Charleston ReadCube Access

readcubeA content delivery platform

and reference manager for scholarly articles

Labtiva &

The History Of ReadCube• Labtiva formed in a Harvard dorm

room in 2007

• ReadCube was originally written as a simple tool to organize a researcher’s PDF library

• Investment from Digital Science in 2011

• First version of ReadCube released in October 2011

• The ‘Web Reader’ launched as a platform extension on nature.com in November 2011

• ReadCube grows into a fully functional reference manager during 2012 and is now used in 5,000 institutions

• ReadCube Access, an e-commerce system for individual and group purchases of single articles launched in September 2012

• ReadCube is to be launched on multiple publisher platforms by the end of this year and beyond

• More publishers have agreed to participate in ReadCube Access

Siniša Hrvatin and Rob McGrath (founders)

An Introduction To ReadCube

Automated discovery tools enable users to find RELEVANT

content quickly

An intuitive interface for the entire lifecylce of an article

Addressing the growing pains of the

single-article economy

From The Publisher Viewpoint• Scholarly output

doubles every 20 years• This is in-line with:

1. Research output2. Number of papers

published

• The proportion of university funds spent on the library is falling

• Publishers provide value• This is a about how

institutions choose to spend their money

The Library Viewpoint

1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004

-50%

0%

50%

100%

150%

200%

250%

300%Serial Expenditures in ARL Libraries (n=107)

Serial (Unit cost)Serial ExpenditureLinear (Serial Expenditure)Serials Purchased

Chan

ge si

nce

1986

Costs continue to rise linearly

The Big Deal improved access

• The rate of increase of costs is still 5-9% and would outstrip library budgets even if they weren’t falling

• Irrespective of value, subscriptions are increasingly unsustainable

AP introduces Big Deal

What Happens When A Researcher Visits A ‘Paywall’

• The Pie Chart shows all responses to paywall events

• Respondents only report purchasing content on 3.6% of occasions

• 25% of events result in an ILL request

• Users use file sharing 40% of the time

• 27% of the time, users gave up or found content in a different journal

Results consistent with Access to Scholarly content: Gaps and Barriers, JiSC/RiN Dec-2011

Earlier this year, we polled our users and

asked them

Where Are Researchers Getting Articles?

* One single unnamed website responsible for $1.4m in lost revenue during 2008 Int J Med Informatics, 5, 1 (2009)

Interlibrary loan

Twitter#icanhazpdf

OA repositories

Author website/email

Bulletin Boards/ Forums*

Google Scholar

Friends with access

The Benefits Of A Sustainable Article Economy

For Publishers• Significant incremental

revenue• Wider dissemination of

content• Help define and meet

expectations of the market

• Reduction of file sharing risk to sustainability

For Libraries• Reduce costs associated

with inter-library loan• Provide instant access to

more content• Measure demand and

inform collection management

• Maintain engagement with patrons

• A disorderly transition from one dissemination model to another is in nobody’s interest

• It is important to discuss these issues and find mutually sustainable models

Why Don’t Researchers Buy Articles?

• Researchers perceive the price point to be too high

• Generally, researches are unwilling to use their own money

• Many funding agencies prohibit the use of research funds to buy content– NIH is one such example

• PPV requires a Credit Card. Institutions often require purchase orders and invoices

As a result, researchers use slow, poor-quality methods to obtain content

Removing The Barriers: Library Supported Purchases

Purchasing articles through ReadCube Access is more convenient than file sharing

• Easy to use• Instant delivery• ‘Free’ to the user• Library creates pre-

paid fund• Designed by

researchers to fit into the researcher workflow

Trial At The University Of Utah

• Objective– Establish whether ReadCube Access represents a

sustainable purchasing mechanism– Assess whether researchers prefer ReadCube access to

other ways of obtaining individual articles

• Method– ReadCube Access was offered on a subset of serials from

nature.com (29 serials)– Promotion was limited to approx. 1,090 faculty and post-

doctoral fellows (~25% of campus)– Number of purchases was compared to the average number

of ILL requests

• Preliminary Results– Number of ReadCube Access purchases ~50% higher than

expected when compared to ILL

Provisional Trial Conclusion

‘ReadCube Access represents good value for money and a sustainable model’

-Rick Anderson, Interim Dean, Marriot Library, Utah

The Individual Article Option

• A simple 3-step purchasing system makes buying single articles easy

• Articles can be purchased in two places1. The Web Reader, linked from the article page2. The ReadCube desktop reference manager

Summary

• ReadCube’s objective is to improve access to scholarly literature for scientists, in collaboration with libraries and publishers

• ReadCube was designed by researchers around the researcher workflow

• Disorderly disruption of scholarly communication should be avoided

• Demand-Driven Acquisition is one part of a multi-access environment including subscriptions, big deals and open access

• Initial trials of ReadCube Access show it to be sustainable and good value for money