Pay-Per-View Procedures and Policies
Pay-Per-View Procedures And Policies
Spring 2007
WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF A PAY-PER-VIEW SYSTEM?
The prevalence of online journals and shared consortium access to journal collections now makes it possible for Clarkson faculty and students to have unprecedented access to journal articles. Clarkson currently has access to over 2200 electronic journal titles. In 2006 Clarkson purchased access rights to several JSTOR collections of electronic journals. Starting in January of 2007 we will have access to most current titles in Wiley Interscience.
In order to expand the broad access to journal articles that faculty and research graduate students need, the library has established a budget to fund the purchase of individual journal articles in the online environment when access to the article cannot be reasonably achieved in another less-costly way. This system is commonly known as “Pay-Per-View”.
WHEN WILL THE SYSTEM BE OPERATIONAL?
The system is currently available.
WHO CAN USE THE SYSTEM?
Faculty, visiting faculty, visiting research faculty, and graduate students may all use the system to order articles from journals marked “Pay-Per-View” in our e-journal list . These are journals to which Clarkson has subscribed in the recent past.
In addition, faculty, visiting faculty, and visiting research faculty may use the pay-per-view system to order articles online from journals not previously available at Clarkson and not listed in our ejournal list.
Faculty who wish to allow their research students, both graduate and undergraduate students, to participate in this broader access to the system should send a note to the Reference Desk each semester listing the names of their students who are authorized to use the system. This broader permission should generally be reserved for students who are actively engaged in research mentored by the faculty member.
Faculty should notify the reference desk if they send students to the library to gather and order articles on their behalf – in this situation articles will be sent directly to the faculty member.
Faculty may, while advising students, order papers for their students under their faculty name.
WHAT IS THE PPV PROCEDURE?
A pay-for-view form, very similar to the interlibrary loan form, is posted on the library Web pages. Faculty members/graduate students will fill out the form for each article they want to order. The form is electronically submitted to the reference desk. Librarians will check for submissions throughout the day and will make the purchase and send the article to the ordering faculty member/graduate student via e-mail.
WHAT FINANCIAL LIMITATIONS WILL APPLY?
The Clarkson Library will fund all costs of the program.
The library has set aside an amount of money which, based on the experience of a similar institution, we believe will cover the demand for this service. However, this is an experimental service and it is important that we stay within budget, so we will attempt to even out the amount spent each month in order to be able to continue to offer the service.
We recognize that faculty members and graduate students have varying needs and varying work cycles so that not everyone will be actively ordering articles in any given month. In order for the system to work satisfactorily it is important to be able to meet needs as they arise, rather than to set quotas for individuals. Therefore we will order articles as requests are submitted; if our budget limitations are exceeded for the month, articles will be submitted through interlibrary loan.
In addition we are setting a limit of $50.00 per article for any one article purchase.
| Of course both faculty and graduate students should use interlibrary loan rather than pay per view if an article is not needed immediately. |
WHAT OTHER LIMITATIONS APPLY?
The program was set up to fund purchase of journal articles. However, many conference papers, reports, standards and other materials are available online and can be ordered through PPV if they are urgently needed and the cost is below $50.00.
Books, theses and dissertations, and many other older materials not available online will still be routed through interlibrary loan.
WHAT IF FACULTY NEED A RUSH ARTICLE OR NEED AN ARTICLE AT SOME TIME WHEN THE LIBRARY IS NOT OPEN? CAN THEY ORDER ON THEIR OWN?
The pay-per-view form submitted to the library is the preferred method for faculty to order articles and the only method available to graduate students. In many cases the library has multiple sites for online access to a journal subscription and we will be able to avoid purchasing articles for which Clarkson has already paid.
In special circumstances we can honor an occasional fund transfer from library funds to department funds provided the faculty member has used a Clarkson University department P-card to make the purchase. These occasions should be time-critical transactions, for example when meeting a grant or publication deadline. Faculty/departmental secretaries should submit a request for fund transfer to the library with the full departmental fund/object code and should send the library backup printouts of the online order form which was used to obtain the article.
If we find that orders are placed for articles to which Clarkson already has access, we will be happy to demonstrate some of the less obvious methods for locating articles within our holdings.
| The library will not purchase articles that duplicate our holdings |
WHAT RECORDS WILL BE KEPT?
The library will keep a spreadsheet with the name, status (faculty, graduate student, or undergraduate student), and department of the ordering person, as well as the journal, volume, pages and year ordered. This will be used to monitor our budget expenditures, library time spent on the project, and patterns of usage among departments and between faculty and students. We will also use the information to suggest titles of journals we might wish to add to the collection in the future.
HOW WILL THE PROJECT BE EVALUATED?
We plan to survey faculty and students for satisfaction with the system, problems encountered, and suggestions for improvements. Survey results will be shared with the University administration to facilitate long range planning for library services. Results will also be shared directly with all academic units.
We are also closely monitoring costs and turnaround times of both the PPV and the Iinterlibrary Loan program. As we gain more experience with the financial and personnel requirements of offering a pay-per--view service, we may modify the program in the future.