ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 44 | April 2000
Kinetica charges 200001
The Kinetica service began operation in March 1999; since then the level of use by Australian libraries has increased at a pleasing rate. Due to the delay in launching the Kinetica Document Delivery System, many libraries continued to use ABN until mid-October. One effect of this delay was that normal levels of activity on Kinetica were not reached in the first six months of Kineticas operation. Therefore, data has not been collected for a full year of normal activity.
As a result of this, the National Library has decided to defer any decisions about possible price increases for Kinetica until later this year, when we will have 12 months of reliable data available for assessment. If analysis of these statistics shows that price rises are required, they will not take effect before 1 January 2001.
The introduction of the new tax system on 1 July 2000 will result in price decreases for some Kinetica services. Changes to the Wholesale Sales Tax will reduce Kineticas expenses by an estimated 0.8%. This reduction will be passed on to Kinetica customers in the form of lower charges for Kinetica Core Services, which are used by all Kinetica users. The new prices, exclusive of GST, are:
These reductions are estimated to pass on a saving of 1.6% to Kinetica users. The Contributors Rebate Scheme will not change, and reductions of 15% or 30% will continue to be applied to Core Service charges for Partial or Full Contributors, as described in the Kinetica User Agreement.
Kinetica customers who have a site licence will be contacted individually with information on the implication of these changes to their site licence charge.
The Goods and Services Tax will be applied to these revised Core Service charges and all other Kinetica charges from 1 July 2000. The full list of charges for Kinetica is posted on the National Librarys web site (http://www.nla.gov.au/kinetica/kcharges.html).
Invoices for use of all Kinetica servicesexcept the Kinetica Document Delivery (KDD) Payments Serviceare issued quarterly. The quarterly Kinetica invoice issued in July 2000 will cover Kinetica use for the quarter from April to June 2000, and will therefore not include the GST charge. The first Kinetica quarterly invoices to include GST will be issued during October 2000, covering the quarter from July to September 2000.
KDD Payments Service invoices are currently issued every second month; following implementation of the GST, invoices and payments will be issued monthly. From July 2000, all KDD Payments Service users will receive an invoice for the cost of all their borrowing transactions and a cheque for the amount of all their loans; under the GST it will no longer be possible to reconcile the sums of the two activities and provide either only a cheque or only an invoice.
Please address any comments and enquiries to The Editor, Gateways: tford@nla.gov.au