Shared E-books from Coast to Coast: Consortial Programs in Florida and the Pacific Northwest

Editor's Notes

• #12: My name is sadiewilliams and I worked with Orbis Cascade during the last two years of their program. Linda asked me to give a brief overview of our role I’ll also talk about the role that Orbis has played as a first step for a number of new consortia modelsOrbis was the first shared-access DDA program at EBL and really a pioneer in helping us develop our consortia ebook models.Once EBL was selected as an aggregator, we worked withOrbisCascde to understand their goals and develop a model that fit. As Linda mentioned, shared ownership and collection building was a high priority. At the time, any consortia ebook model available did not remotely fit their goals. EBL worked closely with Orbis cascade to identify what was important to them, what model they could support and build a model that would not only fit them, but something we felt publishers would accept to some extent – knowing we’d have to start with a pilot.. Once we decided on using the multiplier model in combination with DDA, we had to identify th multiplier. Orbis used the data from YBP to show that they on average had purchased just above 3 copies. Initially they thought a multiplier of 3 would fit. But, given that 1.) Not all libraries use YBP and 2.) The nature of a shared print book and a shared ebook was fundamentally different and a shared ebook access a consortia with multiple users give you siginicantly more convenience and reduce in costs and 3.) they were purchasing in combination with DDA/STLS we proposed going to publishers with a multiplier of 5, which we thought would be reasonable for both Orbis and for publishers.Although print data is useful in some cases, as more and more libraries move toward e. publishers have asked for different data and we’ve developed different models for calculating a multiplier as needed.We discussed their needs in terms of workflow support and reporting up front and altered our platform to support their goals including real=time detailed reporting center at the consortia level and library level. We set up authentication so each institution could use their own authentication method and use single-sign un with university login if set up.At the same time we were altering the platform, we started publisher negotiations. As __ said, it is a long process. We didn’t have any back and forth, but stuck to what we felt was a good multiplier. A key point in the relationship with publishers working with Oribs is that we offer usage and expenditure data back to the publishers for this program as well as information about non consortial purchases of their books which in many cases grew, as individual libraries added their own ebook and DDA programs. We worked to identify target size for their initial pool of records. For individual libraries, we use averages to predict spend, which generally proves to be quite accurate. With orbis, we had no similar size institutions so we couldn’t use regular averages to predict spend and had to do some educated guessing when identifying size of the pool. The first year was a bit rough with many changes but by the second year we had a much smoother situation.
• #13: On going supportWe have worked very closely with Orbis and OCLC to develop two separate workflows. An initial workflow included WCP and then a second utilized the OCLC Knowledge base. We also recommend adjustments to their profile as we watch expenditures over time. Often doing calculations to predict spend through the year and figure out if they need to raise or lower trigger.
• #14: As I said before, Orbis cascade was really the jumping point for us in terms of consortia models. We now have 30 programs live in N. America across ebl and ebrary. Ebrarybegain with a model very similar to the orbis model as well – although we were not yet “partners.None of our 30 programs are alike and most are uniquely different. Our goal has been to work with each consortia to develop a model that fits them or alter an existing model to fit their needs.