Global Council Task Force on Cost Sharing and Pricing Strategy

              Global Council Task Force on
Cost Sharing and Pricing Strategy
Background
In late September 2009, the Global Council ( GC) Steering Committee met with Larry Alford, Chair, Board of Trustees, and Jay Jordan, OCLC President, at is inaugural planning meeting in Dublin, Ohio. Among several topics considered, the Global and Regional Council officers emphasized OCLC membership and values and the need for further implementation of differential pricing around the world. As articulated by library representatives at the recent Asia Pacific Membership Conference in Beijing, a large investment by the cooperative is needed in developing countries to both localize and globalize access to OCLC services!
Based on these strong recommendations from the Asia Pacific Regional Council, its Chair Beh Chew Leng of the Singapore National Library Board, and the Steering Committee’s own deliberations, President Jan Ison with unanimous support of the committee determined to establish a task force to discuss the questions raised and related issues. The purpose of the Task Force on OCLC Cost Sharing and Pricing Strategy is to study and make recommendations about OCLC cost sharing and differential pricing to further strengthen OCLC products and services for libraries and cultural institutions and their users worldwide.
Charge
Drawing upon the formative discussions at Members Council in the past and the first meeting of the Asia Pacific Regional Council in Beijing on 7- 8 September 2009, the Global Council Executive Committee charges the Task Force on OCLC Cost Sharing and Pricing Strategy to analyze current practices and best models of cost sharing for non- profit, primarily self- funded organizations such as OCLC.
Furthermore, the charge of the task force is to define both cost sharing and differential pricing and recommend principles for this worldwide information and research cooperative to share the costs and differentiate pricing where possible across the libraries and cultural heritage institutions who are OCLC members. In these times of constrained financial support, such public and private cultural institutions globally are challenged to enhance information services while operating in many cases with relatively flat or declining fiscal resources.
Balancing OCLC’s mission of enhancing and globalizing cost- effective access to information, the task force specifically will research and analyze such issues as:
 Any recommended revisions in this charge for consideration by the GC Executive Committee
 Analyze current and best practices of high- performing, fee- based non- profit and similar organizations moving forward productively in the current and likely future financial environments
 Study/ recommend best practices for investing in and globalizing OCLC services worldwide
 Identify principles and possible high- level strategies to strengthen services in developing regions
 Consider where selective differentiation in pricing might transform traditional and innovative information services such as record loading, cataloging, reference, e- books, and digitization
 Develop a few U. S. and international “ case studies” of successful investment in such services
 Investigate factors that hinder differential pricing and recommend ways for overcoming such
 Consider business models for investment in and deployment of test or model services
 What is the “ OCLC advantage” that would make such services most attractive to users and librarians in developing parts of the world?
Submit a draft report to the Global Council Executive Committee no later than 1 April 2010.