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Extending ejournal access for the NHS - the King’s College London experience

Anna Franca – Subscriptions and Access ManagerAnna.Franca@kcl.ac.uk Alan Fricker – Library Liaison Manager (NHS)Alan.Fricker@kcl.ac.uk

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Summary

• Past: NHS staff had the same access to academic resources as King’s College staff

• Loss of access resulting from transition to print to electronic = increasing dissatisfaction and unhappiness

• Present: Taking steps to improve access to academic journals

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King’s Health Partners

• One of 5 AHSCs established in 2009• Comprised of King’s College London, Guy’s and St

Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust (GSTT), King’s College Hospital Foundation Trust (KCHT), South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLAM)

• King’s College provides the library service for two of the partners in KHP – GSTT and KCHT

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Happy days

• NHS staff attached to King’s College Libraries have excellent access to paper journals– 2754 STM titles and

477 metres of stock disposed of through UKRR over the last 5 years

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Transition

• Shift from print journals to ejournals took hold in the mid-1990s as libraries have increasing access to the WWW

• Excellent onsite access to journals across formats

• Sneakernet (aka walking to the library for electronic access)

Extending ejournal access for the NHS – the King’s College London experience

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An electronic world

• Transition of vast majority of STM to ejournals• UKRR removes legacy collections so NHS staff can

no longer consult the print in the library• Move from a position of equal access to one of

disparity• Changing user expectations – remote is norm• Frustrations in NHS / HE not just ejournals but wider

infrastructure (wifi / networks etc)

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NHS Procurement (in England)

• Local efforts to adopt early options for ejournal access

• KA24 / regional purchasing (early 2000s)• National Core Content (April 2003 first

resources)• Transition in NHS libraries (LHL Strategic

Direction 2010-13 aimed for e-only primarily by Jan 2014)

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NHS HE procurement

• NHS HE Forum 2002 onwards– Users First (2003) report by John Thornhill pre-empts much

that follows:• develop joint HE/NHS licensing• longer contracts – monitored• joint working at all levels• explore common authentication• local and national initiatives• publicise good practice

– Two attempts at joint procurement did not succeed – Hill Report (2008) “great advantages in the NHS and HE

working together on joint procurement.”

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London Medical Schools Procurement Group• First established in 2008• Imperial, KCL, QMUL, UCL, St Georges • Consortial purchasing arrangement with the aim of

extending access to affiliated NHS Trusts• Pragmatic and focussed on a small number of key

resources• JISC Collections manages negotiations and licensing

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AHSC Pilot 2011-2012• Participants

– Cambridge, UCL, Imperial, KCL, Manchester University– Anonymous, Elsevier, Springer, Nature PG, Thomson Reuters– Pilot based on neutral pricing

• Key lessons learned– Licensing issues– Low level of NHS usage relative to HEI (0.5%)– Proposed business model: no charge for NHS trusts unless usage

in current year exceeds 10%

• Provided the background for current work

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Access for the NHS at KCL

• Walk in access to King’s eresource subscriptions via NHS account

• NHS OpenAthens (National, Regional, LMSPG, local)• Affiliate status granted to some NHS staff

• Hard to explain• Hard to promote• Complicated and unsatisfactory

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Unhappiness expressed

• GMC Survey (think NSS for Doctors in training) had red triangles for access to educational resources

• South London NHS Library Users Survey– Ejournals Top priority for improvement– Multiple critical comments

• Customer Services staff receive regular negative feedback

• Tough time at committees

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Move to action

• Discussions with NHS commissioners• Survey of education leads (helped by DME)

– Nearly 400 recommendations– Most wanted (Elsevier, Wiley, LWW, BMJ, OUP, Springer)

• More outreach needed– Some titles already available (LWW Total Access)– Need to login to MyJournals poorly understood

• Decide to advance by extending NESLI deals

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Making the case

• Aim to extend and rationalise King’s ejournal licences

• For many years King’s journal subscriptions covered both educational and NHS use

• Extensions not additional or new subscriptions• Small relative usage – demonstrated by data

harvested from AHSC pilot

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How did we get on?

• Agreements with several publishers• Mixture of pilots and purchases• Some new licences (NEJM.org)• Resulting in 5,400 additional titles being made

available via OpenAthens• Discussions with further publishers in the pipeline• Gaps remain – limitation of extensions

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Not all plain sailing (despite AHSC work)

• Link resolver– Holdings mismatches– OCLC vs SFX

• Authentication– Historic OrgIDs– Publisher system issues (multiple OrgIDs / collections)– Spelling’s– KCL, KCH, KHP

• Unexplainable variations• Promotion challenge remains

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Early impact

• Statistics– Early days– Not easy– Consistent with AHSC pilot

• Happy users– Good engagement– Happy committee

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Interaction with Finch

• Finch Report recommended licence extensions for the NHS: “In the health sector, there is scope for increasing and rationalising arrangements for licensed access across the NHS, and greater coordination with the HE sector”

• Part of the context for our discussions• National one-year pilot due for April 2014 with the aim of

assessing levels of usage• Pressure to move faster

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The future?

• Evaluate impact• Refine current provision• Long term funding?• Examine other eresources (ebooks?)• Potential of King’s Health Partners?• Extension (where relevant) is the new norm?

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Questions?

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Further reading• AHSC Pilot Report (2012)

https://www.jisc-collections.ac.uk/Reports/AHSC-Pilot-Report-August-2012/ • Cumbers, B., Urquhart, C. and Durbin, J. (2006), Evaluation of the KA24

(Knowledge Access 24) service for health- and social-care staff in London and the south-east of England. Part 1: quantitative. Health Information & Libraries Journal, 23: 133–139. doi: 10.1111/j.1471-1842.2006.00651.x

• Spink, S., Urquhart, C., Cox, A. ; Higher Education Academy - Information and Computer Sciences Subject Centre. (2007). Procurement of electronic content across the UK National Health Service and Higher Education sectors. Report to JISC executive and LKDN executive. http://cadair.aber.ac.uk/dspace/handle/2160/310

• Thornhill, J. (2003) Users First http://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/usersfirst.pdf• Urquhart, C. J., Cox, A. M.; Spink, S. (2007). Collaboration on procurement of e-

content between the National Health Service and higher education in the UK. Interlending &Document Supply, 35(3), 164-170 http://cadair.aber.ac.uk/dspace/handle/2160/511