Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 17:19:01 +0000
From: Bruce Kingma <bk797@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: Cost of access (Stephanie Dykstra)

> Has anyone done a fairly recent study on the cost of borrowing.
> What is a reasonable cost per use cutoff where it is not cost effective to
> cancel?  It would be interesting to know what other libraries use as a
> ballpark figure.  No-I have not done a literature survey.

You may want to check out my book on the Economics of Access v
Ownership (Haworth Press, 1996).  There are several estimates of cost
of borrowing.  There is also a recent update (1998?) of the ARL ILL
Cost Analysis.

The answer to your question is that it depends on the subscription
price and the cost of borrowing from that journal.  An easy way to
answer this is to divide the subscription price by the number of uses
and compare this to your estimate of the cost of borrowing for that
journal.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Bruce R. Kingma, Associate Professor
School of Information Science & Policy
Ph.D. Program in Information Science
Department of Economics

Director of Undergraduate Program, SISP

135 Western Ave., University at Albany, SUNY
Albany, New York 12222
phone: 518-442-5123   fax:   518-442-5367
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^