National Library of Australia - Gateways

ISSN 1443-0568 | no. 75 | June 2005


Join Kinetica Now—New Pricing Model to Start on
1 July 2005

[CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO GO TO THE LIBRARIES AUSTRALIA WEBSITE]

If ever there was a good time to join Kinetica—Australia’s premier library resource sharing network, it is now! On 1 July the National Library is introducing a new pricing model for access to Kinetica services based on an annual subscription rather than usage or activity.

Kinetica is an essential part of Australia’s national information infrastructure. It enables libraries to operate efficiently by supporting resource sharing, cooperative collection development, cataloguing, and reference. Libraries can work more efficiently and productively because of the service, achieving cost savings particularly in interlending and cataloguing. In December 2004, as part of the Kinetica Redevelopment Project, the Library launched a new service, Libraries Australia <http://librariesaustralia.nla.gov.au>, enabling libraries and their users to easily search for and access materials in their own libraries, other libraries or through commercial suppliers.

The National Library charges for the use of Kinetica in order to fund the ongoing delivery of Kinetica services and to fund developments and enhancements to the service to ensure that it continues to meet the needs of all Australian libraries. The National Library has always significantly subsidised these services and will continue to do so.

The current revenue model for Kinetica has been in place since 1999. It has been an equitable model; however, it has limited the use of Kinetica services because of the per transaction/event charging. The move to a new funding model will bring Kinetica in line with other online databases which are charged on an annual subscription basis. It will facilitate library budgeting and most importantly enable better value for libraries from their use of Kinetica.

The National Library sought the advice of the Kinetica Advisory Committee at the meeting of 24 March and the new model, based on an annual subscription, was endorsed.

The annual subscription fee includes unlimited searching of:

  • Australian National Bibliographic Database (including CJK)
  • Silas (Singapore National Union Catalogue)
  • Te Puna (New Zealand National Union Catalogue)
  • Free search targets (e.g. Library of Congress, British Library)

Further the annual subscription fee provides for unlimited Kinetica Document Delivery use:

  • KDD requests (previously $1.17 per request)
  • KDD Payment Service transaction fee (previously $0.35 per item requested and supplied)

The Kinetica Document Delivery service (KDD) is a web-based interlibrary loan and document delivery system enabling libraries to search the Australian National Bibliographic Database for resources, create requests and track the progress of these requests through the one system. Through KDD, libraries can also request resources from commercial suppliers such as InfoTrieve and CISTI. With almost 600 libraries using KDD, it underpins resource sharing between Australian libraries, saving them both time and money.

New libraries wishing to join Kinetica will be slotted into a price bracket on a sliding scale of fees from $330 to $27 500 plus, determined by library size, library sector and through comparison with existing Kinetica member libraries. Under the new model, there will only be two classes of users. Libraries contributing holdings and/or records will receive a 25% discount and Search Only users will pay the full price according to the price bracket in which their library is placed. The previous three categories of users—User Classes A, B and C will cease.

Over the coming year, we will be reviewing and refining this pricing model with the help and advice of the Kinetica Advisory Committee. We will also liaise with all library sectors in order to develop the optimal solution for all libraries, with the focus on equity and extending access to the service.

For more information go to the FAQ page on the new Kinetica pricing model at
<www.nla.gov.au/kinetica/newpricingfaq.html> or contact Fran Wilson,
Director, Collaborative Resource Sharing Services on 02 6262 1690 or by email fwilson@nla.gov.a

| Contents list for this issue of Gateways |


National Library of Australia Gateways logo