From: Ian Gibson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 7 Dec 2015 15:32:46 +0000

Agree with all of you vis. Elsevier/Mendeley and ProQuest Ex Libris
(in fact given that PQ have been promising an Alma competitor for
years and had yet to deliver this move made very good sense to me).

The move that didn't make sense to me was ProQuest buying Coutts. I
understand the need to be in every space that Ebsco is in but to me
(as a former Coutts customer) the move didn’t make sense from a
momentum stand point. YBP is the clear market leader in that business
and everyone else are also-rans at best. Coutts' Oasis platform is old
and awkward to use, they were consistently behind in providing
services (e.g. offering ebooks other than MyiLibrary; managing DDA;
managing DDA across multiple vendors) and their customer base seemed
to me to be shrinking. The only possible way this makes sense to me is
if PQ uses Coutts as a way of getting better data on library ebook
preferences by monitoring what their customers are buying instead of
PQ ebooks and then uses that info to make PQ ebooks the dominant
player in that market.

What I really want is for Elsevier to buy PLOS - yes, yes it's nigh on
impossible but just think of the comedy value... Failing that I would
settle for one of the big societies like IEEE or ACS handing over
their publishing ops to one of the big commercial publishers.

Ian

Ian Gibson, MISt
Collections Librarian
Brock University | James A. Gibson Library
Niagara Region
St. Catharines, Ontario  L2S 3A1
E [log in to unmask]



-----Original Message-----
From: "Matheson, Scott" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 4 Dec 2015 14:17:31 +0000

I had the same thoughts - immediately - as Brian about Proquest/Ex
Libris. I also said that I'd like to double-down on Ebsco buying
Innovative (both ILS vendors were/are owned by private equity, have
large installed bases in customer libraries and face sharp competition
from OCLC and vendor-supported open-source solutions as well as a
perception of declining value in the age of "discovery layers" and
university efforts to consolidate business systems; e-resource
integration with library catalog is a perpetual pain-point for
collection managers; leading "discovery layers" are provided by
Proquest and Ebsco).

I will say I was initially surprised by the Mendeley acquisition. In
addition to Brian's notes on data acquisition, I'd add this in
retrospect:

Publishers have been unable to (unmotivated to?) provide all content
on a single platform for users (who don't care who publishes something
they want). We know from EndNote, Zotero, etc. that researchers in
many disciplines need or want to have everything in one place
regardless of journal or publisher source (see also photocopies a few
decades ago - this is not new behavior). Mendeley was initially
marketed - or at least explained, elevator pitch-wise, as "iTunes for
journal articles" in a time when other citation mangers didn't store
full text or allow simple collaboration.

So... if Elsevier can't get researchers to use *only* ScienceDirect,
then maybe they can get them to use a more publisher-agnostic platform
that they control. And if the iTunes for articles thing happens - even
in a few disciplines - the acquisition is a smart hedge. What would
EMI and Sony have paid for iTunes 10 years ago knowing what they know
now?

On publisher + service: in US law we're seeing publishers give up on
claiming advantage with primary source coverage (copyright-free,
value-added indexing no longer viewed as much of a value) and move on
to "practice management solutions" that combine workflow software with
publisher editorial content and local document/knowledge management.
A) sound like E+Mendeley? and B) view of things to come if/as OA content grows?

Scott
____________
Scott Matheson, Associate Librarian for Technical Services Lillian
Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School
203-432-1603 | Box 208326, New Haven, CT 06520-8326


> On Dec 3, 2015, at 9:26 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> From: "Brian C. Gray" <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Thu, 3 Dec 2015 20:56:59 -0500
>
> I have not seen any of the acquisitions as a surprise.  Even the 2 Ann
> mentions seem to make strong business sense. With Mendeley, Elsevier
> gets even more data on information users overall which includes data
> of competitor titles and how they are used. It also provides another
> tool libraries can justify purchases.  PQ is developing a new
> integrated library system, so with Ex Libris they gain an immediate
> customer base, intellectual property in this area, and a team of
> software developers and other experts in this realm.
>
> Brian
>
> Brian C. Gray
> Team Leader, Research Services
> Librarian: Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering and Macromolecular
> Science & Engineering
> Email: [log in to unmask]
> Kelvin Smith Library 201-K
> Research Guides & Profile: http://researchguides.case.edu/briangray
>
> Case Western Reserve University
> Kelvin Smith Library
> 11055 Euclid Avenue
> Cleveland, Ohio 44106-7151