Access and ownership: a cost comparison of electronic document delivery and local ownership of periodical titles

Abstract

The focus of this research is on comparing the economic costs of two alternatives: - access to periodical articles via electronic document delivery and ownership of periodical titles. The study is based on data gathered at the University of Otago Library during the course of a pilot project in electronic document delivery. A three month data collection period at this time, May to July 1995, enabled staff to gather data on costs associated with providing an electronic document delivery service and arrive at an average cost of $35.69 to obtain one article. A later data collection period in June 1996 concentrated on gathering costs of owning periodical titles. The costs obtained during that period for processing individual periodical issues, periodical volumes and periodical titles were then applied to the same periodical titles that were accessed during the earlier data collection period and an average cost of owning the same periodical titles was calculated at $77.16. Although this clearly points to the economics of "access" over "ownership" the formulas used to arrive at these costs were subsequently altered so that a more accurate costing could be provided on a title-by-title basis. Taking the marginal costs of accessing a periodical article by electronic document delivery and the costs for processing and storing periodicals it was possible to derive a formula that would provide a more accurate and useful decision making tool. The final conclusions are that any access/ownership decision should be made on an individual title basis and that generally it appears that for seldom-used materials it would be more economically sound for the library to rely on access to them.