Re: FTE-based pricing

[David Goodman <dgoodman@Princeton.EDU>]

Dear Sally,

Back when that was the only access mode, and typical searches 
came to $5 on medline & $20 on most others (multiply by about 5 
to convert to 2006) libraries, at least in the US did charge back 
(even well-funded libraries) and it was very much resented. For 
undergraduates, they were usually asked to pay personally, and 
many did not do searches because of the cost. A wealthy 
department sometimes allotted $500 or so for undergraduate 
searches each year, so they could do one each. A wealthy library 
usually allotted a little money for searches in a reference 
context. For expensive databases like CAS and SCI this was a 
serious problem.

The bio librarian previous to me worked out a method where for 
bio abstraacts searches she printed out only the abstract number, 
which greatly reduced the cost.

So this was what we wanted to get away from.

OCLC's FirstSearch still offers this model, in blocks of 500 
search statements. (not including the expensive databases) 
<http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/ordering/persearch/> and 
<http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/databases/databaselist.htm> 
Pricing depends on consortia etc but seem to be about $1 per 
search statement. They call the pricing per search, and if it 
were, in the usual sense, the pricing would be very good indeed, 
but it is per search statement and still reasonable.

I obtained the pricing data from 
<http://www.nlc.state.ne.us/netserv/Pricing/index.html>. Of 
course, OCLC has immense bargaining power. So does JISC, so you 
can compare prices. I can't, because JISC pricing is 
confidential.

Small colleges use this in many situations, but it generally 
means a member of the staff has to be present, for fear the 
patron will waste money. Anything involving staff mediation 
reduces use. Even when the users had to come to come to the 
library in person anyway because there was only print, staff 
mediation still reduced use.

------------------------

Electricity cost in NYC is about $0.20 a kilowatt hour 
residential (reading by a 100 watt bulb for 10 hours). Most 
people I know do watch their electricity use, especially for air 
conditioning and other expensive uses. Most universities do make 
a point of being efficient about it as well, using a considerable 
number of highly skilled staff to maintain the system's 
efficiency.

Very few universities let students make free long distance calls. 
(obsolete, of course, since cell phones at a nationwide rate, and 
now especially VOIP)

Thanks for suggesting the analogies.

David Goodman, Ph.D., M.L.S.
dgoodman@princeton.edu


----- Original Message -----
From: "Sally Morris (Chief Executive)" <sally.morris@alpsp.org>
Date: Friday, October 13, 2006 5:10 pm
Subject: Re: FTE-based pricing
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu

> What is people's view on usage-based pricing (or at least a 
> component of the pricing model)?  It would seem to be the 
> fairest way of reflecting actual use, if that's the issue 
> rather than potential use.  Some have argued, however, that it 
> would discourage use - though I can't see that use of 
> telephones or electric lights is affected this way...
>
> Sally Morris, Chief Executive
> Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers 
> Email: sally.morris@alpsp.org 
> Website:  www.alpsp.org