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		Consortium licensing - Professor Donald W. King

		Impact of consortium site licences on publishers and libraries - Key Perspectives

		Consortium site licence: the user dimension - City University, London

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Ingenta Institute

The Consortium Site License
- Is It a Sustainable Model?

In September 2002, the Ingenta Institute held a one-day meeting in London, UK, to report on the findings of their latest research, looking at the consortium site license and the impact it has had on publishers, libraries, authors, readers and other intermediaries. A selection of the papers were also presented at a pre-conference at the Charleston Library Conference in the US in October.

Speakers included:

Professor Donald King, School of Information Sciences, University of Pittsburgh
Professor Carol Tenopir, School of Information Sciences, University of Tennessee
Bill Russell, Sales and Marketing Director, Emerald
Professor David Nicholas, Department of Information Sciences, City University, and CiBER

To order a copy of the Report Proceedings, complete the order form.

Preliminary Results

Analysing the impact of consortia dealing on libraries and publishers in the US and Europe in two separate studies, renowned information expert Donald W. King, Professor at The School of Information Sciences, Pittsburgh University and UK-based research consultancy Key Perspectives Ltd identified similar trends despite the relatively recent creation of consortia in Europe. Headline findings include:

Both publishers and librarians see the current consortia negotiation system as transitory. And there are insufficient funds to pay for future renewals and new signatures to consortia deals.

Libraries have commonly raided book budgets and found new, one-off funds to pay for consortia deals.

The recent stimulus to library consortia has been the desire to generate access to a greater amount of electronic information for a relatively small amount of additional cost.

Intermediaries, such as subscription agents, have not been active in negotiating consortia deals on behalf of their library customers.

Instead, large commercial publishers have negotiated directly with consortia, necessitating operational changes within the publishing organisation.

In 2002, many large and medium-sized serials publishers rely on library consortia for between 25%-58% of their total revenues.

Late entrants are finding the lion's share of consortia budgets have already been allocated to the first movers, but smaller publishers recognise their need to be involved in consortia dealings for fear of being locked out of future budget allocations.


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