Issue 5: Exploring New Markets and Developing Nations
Interview Marika Meltsas of ELNET and Tartu University Library
Arend Küster European Business Development ManagerMarika Meltsas has been working at the Tartu University Library as an information specialist for 20 years. Leading the taskforce responsible for coordinating electronic resources acquisitions in ELNET, the Estonian Libraries Network Consortium, she is now the project manager of the ELNET e-resources licensing project and a member of the eIFL Content Taskforce. Marika is also involved in building the Estonian Research Information System ERIS in Archimedes Foundation.
PCG caught up with Marika recently and interviewed her for The Vantage.
Arend Küster (AK): Marika, let me first start with asking you about the general use of the Internet in Estonia. How well is Estonia connected to the Internet?
Marika Meltsas (MM): I think that for some years already we have had no problems with network and Internet access, it’s not slow any more like it used to be. A few years ago, there was really no sense in having licenses for electronic journals because it was too slow. Now, access speed is good enough and the commercial providers have lowered the prices for Internet access allowing more and more people to have Internet access in their homes. The students and researchers now often prefer to work from home, so there really is no problem with Internet access at all these days.
(AK): How does individual library funding work and how does ELNET work as a consortium with individual libraries?
(MM): With regard to electronic library purchases, we coordinate the purchase of electronic resources. In 1998, we started to negotiate the first license for Estonia and acted like a consortium, but did not have a legal structure for that kind of work. As such, the consortium was used only for acquiring an OPAC for the library information system. We continued to operate as a working group under this umbrella but did not sign licenses as the ELNET consortium. ELNET happened a little later based on the hope that we could achieve a better discount with the consortium. In 1999, eIFL (Electronic Information for Libraries project) was created by OSI and we joined this multi-country consortium. It is multi-country consortium with representatives from Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa (a complete list of member countries can be found at http://www.eifl.net/countries/countries.html). We joined eIFL because Estonia is a very small country and does not have the purchasing power of larger countries. As a result, now if there is only one institution that is interested in a database and it is not appropriate for ELNET, we have the opportunity to look to eIFL for cooperation.
(AK): How do the individual libraries in the consortium decide what they want, and how is that being coordinated?
(MM): We have a working group and most of the time if one university is looking for a title or a database, then a representative of this university or library asks whether there are other universities interested in this title. Sometimes it does not work like that, because the universities think the consortium won’t work fast enough. So when a university has a very urgent need to act quickly or receives a grant to purchase a specific type of content, they may act alone. Then, unfortunately, it can happen that not everything is coordinated with the consortium. Usually, however, it is the situation that the information needs of our member libraries converge. The consortium sees the common interest and then negotiates with publishers. Since Estonia joined the EU, the publishers have started their own initiatives for us providing trials at the consortium level. They are also beginning to come here to make presentations, so they contact the consortium for this purpose.
(AK): What about access – do you prefer print or online access to information?
(MM): Our users have communicated that information should be in electronic format and available online, though it may be in print as well. The first priority for our users is that content is available in electronic format.
(AK): How concerned are you about archiving at the moment.
(MM): We are concerned about that, just like everybody, because we have never had local servers to mount the databases on, so we are really using everything on the publisher’s servers. Although in some licenses we have the right for perpetual access, it does not always work in reality. Although we get archived content on CD-ROMs I do not think that they are going to be used in that way. Our priority is to get the information first.
(AK): What is your view about the Open Access movement? How often do you use Open Access journals and how important are they for your institution?
(MM): Certainly, we use Open Access journals - we have added them to our list of electronic journals. Tartu University is a member of BioMed Central; we have an institutional membership. I think for many people and researchers there is much confusion about Open Access, some think that these resources are not peer reviewed, or are low-quality journals. I personally look at them just like another kind of economic model for publishing, although I am not an economist so I don’t know how sustainable it is. For now, I think we should start to raise the researchers’ awareness of this other kind of model. And of course I appreciate this kind of movement as some publishers have really increased their prices drastically and there should be some counter action on that!
(AK): Do any of the institutions you work with have any plans for developing institutional repositories?
(MM): I can say that we do not have any clear plans for developing institutional repositories in Estonia. However, I think it’s a very important movement, which could help improve scholarly communication and eliminate obstacles to communication between researchers. Of course, it needs standards so that the repositories are compatible and easy to access. At this moment, I think they are not very accessible. We have a very positive opinion of this movement, but I don’t think that it’s a danger for publishing because it certainly cannot be a substitute. Libraries want to have the information available very seamlessly for the people who really need that research information, anything that will help us on that will be a good solution.
(AK): How do researchers get information their institution doesn’t subscribe to at the moment? Do they use individual subscriptions?
(MM): From what I know, most researchers go abroad and stay there for a week or so and try to get what they need. Sometimes they also contact their colleagues, as many of them work in international teams. This seems to be the most popular way. As a last resort, they try interlibrary loan, which works quite efficiently in Estonia.
(AK): How typical is your situation in Estonia for other Central and Eastern European Countries?
(MM): I think we have quite a similar situation. Thanks to eIFL we have the opportunity to communicate with colleagues in other Eastern European Countries. Of course some of them have been working in this area for quite some time and have concentrated their purchasing power for joint projects more often, but other than that I think its quite the same for all of us.
(AK): If you look back now to the last five years, what do you think has been the biggest change in Estonia, and looking at the library and research system – what has been the most significant change during the last five years?
(MM): The most significant change is “big deals” of the large publishers. I think the amount of information which has become available for our researchers has increased significantly but at the same time, of course, it is quite difficult to sustain. When we started with these big deals, there were other pricing models that were more in favor of our situation. For example, the cost of upgrading the number of journals subscribed to was based on the cost of the previous subscriptions plus a small percentage. When the pricing model changed, it was quite a disaster for us in the sense that the big deal option was often not affordable for us anymore. The situation is sometimes quite unpredictable and it puts a lot of pressure on libraries and researchers.
Also, the researchers sometimes do not understand why they suddenly do not have access to some of this information and at the same time they see that not every journal is needed in the aggregated collection. Often, one or two institutions are big users of particular research databases and the others have only marginal interest in them. In this sense, ideally, there would be a countrywide license, like in Iceland, where every citizen can have access to this information.
The publishers should take into account the real need for this research information and how research intensive a country can realistically be to avoid the problem when only one or two institutions can afford to subscribe to a particular database, like it happens now. This sometimes causes much pressure and trouble as there is competition between the universities and libraries –which is difficult. We rely on dialogue with publishers. Sometimes publishers understand our situation well and come up with very fair pricing models that are affordable for countries in our circumstance.
(AK): Thank you very much for this interview.