APA DATABASESGlobal Links to the World of Psychology

and the Behavioral Sciences

ICOLC MeetingPeter Gaviorno

Neil Lader

April 17, 2009Charlottesville, Virginia

Agenda

• Overview of APA Mission and Vision• Review of APA Programs and Initiatives• Impact of Financial Crisis on APA• Answering Questions Posed by ICOLC• Open Discussion

APA Mission

The mission of the APA is to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people’s lives.

APA Vision

The APA aspires to excel as a valuable, effective and influential organization advancing psychology as a science, serving as:• A uniting force for the discipline;• The major catalyst for the stimulation, growth, and dissemination of psychological science and practice;• The primary resource for all psychologists;• The premier innovator in the education, development, and training of psychological scientists, practitioners and educators;

APA Vision

• The leading advocate for psychological knowledge and practice informing policy makers and the public to improve public policy and daily living;

• A principal leader and global partner promoting psychological knowledge and methods to facilitate the resolution of personal, societal and global challenges in diverse, multicultural and international contexts; and

• An effective champion of the application of psychology to promote human rights, health, well being and dignity.

APA Programs and Initiatives• Education Directorate: advances the science and

practice of psychology for the benefit of the public through educational institutions, programs, and initiatives

• Practice Directorate: engages in a broad range of activities – legislative advocacy, legal and regulatory strategies, marketplace activities, and public education – on behalf of practicing psychologists and health care consumers

• Public Interest Directorate: supports and promotes efforts to apply the science and profession of psychology to the advancement of human welfare. Program offices on aging; AIDS; violence prevention; disability issues; children, youth, and families; and more

• Science Directorate: communicates, facilitates, pro-motes and represents psychological science and scientists within academic, scientific, and public arenas

APA Programs and Initiatives• Three major APA presidential initiatives in 2009:

– A task force on the future of psychology practice to address current issues as well as future policies and models to meet needs of both practitioners in public/private settings and a diverse client population (supported by APA Practice Directorate)

– A task force on the future of psychological science education to identify critical changes needed in undergrad/grad education (supported by APA Science Directorate)

– A task force to address psychological factors in homelessness as well as how to influence and intervene to help children and adults overcome such problems and lead healthy, productive lives (supported by APA Public Interest Directorate)

APA Programs and Initiatives• Other examples include:

– The APA Minority Fellowship Program – a highly successful training program for ethnic and racial minority researchers and service providers targeting ethnic minority doctoral-level students and postdoctoral trainees

– The Office on Socioeconomic Status (SES) directs, oversees, facilitates, and promotes psychology’s contribution to the understanding of SES and the lives and well-being of the poor.

– The Committee on Early Career Psychologists (CECP) represents the unique interests and concerns of psychologists in the first 7 years of their careers. Supports their needs within and outside of APA through advocacy and development of resources for early career psychologists.

Impact of Financial Crisis on APA• As is true for your institutions, the global economic crisis

is seriously affecting both commercial and non-profit publishers (such as APA)

• APA recently announced significant reductions in the operating budget which are now affecting our administration, programs, and staff

– Salary reductions for all staff– Imposition of a hiring freeze– Elimination of 401K retirement matching funds– Elimination of several key health insurance benefits,

tuition assistance, and many other staff benefits• APA is also experiencing declines in other key sources

of revenue (membership dues, advertising, conference exhibition sales, etc.)

Impact of Financial Crisis on APA

Examples of APA programs that have been directly impacted by budgetary reductions:

– APA normally funds at least 6 Congressional Fellows each year. Now reduced to 2.

– APA sponsors a number of membership governance-related meetings each year (approx. 45 meetings, on average). Now reduced to 6 meetings.

– The Science Directorate sponsors a number of Summer Science Institutes at universities, but APA is only doing 3 this summer.

• Our organization is not at risk, but nevertheless it is being severely impacted by the economic downturn

Impact of Financial Crisis

• APA is a non-profit organization – revenue generated from the publishing program supports APA's operating budget and its numerous programs, which serve our mission of disseminating psychological and behavioral science information to both our members and the general public

• Significant reductions in revenues directly impact our ability to fulfill our mission – limiting our ability to fund critical programs and outreach, advocate on behalf of psychology and mental health, and provide important information and resources to practitioners, researchers, and the public

Impact of Financial Crisis• APA’s hope is that you and your member institutions will

take into account the beneficial relationships we have long maintained

• We sympathize re: your budgetary pressures – but we don’t benefit from the relatively more significant resources/funds that enable larger commercial publishers to absorb significant reductions in database revenue for specific customers

• APA has made accommodations for our customers where we can. We trust that you will be mindful of this – as well as the tremendous value that APA's databases continue to deliver to your user communities – as you collectively evaluate the pricing proposals submitted by all of your publisher vendors to date

Coping With Financial Uncertainty

Question 1:Libraries and consortia are facing unprecedented financial challenges in the current global downturn, including long-term double-digit budget reductions. When seeing that in many sectors of the economy net results are decreasing and profitability is under pressure, are you forecasting (and accepting the fact) that this will also be the case in scholarly publishing? And do you agree with ICOLC that it is in the best interest of both universities and publishers to keep the system going as much as possible, including continued recognition of the support and efficiencies consortia provide?

Coping WithFinancial Uncertainty

APA Response:• How long the current economic situation will last and how it

will play out – particularly within scholarly publishing – is unknown. Reductions in and/or consolidation of publishers will likely continue, and some publishers may not survive

• Actions by state and federal governments in the allocation of the federal government’s stimulus package will have a yet-to-be-determined impact on our respective operations

• It is in the interest of your member institutions that critical informational resources continue to be made available across all disciplines

• It is also important to be aware that all publishers (but particularly non-profit) can’t offset all the budgetary pressures that your member institutions face

Coping With Financial Uncertainty

APA Response (cont.):• APA has always valued our relationships with consortia

and recognized consortia’s valuable contributions to the academic and STM publishing community. We certainly seek to maintain these important relation-ships within the academic community

• Again, APA is not a commercial (for profit) publisher. In keeping with this fact, our pricing in recent years has been very reasonable compared with that of many commercial publishers

• All revenues collected are invested back into the organization. When revenues are down, APA’s programs, grants, initiatives and staff are directly impacted

• As with your member institutions, APA now also faces double-digit reductions in our operating budget

Coping WithFinancial Uncertainty

APA Response (cont.):• APA lacks the relatively more significant resources/funds

of larger commercial publishers to absorb significant database revenue reductions for specific customers. Therefore, we must be even more vigilant in preparing for any further deterioration of net revenues

• We recognize that your member institutions will have to make hard choices as to which products they can afford to keep

• To reiterate, APA has consistently made accommodations for our customers where and when possible, and we ask that you be mindful of this as you evaluate the pricing proposals submitted by all of your publisher vendors to date

• Please also consider the tremendous value that APA's databases consistently deliver to your user communities

APA Business Developmentand Models

Question 2:Apart from Taylor & Francis, Annual Reviews, and Lexis-Nexis, we haven't heard much concrete response from publishers with respect to the ICOLC statement, nor to the consequences of the economic crisis as such. Can you indicate in what direction you expect to develop your business and your business models for libraries and consortia in the near future? Please consider in your response that the new T&F offer focuses on reducing the price increase, not on diminishing costs for libraries and consortia; that it offers less flexibility instead of more; and that it demands a longer instead of a shorter contract period – three principles that are in direct conflict with the ICOLC request for greater flexibility and reductions in both pricing and length of agreement.

APA Business Development and Models

APA Response:• We can assure you that the ICOLC statement has been

shared and discussed with the Publisher and others in APA’s Executive Management Group

• APA operates on a calendar-year fiscal budget. Budgets, pricing, and revenue projections for 2009 were prepared in July-September of 2008

• At that time, the extent of the severity of the larger economic downtown was not known nor could have been fully predicted

• The development of pricing for 2010 is now underway and will shortly be reviewed for approval by the Executive Management Group

APA Business Developmentand Models

APA Response (cont.):• APA maintains an open relationship with the academic

community, making our data fees, consortia discounts and platform fees transparent

• At the same time, we ask that the library community bear in mind that APA must meet certain revenue objectives to sustain both its operations and the mission of the organization

• As a result and in light of the uncertainties of the current economic environment, we cannot “guarantee” that we will offer pricing in 2010 that will be lower than our relatively modest historical increases.

APA Business Developmentand Models

APA Response (cont.):• Our business model, although not perfect, is a workable

framework for users of our databases. • We have always evaluated and responded to special

situations and scenarios, and we will continue to do so. • Over the past six or seven years, nearly every consortia

represented in this room has come to us with issues, problems, proposals, and requests that they have asked APA to consider and respond to

• In many instances, we have responded and reached an accommodation that has met your respective, individual needs. APA has consistently sought to be both understanding and flexible in responding to the specific needs of our institutional customers within the academic community

APA Business Developmentand Models

APA Response (cont.):• With multi-year licenses, we have always provided

our institutional customers an opt-out option as we recognize that many are dependent on government budgets that are set only annually– We will continue to look at multi-year deals in the same way: as

frameworks of understanding of what will be paid.

• APA is constrained in how flexible we can be in altering the types of product offerings made available to our institutional customers, because APA offers a relatively small number of databases (5) in comparison to the multiple databases that larger commercial publishers offer

Price Reductions /Cost Efficiencies

Question 3:For many ICOLC members, the best response to the current economic situation would be one that reduces prices with minimal or no loss of content. What specific measures can you take to reduce prices from current levels, ideally without requiring customers to cancel content? We seek an authentic dialogue on this issue. Are there specific measures you can take that would enable true price reduction, such as lowering costs through increased efficiencies and/or a less ambitious development path, exploiting new market opportunities to sustain revenue, or even voluntarily reducing profits for a period of time? Are there features and growth that can be put off? How can both parties get through this period together and remain relatively intact?

Price Reductions /Cost Efficiencies

APA Response:• We are continually seeking new opportunities for product

sales (in underpenetrated market segments, geographic locations, etc.)

• Our success in pursuing growth in new markets has been one key factor in our ability to keep our price increases relatively lower compared to many commercial publishers.

• ICOLC’s calls for publishers to pursue a less ambitious product development path but simultaneously develop new revenue sources seem somewhat at odds. Can you provide us additional clarification as to your thinking here?

Price Reductions /Cost Efficiencies

APA Response (cont.):• APA is not slowing down its pursuit of new product

development. In fact, we are working harder than ever to identify and deliver new products that have the potential to generate new sources of revenue for the Association

• If successful, such new revenue sources will put less pressure on our traditional ones and will also help APA to weather the economic downturn

• As a non-profit organization, APA is not in a position to “voluntarily reduce profits.” Our revenues are already being significantly impacted by reductions in membership dues, advertising dollars, conference exhibitions sales. We are also seeing the impact of current economic conditions upon book sales, journal subscriptions, and electronic database licensing

Price Reductions /Cost Efficiencies

APA Response (cont.):• It is not economically feasible for APA to reduce product

pricing, yet serve both our mission and our multiple constituencies as well as maintain a vital and financially healthy publishing operation

• A worst-case scenario resulting from significant reductions in publisher revenues and the simultaneous scaling back of product development is the potential for some publishing companies to eventually fail – resulting in fewer publishers and an even greater concentration of content among those remaining publishers

• APA remains committed to providing our customers – including all ICOLC member institutions – superior products at a fair price by which to meet your users’ informational needs in the behavioral and social sciences.

Options Beyond the “Big Deal” Question 4:

The ICOLC statement asks for flexibility and new approaches that enable consortia to tailor their partnerships with publishers, whereas the current model of “big deals” represent mostly “one size fits all” opportunities. Can you indicate if and how you think you can accommodate this need to offer options outside of the “big deal” model? Specifically, what measures is your company adopting to address the following concerns identified in the ICOLC statement?

• Offering content reduction clauses in multi-year contracts that allow libraries and consortia to reduce their spend?

• Offering the ability to reduce expenditures without disproportionate loss of content?

• Tailoring contracts to customer need and pricing accordingly?

Options Beyond the “Big Deal”

APA Response:• APA has never extended “one-size-fits-all” pricing to our

consortia customers. • Some consortia have an arrangement whereby all their

member institutions participate in an offer with similar pricing for each, while other consortia members have the option to “opt out” of such offers

• APA also offers consortia their choice of vendor interfaces (APA PsycNET®, EBSCO, ProQuest, etc.) for APA’s 5 database products

• APA’s consortia offers are extended for individual APA databases – we do not require institutions to purchase multiple databases

Options Beyond the “Big Deal”APA Response (cont.):• RE: content reduction clauses, our databases are not

divided into discrete segments to be added or removed. They are searchable databases of articles, chapters, or gray literature for which users value the quality, depth, and breadth of content that can be mined (and “discovered”)

• APA does include opt-out options in our contracts for multi-year deals, reflecting our understanding that public institutions are funded on an annual basis

• RE: reducing consortia expenditures without content loss, well before the current economic situation, APA provided our customers the benefit of database enhancements without significant cost. In 2006, APA doubled the size of PsycARTICLES with the addition of the backfile, but we did not increase the price of the database to reflect this addition

Consortia “Opt-Out” Possibilities

Question 5:Consortia and the libraries they represent are finding it more difficult to commit to multi-year agreements, as many of us are beginning to face strict budget control measures that will not allow us to sign agreements beyond a single year. Are you willing to offer libraries and consortia more generous opt-out possibilities and/or shorter contract periods without worsening the financial terms? For example, is it possible to work out single-year agreements, without reductions in content, while protecting consortia from the risk of higher rates of increase in the subsequent years?

Consortia “Opt-Out” Possibilities

APA Response:• APA has offered – and will continue to offer – our

consortia customers the option of either one-year or multi-year contracts as meets their needs.

• Likewise, as stated previously, APA has offered our consortia customers – and will continue to offer – “opt-out” options in contracts to accommodate the funding schedules and/or budget control measures within which many institutions must operate

• In many of the multi-year arrangements that we have negotiated with our consortia customers, we have often agreed to – and will continue to consider – certain price increase ceilings

APA DATABASES

Global Links to the World of Psychology and the Behavioral Sciences

Thank You

Gary VandenBos, PhD

Peter Gaviorno and Neil LaderApril 17, 2009

Charlottesville, Virginia