SWAN Board,

I worked with RAILS today to see what the costs would be for all of the SWAN libraries to join the eRead Illinois project with Baker & Taylor Axis 360. The fee formula for eRead is somewhat complex as it involves a base fee + population served fee + library collection budget fee to arrive at the total.  Luckily RAILS has most of this data from IPLAR so I have compiled a beginning estimate for all 77 SWAN libraries to join. Some library data is missing, so it’s not 100% complete but I wanted to show you how this was shaping up. For some reason RAILS left out Prairie Trails PLD altogether which I am in the process of correcting. Right now the total is $87,500 for eRead for SWAN. This number will go up as I complete the data gaps.

For eRead formula information, look here: http://www.railslibraries.info/sites/default/files/membership_fee_structure-axis_360_0.pdf

Rather than add each library’s individual eRead fee to the SWAN membership fee, I treated eRead like our OCLC invoice: it is a combined cost for all of the libraries and simply goes into the operating budget for SWAN. Our fee formula dices up all of the combined expenses (OCLC, staff, Innovative maintenance, and now eRead) and arrives at a new total. The biggest advantage of doing it this way is if RAILS come forward with some incentive to the Illinois consortia that go 100% into the eRead subscription, we could apply the discount on the total base price. Dee has no idea about what that might look like, or if it’s even possible, and she made sure that we all understood that idea might not work out depending (we swore secrecy).

Pages 1 -2 compare the SWAN fees: last year’s FY14, this year FY15, but includes an FY15 with eRead costs integrated. It also shows for you the eRead individual library price. This are the pages I would like some feedback from you on.

Pages 12 – 13 shows the eRead formula breakdown.

Pages 14 -15 sort the SWAN Fees with eRead included sorted low to high.

Does moving forward with eRead seem worth doing? Would it be worth presenting to the COW meeting? Should I present this in a different format? I would include an narrative explanation with the budget.

Please email me individually or give me a phone call. Per OMA, we should not reply-all as a group.

Aaron Skog
SWAN Executive Director
125 Tower Drive
Burr Ridge, IL 60527
Phone: 630.734.5122
Fax: 630.734.5056
aaron.skog@railslibraries.info
http://support.swanlibraries.net