I once had a conversation with a chemist at UC Irvine who insisted that access to his core chemistry journals was vital to his research productivity. But when I posed the question to him whether he would be willing to allocate a portion of his research grant to the library for those resources, he said, “I can’t do that... Those funds are for research.” His response illustrates an ongoing disconnect about the perception of the value of research information. Ask any faculty member or researcher if research journals are essential to their work and most will answer emphatically “yes.” But how does that translate into support for library funding? As we consider the future pricing models for research information, we are increasingly engaged in a dialog with customers about Return on Investment (ROI) and performance outcomes.

Recently a growing body of work is looking at the relationship between Return-on-Investment (ROI) and academic libraries. In 2008, Elsevier partnered with the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana to develop a ROI model for academic libraries. The concept was to understand the main drivers of university administrators and develop a return on investment model that articulates the value of information resources in terms that are core to the administration. Working with Dr. Carol Tenopir of the University of Tennessee and consultant Judy Luther of Information Strategies, this single-case study demonstrates a $4.38 grant income for each $1.00 invested by the university in the library (ROI Value). The white paper   University Investments in Information: What’s the Return? is posted on Library Connect. The results articulate the relationship between the value of research information and its impact on the funding of an institute.

Elsevier conducted numerous analyses of ScienceDirect usage alongside research paper output of the academic institutions we serve. Looking at the pace of paper output and ScienceDirect usage, a correlation emerges alongside the rise in usage with publication of research papers in an institution and in countries. This can be used as an indicator of productivity and performance.

The most significant work to date in this area, in my opinion, is the independent study   E-journals: their use, value and impact, by Dr. Ian Rowlands and Professor David Nicholas, with the Centre for Information Behaviour and the Evaluation of Research (CIBER) study group, recently published this past April 2009. Examining over 100 institutions in the UK, this paper demonstrates a significant correlation between usage and research output. Among the performance outcomes are that universities with higher download figures award more PhDs and publish more papers, even when taking the size of the institution into account. The analyses demonstrate a significant pattern in the relationship between the number of downloads and the value of research grants awarded to universities.

Research information is a vital part of the engine that contributes to academic research productivity. If current economic circumstances drive institutions to reduce the availability of information to their research faculty, there is legitimate concern that this could slow institutional productivity and undermine long-term economic recovery. Libraries can demonstrate the return-on-investment in information resources to their institutions. And beyond ROI for libraries, Elsevier is developing sophisticated tools in research performance evaluation with the aim to help improve customer outcomes. Our recent launch of   SciVal (www.scival.com) addresses the drivers of university administrations to evaluate, establish, and execute research analyses more effectively. There is an opportunity to establish new roles to support fact-driven strategic decision making to increase university productivity and success at its core.

Also see:

Supporting Libraries In a Challenging Economy

How We Price Journals Today

Reconsidering Journal Pricing In An Electronic Environment

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