ER Options for Acquisitions: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

1. ER Options for Acquisitions:The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Beth Holley, Head, Acquisitions Jill Grogg, E-Resources Librarian The University of Alabama Libraries

2. AGENT ADVANTAGES • Provides detailed title listing of paid subscriptions and access titles • Provides loadable invoice • Tracks titles that fall in-and-out of a package • Tracks publisher changes • Verifies title lists • Verifies charges with negotiated contract

3. AGENT ADVANTAGES, cont. • Tracks format details • Provides customer with registration details • Assists customers with license details • Provides a variety of collection assessment and serials management reports • Provides a place to review and evaluate online renewals for packages • Works with publisher to resolve problems

4. AGENT DISADVANTAGES • Service charge • Time factor • Consolidation • Switching agents

5. DIRECT ADVANTAGES • Single line invoice • No service charge

6. DIRECT DISADVANTAGES • No loadable invoice • No verification of title lists • No reports • No list of subscribed and/or accessible titles other than list included in contract or requested from publisher

7. Loghry’s “To Use or Not to Use” • The “Metamediary” • Aggregated information • Activity clustering • Alleviation of significant time expended • The reality: Multiple metamediaries

8. Authority control for packages EBSCONET Serials Solutions

9. A rose by any other name … • Our “metamediaries” and publishers are calling different groupings of journals different names • Difficult to determine which metamediary or publisher package name corresponds to my package • Difficult for metamediaries to handle institution- or consortium-specific publisher “big deal” packages • Interim solution: Conduct audit of current target activation in knowledgebase, resulting in internal policies

10. Quotable quote “It is part of the agent’s responsibility to track the consortia deals and accurately reflect those deals on orders and invoices, and we are doing so as long as we have been informed.” Tina Feick, as quoted by Michelle Williams, “Serial Conversations: An Interview with Tina Feick: A Ten-Year Retrospective,” Bonnie Parks, Column Editor, Serials Review, 35 (2009): 98-104.

11. “University Library Satisfaction with Publisher and Subscription Agents Services” – Ives, Anderson, and Emery • Survey administered spring 2007 • Results given at 2007 Charleston Conference • “Subscription agents perform significantly better than publishers on 6 of 9 key areas of service satisfaction” Available at: http://repository.tamu.edu/handle/1969.1/6121

12. Deciding to use an agent • Overlay the subscription agent’s system and services on existing workflows • Examine existing staff aptitude and capabilities – managing e-content requires special skills • Evaluate legacy attitudes and current realities toward subscription agent consolidation

13. Quotable quote “The serials agent renaissance has begun.” Norm Medeiros, “On the Dublin Core Front: Transforming Thyself, Serials Agents in a Digital World,” OCLC Systems & Services: International Digital Library Perspectives, 21, no. 1 (2005): 8-12.

14. Zen and the Art of Serials Management E-resources are a mess. Thank you! bholley@ua.edu jgrogg@ua.edu

15. Bibliography • Patricia A. Loghry, “To Use or Not to Use: The Benefits and Challenges of Using a Subscription Agent for Electronic Journals,” E-Serials Collection Management, ed. David C. Fowler (Binghamton, NY: The Haworth Information Press), 2004. • Norm Medeiros, “On the Dublin Core Front: Transforming Thyself, Serials Agents in a Digital World,” OCLC Systems & Services: International Digital Library Perspectives, 21, no. 1 (2005): 8-12. • Tina Feick, as quoted by Michelle Williams, “Serial Conversations: An Interview with Tina Feick: A Ten-Year Retrospective,” Bonnie Parks, Column Editor, Serials Review, 35 (2009): 98-104. • Michael Carroll, Awake at Work (Boston: Shambhala): 2004.