Copyright 1997 CAUSE. From CAUSE/EFFECT Volume 20, Number 2, Summer 1997, pp. 3,30. Permission to copy or disseminate all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for commercial advantage, the CAUSE copyright and its date appear, and notice is given that copying is by permission of CAUSE, the association for managing and using information resources in higher education. To disseminate otherwise, or to republish, requires written permission. For further information, contact Julia Rudy at CAUSE, 4840 Pearl East Circle, Suite 302E, Boulder, CO 80301 USA; 303-939-0308; e-mail: [email protected]

CNI REPORT
The Changing Economics of Scholarly Information

by Richard P. West

CNI grew out of a heritage of information technology applied to librarianship. This is not the characterization I usually make about CNI's beginnings. More often, I think of the Internet as having been the innovation that provided the transport that allowed information to be brought to the reader. However, the Internet was simply the most recent, albeit perhaps the most powerful, of the innovations in information technology to be applied to the needs of the traditional library. Libraries provided a safe storage place for all types of information, but particularly printed information. Having acquired information, libraries spent a considerable amount of their resources in providing ways of finding and using the information stored in the physical library. The library card catalog was the most important way that library users determined the information available for use. Keeping track of information materials on loan to patrons was another library function that was amenable to information technology. Out of earshot of my librarian friends I describe the library automation efforts as an application of a large inventory control problem -- organizing, filing, searching, storing, and tracking the use of a very important and scarce resource -- the scholarly information acquired by our institutions.

I give this very brief and very simplified version of the successes in library automation to segue into another CNI theme, which is about the change in scholarly communication. The digitization of scholarly information, with the introduction of successful and easy-to-use finding tools, introduces significant opportunity for change. Just as earlier applications of information technology to library functions improved the traditional services of our campus library, the ubiquitous national and international network sets the stage for significant change. At times I have been frustrated by the rate of change we have been able to create in the scholarly communication process. I see the opportunity for savings and improved services, but it seems we often continue to persist in old behavior in spite of these clear opportunities.

Demonstrating ways of harvesting the benefits of this change has been characteristic of CNI projects and programs. The economics of networked information, including shifts among cost centers that deal with scholarly information, is one such project. One obvious example of this shift is that one copy of an article can serve a world-wide base of users. No longer is the information geographically bound, nor does it need to be rationed by the physical availability of a limited number of copies. The opportunity to have the world's information content immediately available is obvious. But what is technically possible does not automatically become an implementation.

The selection of the scholarly materials to be purchased by research and education libraries has always been a critical role of librarians. Collection development librarians see many more opportunities for acquiring scholarly materials than the collections budget permits. Rationing has always occurred. So it continues in our digitized, networked-information world. The cost of the basic resource is still the limiting factor. We need to find ways to place more of our institutional information services budget into the acquisition of the rights to use infomation.

CNI as well as other projects have indicated that there are certain market conditions in the scholarly journals marketplace that indicate -- in lay shorthand -- an insufficient supply in the good old supply and demand model. The best articles are contained in a limited number of journals. Price of these journals can be increased without affecting total revenue received. That is, although some cancellation of subscriptions occurs while price goes up (which is what one would expect) there are enough libraries willing to pay a higher price for the journal to make up for the publisher's revenue loss from canceled subscriptions. Changes in intellectual property rights -- at the core of changing the scholarly communication process -- will be required to change the economics of the distribution of scholarly information.

This debate around the changing economics of scholarly communication and the value provided by the entities in the distribution chain -- scholars, publishers, brokers of information, institutional and individual buyers -- has been a very productive CNI theme.

At the CNI Spring Task Force meeting, the session on cost centers moved quickly to value-added processes and whether there are cost savings, cost changes, and/or service improvements as networked scholarly communication becomes more prevalent. While very stimulating, I believe many involved in the discussion left the meeting a bit disappointed, because the next steps of our project were unclear. What would be the most useful effort to help us understand how to improve our services or save costs?

I was reminded of this exchange about cost center changes when I encountered two statements in two quite different institutional settings about support of our scholarly information services (our libraries). One statement said that only a small percentage of the total faculty were searching the online catalog and even fewer faculty made up the actual circulation statistics of the campus library. The second statement, in a different institution, said that it had become obvious that traditional print-based journals had become so expensive that there was no alternative but to turn to electronic sources of information.

These two data points tell me there is change afoot. The information requirements of our faculty are being met in ways other than traditional communications approaches. New approaches of dealing with the scarce goods of information content are in play because of economic necessity and not because of the allure of the latest technology. The new technology will cause new ways of packaging and pricing the information resource. We will move to new licensing models and to budgeting our collections dollars on usage. Is it the best investment of our limited dollars to maintain a traditional delivery system that serves a very limited number of our faculty and students? What delivery mechanism will serve the most of our constituents in the most efficient way?

My bias is clear -- technology enables change. Individuals and institutions will adapt to new opportunities as economic pressures and service opportunities of the new delivery mechanisms become clear.

CNI's program has always emphasized that the greatest payoff in networked information is to change the nature of the scholarly communication process. By focusing on improved scholarly communications, the investments and the reallocations we need to make in our institutional services will become more clear.

CNI Report is a regular CAUSE/EFFECT department that provides reports about the activities of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), formed by the Association of Research Libraries, CAUSE, and Educom in 1990 to promote the creation of and access to information resources in networked environments. The CNI Web site (http://www. cni.org/) offers excellent resources on a variety of topics related to networked information challenges and solutions.

Richard P. West (richard_west@qmbridge. calstate.edu) is Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance for the California State University System. He has chaired the steering committee of the Coalition for Networked Information since its establishment in 1990.

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