Economic aspects of a national electronic reserve service
| Published date | 01 June 2001 |
| Date | 01 June 2001 |
| Pages | 434-443 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000007090 |
| Author | Leah Halliday,Charles Oppenheim |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
RESEARCH BRIEF
ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF A NATIONAL ELECTRONIC
RESERVE SERVICE
LEAH HALLIDAY
l.l.halliday@virgin.net
CHARLES OPPENHEIM
c.oppenheim@lboro.ac.uk
Department of Information Science, Loughborough University
Loughborough, Leicestershire LE11 3TU
Economic aspects of a national electronic reserve service (NERS)
were explored using Ithink Analyst, a modelling software package.
A model was developed and simulations were used to monitor the
effect of variations in the values of key model elements. The model
was based on developments within the UK HE community and
primarily on Higher Education ON demand (HERON), a national
service which is part-funded by the UK HE funding councils. The
two principal activities of HERON are rights clearance and
digitisation but the service is also building a repository of digitised
texts which are stored for future use to avoid duplication of effort.
Model elements were manipulated to compare the cost per student
of providing reserve materials using this service with the cost per
student of a traditional print service. The level of overlap in
materials required by different universities using the service was
varied as was the copyright fee paid to rights holders for use of their
texts. The results suggest that this service is extremely expensive for
a library when compared with an equivalent print service.
Furthermore, if the service operated within the library budget for
reserve materials, the income generated for publishers would be a
fraction of that generated from selling print copies to libraries at the
current rate. The authors conclude that as a whole this service is
inefficient. Specific elements of the service, e.g. the copyright
clearance function, may be efficient in a different context.
1. INTRODUCTION
This paper reports the results of a project in which we used Ithink Analyst, a mod-
elling software package to explore economic aspects of a national electronic
reserve service (NERS). A model was developed and model simulations were
used to monitor the effect of variations in the values of key model elements. The
model was based on a review of the literature and on personal communication
with practitioners. The work focuses on developments in the UK, and the model
itself is based on Higher Education ON demand (HERON) [1] a national service
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Journal of Documentation, vol. 57, no. 3, May 2001, pp. 434–443
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