Document Delivery Patron Pricing

September 7, 1995

To: OhioLINK Policy Handbook

From: Tom Sanville

Subject: Addition of Policy E10 Document Delivery Patron Pricing

The LAC on July 21, 1995 approved the recommendation in the attached memo relating to Image and ASCII delivered documents. Policies relative to ILL and PAR were not agreed on.

July 14, 1995

To: Library Advisory Council

From: Document Delivery Strategy Task Force

Subject: Document Delivery Pricing to Patrons

The Task Force met on June 16 and considered patron pricing for and the relationship of pricing among; article images (PowerPages) and article text (ASCII), when provided from an OhioLINK supported source (such as UMI) and PAR (patron article requests) and ILL requests from OhioLINK libraries. The task force did not consider pricing for articles from remote suppliers, such as Uncover.

The task force reaffirmed these principles previously discussed by LAC:

1. Our objective is to encourage access to and use of documents. Pricing is to enable access rather than unduly ration it.
2. The focus of cost recovery is on local out-of-pocket printing costs, paper and toner. The intellectual cost of these materials and the staff involved in delivery are included in our operating costs. In the case of PAR or ILL, regardless of the delivery medium, there is a substantial labor cost. Pricing will be used to not make this option any more attractive than the others. The system will be used to prevent it if an image is available.
3. Electronic transfer to disk, e-mail, or transfer to a user supported printer does not involve any of the above printing costs and therefore does not involve a user charge except in the case of PAR/ILL.
4. Pricing should be per page, thus hopefully encouraging electronic transfer over printing of long articles. In the case of ASCII text, the use of the image page count will be used to determine the price of printing.

The Task Force established these additional principles:

5. The cost per page should be the same whether the article is printed as an image, ASCII or PAR/ILL. Clearly, users should not be provided free PAR/ILL when the item is alternatively available as image or ASCII. The charge is the same for all patron types subject to #8 below.
6. If an image exists no PAR/ILL will be allowed by the system or ILL office.
7. If only ASCII text exists, a PAR/ILL will be allowed by the system or ILL office.
8. Each institution is free to establish local subsidies for undergraduates, graduates, or faculty (e.g. undergrads get five free articles each term, grads/faculty get 50 free) before charges set in. Statewide common subsidies should be investigated and agreed to, if possible.
9. Charging for PAR/ILL does not necessarily require a system to transfer monies to the supplying institution although one may be advisable. The prime objective is to first provide a consistent, rational pricing system to the user.

Summary of Pricing Recommendation