2014 Charleston Library Conference

This session will explore the challenges faced and strategies implemented by three nonprofit aggregators as they aim to balance the needs of participating libraries and publishers. Speakers from BioOne, Project Euclid, and Project MUSE will each describe their organization's experience balancing stakeholder interests and those strategies, programs, and models that have proven successful. As the product of a library-publisher collaboration, BioOne was designed to meet the needs of both communities—and not one at the expense of the other. Lauren Kane of BioOne will describe the 'economics of equitability', and how the organization has had to continually evolve its business model to support financial sustainability for its library and publisher participants. Project Euclid was developed to advance scholarly communication in mathematics and statistics by supporting the needs of libraries and small, independent publishers. At times, balancing these needs can be challenging, and the partnership has had to adapt and innovate to remain viable. Mira Waller of Project Euclid will highlight a few of these challenges and discuss how the inter-institutional partnership is able to successfully support its stakeholders.

Managed by The Johns Hopkins University Press in collaboration with the Milton S. Eisenhower Library at JHU, Project MUSE is a leading provider of digital humanities and social science content for the scholarly community. Melanie Schaffner of Project MUSE will discuss the benefits of MUSE’s collaborative structure, as well as practical lessons learned in balancing the needs of participating libraries, publishers, and scholars worldwide.

We anticipate this being a discussion-oriented, interactive session, with ample time available for Q&A. Whether audience members come from the library, publisher, or researcher communities, the objective of this session is to share practical strategies for balancing stakeholder needs from which all attendees may benefit.