More information from the last ICOLC meeting....

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Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2001 23:48:57 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ann Okerson <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: ICOLC#10-Books 24 x 7
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To: The Consortium List <[log in to unmask]>

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Books 24 x 7
ICOLC#10
October 6, 2001
9:30 - 10:30 a.m.

Note:  The hot topic in this session (and it did get quite hot!) was about
24 x 7's insistence that each institution take a minimum of one
Simultaneous User seat, while ICOLCers asked, or rather insisted, that
consortia should be allowed to pool SUs.  See the Question/Answer section
at the end of the product material.

Pam Morris
"Powering Global Access to Reference Content"

Books 24 x 7 corporate overview:
* Leading provider of business-critical "referenceware" solutions to
* Enhance the learning experience
* Accelerate the acquisition of knowledge and skills
* Pioneer in referenceware creation and delivery
* More than 325,000 paying customers
* Founded in 1994
* Headquarters in Norwood, MA
* Serving the corporate, learning and library markets

Features of the referenceware platform:
* Aimed at professionals
* Browser-based, no plug-ins
* Personalized bookshelf
* Editorial board of independent journalists and authors
* Powerful relevance search
* Intuitive navigation
* Full text for every book

We are strong in the corporate space:
* Financial services
* Manufacturing
* Telecom, technology
* Not-for-profit and government
* 800 companies and institutions

Our Technology/Delivery platform:
* Multi-tiered search capabilities
* Search browse and view full contents
* Accessible worldwide via platform independent web browser and wireless
* MARC records available
* IP authentication
* Simultaneous usage
* Remote patron access
* Zero administration

Delivery and integration is just as critical as the content:
* Publishers are in the content creation business
* They are not software developers
* More than 65 have partnered with books 24 x 7

Content acquisitions and management:
* Strategic alliances with 65 best in class commercial publishers
* Editorial focus on relevancy, quality, currency
* Continual evaluation loop for content enhancement
* 1100+ live titles, hundreds more coming soon
* Standardization of content is key to scalability

Major publisher relationships with:
* Sybex
* Sams/Que
* McGraw Hill
* Hungry Minds
* John Wiley
* Microsoft Press
* Selected IBM Redbooks
* ArtechHouse
* Etc.  Others in negotiation
* Subject coverage of over 90 technical topics

Product demo was shown (briefly).
Personalization features are possible if user creates own password
10% book purchase discount is offered

PRICING

* List price $6600 1 SU
* Consortial price $4950 1 SU
* Additional SU discounts
* Discounts when orders are placed together
* One price; no additional charge as new content is added
* Usage reports available including SU denials
* Trials are available

Q.  What do you do with old content?
A.  They are live on the site for only two years.  But, we will not pull
anything off.  We are marking older content with an "archive" button and
adjusting the search algorithm so the archive title is less likely to come
up in a search.

Q.  Are seats shared at consortial or institutional level?
A.  Generally at the institutional level.  We do allow consortial sharing
for very small institutions.

Q.  Are statistics kept by IP?
A.  Usage is at the subscription level, not IP level.

Q.  Any plans for FTE based pricing?  What's the average number of SUs
that libraries are buying?
A.  No, we are not planning for FTE pricing.  We left the Library market
because we couldn't compete with EarthWeb (who are now out of business).
3,000 FTE can be supported by 1 SU.  Most institutions have 1-3.

Q.  What's current relationship with O'Reilly?
A.  We are not currently working with them.  They have their own service.

Q. What is the difference between your service and the Safari service
(O'Reilly)?
A.  Pearson and O'Reilly have limited content in certain areas.  They may
have a hard time working outside of their own imprints.  Theirs feels to
me more like a book merchandizing platform than anything else.  You buy
points and then pick books based on your points.

Q.  What kinds of discounts are available for additional SUs?
Answer:

SUs     List Price      Consortial Price

2       7700            5775
3       11,550          8662
4       14,520          10,890
5       18,150          13,612
10      34,500          25,875

Q.  What about letting a consortium buy a block of SUs?  And the
consortium would allocate those.
A.  You need to have at least one SU per institution (except for very
small ones of a couple of hundred students).  But, if you buy them at the
same time, then you get the discount.

Q.  My smallest institution has 1500 FTE.  We have 150,000 FTE sharing one
netLibrary book and it works!
A.  Only schools with a few hundred schools are allowed to share SUs.
Ours is not a netLibrary model.

Q.  This kind of requirement will mean that a lot of SUs will go idle.  We
suggest a different price for a shared SU environment vs. a dedicated
environment.  It's we who take the risk.
A.  You want to borrow from other institutions that are not using a seat?
That is not what we have been doing so far.

Q.  Please come back with pooled search price for consortia.  We can only
buy for all schools and they are a mix of small, medium, large.  We need
some variation.
A.  Okay; will try.

Q.  Can we pool our pools, i.e., combine consortia?
A.  We haven't been asked that question yet, so I don't know.

Q.  What difference does it make for you if I buy 5 SUs for one library or
for 50 libraries?
A.  We are trying to avoid users being denied
Reply:  That's our (consortial) problem, not yours.

Q.  How do you handle pricing for corporate partners?  What if Thomson
buys?
A.  They buy on a per-seat basis.  Seats are assigned to individuals.

Q.  We offer our small libraries the product called Element K.  How does
this overlap with 24 x 7?
A.  Not much.

Q.  Is ILL permitted?  What if another library requests a piece of a book,
such as a page or chapter?
A.  Nothing is downloaded; the service is all serverside, so it wouldn't
work.  I do not think that we permit this in our user agreement.

Q.  Please clarify a couple of things.  What is "specialized" content?
A.  White papers, documentation, industry standards.  All of these are
published materials.  All are in the same information base, same price.

Q.  One SU applies to the whole product, not one book?
A.  Yes.

Q.  Are you supporting remote access?
A.  If patron comes through your portal, yes.

Q.  Who's your current market?
A.  Mostly it's corporate; we also sell to individuals.

Q.  Do you have any existing or anticipated contracts with a discount rate
that will be different to what is described here?
A.  No.

Q.  How committed are you to libraries?
A.  We are now back in the library market and we are getting a lot of
interest.  If the pricing works, we will stay in this market.

Q.  What is your overall financial health?
A.  Strong.  We are venture capital backed; we aim to be profitable in the
4th quarter of this year.  Our investors just came in for another round of
financing this summer -that's a strong sign.

Q.  Re. the MARC record:  do you provide a full MARC record, or?
A.  We have an FTP site from which you can download full MARC records.  A
third party company creates these.  I don't know the name of the company.

--end--


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