A c t i o n f o r L i b r a r i e s — J u l y 2 0 0 1

FirstSearch to Offer Per-article Purchasing

By Michael Sauers
OCLC is in the final stages of developing a new purchase option that allows users to access any ECO articles in the OCLC FirstSearch service on a per-article basis. OCLC plans to implement per-article purchasing in July.

With this feature, your library can give patrons access to full-text articles that are available in electronic journals your library does not regularly purchase. Currently, the only full-text articles available to users are those in databases purchased by your library.

Benefit to Users
Once the feature is available, users will see a full-text link from database citations just as they do now. In addition, within that link on the screen, the user will also see the cost for the article, if the library has enabled the display of the cost. All the user will need to do is select the link to view the article. The library is then billed for that article.

Administrative Issues
If a library chooses to turn on this new feature, besides the option of displaying the article's cost to the user, libraries may also set a password for per-article searching to maintain control over who may request the articles. In addition, libraries will have the ability to control per-article purchasing at the journal level and set a maximum price the library is willing to pay for individual articles, as well as set a monthly maximum. If either maximum is reached, an article's availability will not be displayed to the user. The monthly maximums can be set for a year, allowing the library to set different maximums for different months. (Costs to the library will be calculated overnight. Therefore, it will be technically possible for maximums to be exceeded in a single 24-hour period.)

Pricing and Statistics
Prices for individual articles, which will be subject to change at any time, will be set by the publisher of the article, not by OCLC. Most articles will fall into the $10 to $35 range, according to OCLC. Total costs to the library will be added to the library's monthly billing statement. An additional line labeled "Full Text by Purchase Method" will be added to the library's account's statistics to help track usage.

Those interested in further information are encouraged to contact BCR's Michael Sauers at msauers@bcr.org. When this feature is officially implemented, notice will be posted to the FirstSearch-L electronic mailing list. To subscribe to FirstSearch-L, go to www.oclc.org/oclc/forms/listserv.htm. After its implementation, the feature will be added to BCR's online workshop "OCLC FirstSearch: Administering Your Account." More information on the workshop can be found at www.bcr.org/~ids/DistLearn/fsadmininfo.html.

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