Bidding mechanism and cost sharing for licensing electronic resources in academic library consortia
Authors: Chin-I Chiang, Rey-Sern Lin, Ming-Jiu Hwang
Journal: Chiao Da Management Review. Dec. 2008, 28(2): 163-186.
Keywords:Library consortium; Electronic resources licensing; Biding mechanism; Cost sharing; Cooperative game theory
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Abstract:
Due to the rapid increase in the variety of electronic resources, many academic library consortia have been formed in Taiwan so as to assist in
dealing with issues faced by libraries in purchasing and using electronic resources. The vital missions of a consortium are to negotiate the
subscriptions with resource vendors, and then allocate the licensing costs to member libraries. Owing to the similarity between the consortial
licensing for electronic resources and the group purchasing in the electronic marketplace, this paper develops a bidding mechanism with
egalitarian sharing formulas to solve the existing problems in consortial licensing. The mechanism is based on the concept of Discount
Coalition Game (a type of cooperative games) proposed by Li et al. (2003), which differs significantly from the current consortial licenses
for electronic resources. Our simulation results of a numerical example demonstrate that the formation mechanism with proposed bidding and
egalitarian sharing formulas can ensure the stability of a consortium. This, however, cannot be accomplished by using procedures prevailing in
today’s consortia. As for the cost allocation among member libraries, the egalitarian sharing formulas also offer lower variance in budgeting
compared with other cost sharing methods.