Channel One as a Current Events Medium for Secondary Students

SUMMARY

Setting prices in fee-based information services presents many challenges. Each service and its parent institution have a different definition of “cost recovery” and a different set of local accounting rules and procedures. The manager assesses the organizational goals and strategies, and then reviews the standard pricing models to determine which one best matches local objectives. This paper explores cost accounting methodology to illustrate one method of costing services and determining prices to cover those costs.     

Interlibrary Loan and Electronic Reserve Haikus

ABSTRACT

The Interlending Section, University Library System, Chinese University of Hong Kong provides centralized, charging back interlibrary loan services. Overseas document delivery vendors are essential to the Interlending Section in satisfying the information needs of its users. Based on nine considerations, the Interlending Section seriously and carefully selects a few overseas document delivery vendors that are able to satisfy nearly 90% of photocopy requests in 14 days. Such performance matches that of the local sources. The considerations used by the Interlending Section are cost and pricing structure, response and efficiency, fill rate, specialty, in-house collection, royalty arrangement, charges other than document cost and royalty, method of payment, and means of request transmission.     

A Heuristic Approach to Selecting Delivery Mechanisms for Electronic Resources in Academic Libraries

Abstract

This paper provides guidance lo academic librarians lor making cost effective— and appropriate purchase and networking decisions for electronic bibliographic database products. Products on the market have proliferated in type, coverage, implementation method, pricing, and vendor commitment. Analyzing elements of an institution's needs for information and the best way lo offer it is extremely complex and involves many interrelated variables. The authors propose applying the results of Ihis examination of the institutional environment to a few “rules of thumb” as a reliable guide to decision making.     

An optimal pricing model for interconnection

Abstract

This work presents an optimal access‐pricing model, based in the work of Armstrong, Doyle & Vickers (1996), but including network externalities. In the model, there is an incumbent firm owning the essential facility, and an entrant who needs to buy access to final consumers. This situation is studied comparing first‐best optimum and Ramsey pricing. The findings show that prices are lower when network externalities are included, and the importance of giving some kind of incentive to the firms which introduce new technology, so that the network can grow and the consumers can get the benefits of the network externalities.     

The Case for Curation: The Relevance of Digest and Citator Results in Westlaw and Lexis

Summary

This article addresses pricing questions raised by the 1996 acquisition of West Publishing Company by The Thomson Corporation by considering what happened to Lawyer's Co-op/Bancroft-Whitney treatise titles transferred to CB-C following the Thomson acquisition of Lawyer's Co-op. Although the sample of titles examined is small, it appears that price increases have been well above increases in the legal publications industry generally, and this suggests the need to monitor West titles carefully.     

The “Seventy Percent Solution”

SUMMARY

Portland State University Library's fund allocation committee presented information and practical advice on the process of developing a model to reallocate funding for library materials. After experimenting with funding ratios, they decided to use their model to reallocate 30 percent of the funds earmarked for discipline-specific materials while protecting 70 percent of each discipline's original allocation.     

Factors influencing the international syndication marketplace in the 1990s

This article examines 10 factors affecting the U.S. international syndication business in the 1990s, especially sales in Western Europe. Despite sluggish sales and the enforcement of EC and national quotas, the study suggests that syndicators offering high‐quality programming and adopting proactive and creative marketing strategies will prosper and maintain their competitive edge during this decade. The author suggests two key strategies, cooperative agreements and creative pricing, as means of coping with financial challenges and expanding international sales of television programs.     

Evolving Concepts and Business Models for Acquiring Electronic Resources

ABSTRACT

Libraries, publishers, and agents all face unique challenges related to the acquisition of electronic resources. Among the many variables that figure into the acquisition of an e-resource are access rights, pricing models, and packaging options. This article looks at several of these variables from both the publisher's and the agent's view, evaluating the current state of affairs and addressing forthcoming developments.     

Electronic Publishing

Summary

This report describes introductory remarks concerning Stanford University Libraries' HighWire Press and highlights of an “online tour” of the Website. Those attending the workshop then voted on several topics that presenter Vicky Reich was willing to address in the allotted time. In the session this recorder attended, those voting chose access/archiving, license agreements, and pricing/business models as their top priorities for discussion.     

Supporting Indigenous Studies Programs Through Sustainable Budget Allocation

ABSTRACT

This study assesses acquisitions budget allocation for sustainable support of Indigenous Studies (IS) and the challenge of addressing the needs of an emergent subject area. A survey of collections librarians provided context for library allocation practices of other Canadian institutions offering IS programs. An analysis of titles purchased before and after creating an IS subject fund was performed; results reveal that there was an increase in the number of IS titles purchased annually after the fund was created. A defined subject fund allowed flexibility beyond conventional library collections structures to address the unique needs of IS as an academic discipline.     

Serving Pro Se Patrons

Abstract

Historically, non-lawyer patrons in law libraries have been viewed with discomfort, and library services, even in libraries open to the public, have been geared toward members of the legal community. However, changes in both the needs of the public and in the demographics of library patrons are challenging the traditional allocation of services in public law libraries. This article discusses the reasons for the traditional allocation of services, the cultural and economic forces that are bringing the public to law libraries in greater numbers, and new modes of service that can better meet the needs of public patrons.     

西方国家公共信息资源定价问题研究综述

以西方国家公共信息资源开发利用中的定价问题为研究对象,分析公共信息资源定价问题的形成和复杂性,梳理人们支持或反对公共信息资源定价的理由,对影响信息定价的因素和如何进行定价进行总结。同时,从资金支持、市场激励、效益发挥和用户获取等视角深入探讨成本回收定价与边际成本定价的利弊,进而从不同定价模式的实践效果比较中,指出边际成本定价或免费正在成为当前公共信息资源定价的首要选择。     

Chapter IX: Extenuating Circumstances: The Framework of Factors Influencing Cost Effectiveness Within the SUNY Express Network

SUMMARY

The SUNY Express document and book delivery service was implemented in October 1993, within the context of cooperative resource sharing among the SUNY (State University of New York) University Center Libraries. This article discusses the fixed cost factors of the service, insights gained about actual costs, and the framework of additional cost factors influencing overall cost effectiveness of the cooperative. The article primarily presents the perspective of an individual institution (the University at Albany), but it also discusses cost factors generally applied to the four SUNY University Centers (Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo and Stony Brook).     

Special‐purpose television

The current advances in FM radio broadcasting's financial status are to a great extent due to the “additional” income brought in by various multiplexed services: storecasting, transitcasting, even special programming that is designed to inform medical practitioners of new techniques. At present, the allocation structure and transmission standards of television do not permit the use of subsidiary service multiplexing. However, if such a development were possible, its effect upon the structure of television broadcasting would be tremendous.     

Costing Reference

Abstract

The Assessing Quality in Digital Reference project is a first step toward understanding the cost of digital reference services in libraries. This article presents three measures isolated by project participants as being most useful for their immediate needs: total cost of providing digital reference service, the cost of digital reference service as a percent of the total reference budget, and the cost of reference as a percent of the total library or organizational budget. In addition, it reviews selected outstanding issues in the ongoing question of how to determine the cost of reference services in libraries and offers direction for further study toward a general cost model for information services.     

1. CBQ REVIEW ESSAY: Reality Television: Scholarly Treatments Since 2000

Edwin Emery, Phillip Ault and Warren Agoe's Introduction to Mass Communications (Dodd, Moad, $7.95)

Denis McQuail, Towards a Sociology of Mass Communications (Macmillan, paperback at ca.$2.50)

Marshall McLuhan, Culture is Our Business (McGraw-Hill, $10.00)

David Manning White, Pop Culture in America (Quadganglo paperbacks, $2.45)

Mass Culture (Free Press, $2.95)

Theodore Peterson, Jay Jensen and William L. River's The Mass Media and Modern Society (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, now edition to cost $8.95)