1. Libraries, Licenses, Institutional
Budgets & Consortia:
What’s a Publisher To Do
Society for Scholarly Publishing
John Tagler
Vice President, Account Development & Channel Marketing
June 2, 2004
2. My Perspective Today
• Large STM publisher (institutional market)
• Heavy emphasis on electronic platform
– ScienceDirect®
– 1800 journal titles
– 14 A & I services (9 Elsevier + 5 third-party)
– Adding reference & book series to platform
– Developed a Web search engine (Scirus)
• Marketing at Elsevier
– Corporate (branding, image)
– Product (users, some librarians)
– Channel Marketing (librarians)
• Supports Regional Sales Offices
2
3. JT’s Basic Tenets of marketing
and selling to libraries
• Often the librarians know more about publishers’
products than sales & marketing people
• Get to the point
– Less is more
– Traditional, high-pressure tactics don’t work
– Avoid hyperbole
– “Slick” can work against you
• Conundrum: paper mail vs. e-mail
– Depends on the message and the objective(s)
– Value of personal contact names
3
4. Basic tenets (cont’d)
• Decision-making isn’t one-step process
– Patience for a long selling cycle
– Hard to track for ROI, results
tracking
– Purchase/renewal cycles
– Librarian(s) set timeframes, not the
publisher
4
5. Basic tenets (cont’d)
• Decision-making isn’t a one-person process
– Collection management
– Library advisory committees
• faculty/researchers
• other librarians/subject specialists
– Long wish lists, limited funds for new
purchases
• get in line
– Often a new acquisition is linked to
cancellation of another title or service
5
6. Challenges facing publishers
• Support for information needs does
not keep pace with research funding
trends
• Scientific output has grown at 3% -
5% per year for past three decades;
not the same pattern in library funding
6
7. Growth in Research & Library Spending
1976-2000
340
US Total Academic R&D
(constant $)
290
Ave ARL Library Expenditure
(constant $)
240
Index (1976=100)
190
140
90
1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000
Year
7
8. Challenges facing publishers
• The value of librarians and library
services is not always appreciated
• Researcher and students’ perception
that everything on the Internet is free
• Lack of agreement as to what
constitutes value worth paying for
• A lot of noise, hyperbole, distortion of
facts and just plain inappropriate
business discussions on lists
8
9. Challenges facing publishers
• Misperception among research and
library communities that electronic
publishing is quick, simple and easy –
anybody can do it cheaper, better and
faster
• Publishers’ failures in messaging
– about value added in the publishing
process
– about increased costs in electronic
publishing process.
9
10. The challenge of dealing with consortia
Each consortium is different
• State system vs. independent alliance
• Centralized administration
• Centralized negotiation only
• Support for other activities (e.g.,
training, marketing)
• Everyone expects equal – or “the best”
-- terms
10
11. What can publishers do?
• Marketing is not just to purchasers:
Authors are another marketing target
– Author gateways
– Electronic peer review
– Manuscript tracking systems
– Articles in press
– Wider distribution of articles via
electronic dissemination
11
12. What can publishers do?
Develop new business models
• Consortia pricing
• Subscription options: more flexibility
– Freedom collections
– Complete collections
– Limited collections
– Subject collections
– Small customer options (small colleges, BioTech
Select)
– ArticleChoice
– Pay-per-View for guest users
12
13. What can publishers do? (cont’d)
Electronic Sales Process
End
Ca
CR
ll p
use
Pri
Ne
M
rep
Ag
nt
r su
Sal
con
got
ree
An
ara
lice
Inv
pp
es
iati
trac
me
aly
tion
nse
oic
ort
cal
A&
on
sis
nt
t
e
l
E
Sales process
Sales support E-fulfilment Helpdesk
13
14. What can publishers do? (cont’d)
• Usage statistics
– Better understand and manage
collection
– Better understand user
behaviors
– Quantifiable data offers proof of
ROI
– COUNTER compliance
14
15. What can publishers do? (cont’d)
• Librarian and user training programs
• Customization by the user
(to increase usage and user
satisfaction)
– Alerting services
– Personal profiles (e.g., saved
searches)
15
16. What can publishers do? (cont’d)
1. Assist in raising awareness of the
value of libraries and librarians
among administrators and
researchers.
2. Assist librarians in marketing
electronic services
16
