of our pricing includes training material and hands on training by our Account Developers/Trainers.

Roles That Consortia Play in Pricing and Distribution

• Consortia play a role in membership pricing dependent on:– All members desire a single or bundle of electronic

collections.

– A subset of consortia membership desires a single or bundle of electronic collections.

– A subset of consortia membership desires a single or bundle of electronic collections, and based on diversity of group and size, disciplines or study areas offered, want access to be extended to the entire consortia

Roles That Consortia Play In Pricing and Distribution

• Consortia have a role of administrator and membership purchasing agent.

• Consortia have a role as negotiator on behalf of the membership regarding the procurement of any resources desired by the membership.

• Consortia role in distribution of resources is dependent on ability to locally load and host the information.

Summary

• ProQuest has wide and diverse electronic collections.

• ProQuest collections are either original or have been acquired.

• Electronic collections available in other formats owned by customers carry a lower price point.

• Electronic collection content is complete compared with collection in another format.

• Electronic Collections technical abilities vary dependent on release.

Summary

• Electronic collection development is made with input from various sources.

• Electronic collections are rights and permissions cleared.

• Pricing must be reasonable, meet expectations, adhere to original publisher requirements, allow discounts for other content formats, and be available on both an individual institution as well as a consortia level.

Questions

icolc presentation new orleans, la bob lawless march 15, 2004

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