Women Writers Project

Note from the Washington State Library: In order to participate in the Winter 2002 Washington State Databases Trial, each vendor was asked to address questions the Statewide Database Licensing Committee felt were most critical in order for library staff to evaluate products and vendors. Please contact the vendor's representative, listed below, for additional information on this product.

1. Describe the database product(s). If you want us to link to more than one product, provide a unique description for each product. Be sure we know what information belongs with each product. If there are special hardware or software needs, please make sure you include them in this description. When you provide a description of your product, please go beyond the typical advertising brochure text. We are hoping for a thoughtful, descriptive paragraph that will enable someone unfamiliar with your product to understand the nature and coverage of your product. The more concise the description, the better.

The Brown University Women Writers Project is an online, full-text database of pre-Victorian womens writing in English. The textbase is a collection of primary source, rare works selected with the aim of presenting texts which are hard to find in print. Women Writers Online offers a range of authors including some well known to scholars in the field as well as those whose work is still unknown. The collection is broadly interdisciplinary, covering a wide range of genres and topics. The texts are encoded in SGML, providing exceptional search capabilities, yet at the same time the textbase is easy to use even for those unfamiliar with online resources. Users can access the site easily using any internet browser, so there is nothing to install or maintain. Subscription prices are based on an institution's undergraduate full-time enrollment figure and access is by annual license. General information about Women Writers Online can be accessed on our web site at http://www.wwp.brown.edu/

2. Is remote access included for the subscription price? If there are additional charges or requirements in order to offer remote access, please describe. What methods of remote access are supported? If applicable, please discuss any methods or assistance you offer regarding remote access patron verification and authentication.

Remote access is included in the subscription price. Subscribing institutions can include their proxy server in the IP addresses they provide to us. For institutions that do not have a proxy server or have special needs such as a faculty member who is out of the country and needs access we can arrange a login and password at no additional cost.

3. What customer training is provided, and at what cost? Please include "freebies" such as Web-based tutorials, end-user documentation tents, cheat-sheets, etc.

We provide web based help on our site at http://www.wwp.brown.edu/texts/help/wwp_doc/enter_help.html

We have tried to keep our site very user friendly and made it very easy to navigate even for users who have minimal experience with the internet. Our customer service contact is also available Monday through Friday for users who may have questions. There is no additional charge for any of the above.

4. What customer and technical support is provided, including hours of operation? In your reply, please include contact names (if applicable) or name of department, the phone numbers and e-mail addresses for your support services. If you have toll-free access to these support centers, please make sure they are available here.

Technical support is available at the phone number and email below and the hours are Monday through Friday from 8 am to 5 pm. The email listed is directed to 3 staff members so there is always someone available to answer questions in the case of vacations, etc.

WWP Support
Box 1841, Brown University
Providence, RI 02912
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 401-863-3619

Customer service is handled by:

Lisa Vaillancourt
License Coordinator
Women Writers Project
Box 1841, Brown University
Providence, RI 02912
(401) 863-9165
[email protected]

5. Please describe the statistics you provide, and discuss whether your statistical reporting complies in part or in whole with the guidelines developed by the International Coalition of Library Consortia found at http://www.library.yale.edu/consortia/webstats.html

Statistics are provided from our web site at http://www.wwp.brown.edu/texts/usage/

At present the reporting is quite simple, though we hope it will at least help support purchasing decisions and allow documentation of basic usage. We have reviewed
the ICOLC guidelines for usage reports and we will be working to bring our reporting closer to their recommendations.

In some cases, our delivery system makes it something of a challenge to follow ICOLC guidelines. For example, because our delivery system generates pages on the fly rather than accessing static HTML, it's not straightforward for us to do a simple breakdown of hits on a per-page basis, since each page is effectively unique. With time we will be able to do additional processing to break down the usage statistics by type of use (download, search, browse) and we will be working hard to bring subscribers this functionality as soon as possible.

The usage page provides usage information for the requesting institution only. We offer statistics in two ways: summarized by month with daily averages, and summarized by host machine. The latter figures are intended to provide more nuanced figures from
within the institutional totals, allowing subscribers for instance to determine whether the bulk of their usage is coming from within a library cluster or from departmental machines.

Since a number of our subscribers have expressed concern that information about individual host machines could be used to track individual usage, it is protected by password. For subscribers who would like access to this information, we will be happy to provide a password; if not, you need not view this information and we will not use it in any way. In no case are usage statistics being made available except to the contact for your institution (though you may share this information with colleagues as you feel appropriate) as this would be counter to the confidentiality concerns which we all share about usage statistics.

Finally, although the usage page will only be displaying up to a year's statistics at once, at the end of the subscription year we can provide a year's archive of statistics, which the subscriber may store and analyze as they wish.

6. Describe your pricing structure or formula for the product. If there are additional costs for retrieving full text, describe the pricing for this service. (Note: This question means - we want to know what your list prices are and how you calculate your prices: Based on FTEs? On buildings? On a combination, or on something else?)

If you cannot provide a standard price list that would enable each library to understand their cost to subscribe, then for each product you must tell us the list price that you would charge these hypothetical libraries.
a. Library A: A high school library with 750 students in grades 9-12
b. Library B: A public library that serves a population of 100,000 and has two branches
c. Library C: A public library that serves a population of 20,000 and has only one building, no branches
d. Library D: A community college library serving 5,000 full-time equivalent students
e. Library E: A four-year academic library serving 5,000 full-time equivalent students
f. Library F: A hospital library serving a hospital that employees 1,000 staff plus has 200 doctors attached to the hospital

Our pricing for colleges and universities is based on FTEs and the price schedule is listed below:
Group I (more than 25,000 students): $1500
Group II (10,000 to 25,000 students): $1000
Group III (5000-10,000 students): $750
Group IV (2000-5000 students): $400
Group V (500-2000 students): $250
Group VI (fewer than 500 students): $100

We are currently developing a separate price schedule for public libraries. For small non-academic companies and groups such as publishers, research organizations, and the like, the annual fee is $250 per year. We are always willing to discuss specialized pricing for those who don't fall easily into any of the above groups or where an institution falls onto a border between prices.

7. If a library subscribes to any of your products as a result of this trial, will their future subscription rates continue to reflect any savings or discount they may receive today?

Yes, they will continue to receive at least the minimum discount of 25% for subscribing as a consortium member. If the consortium has reached the number needed for a 35% discount (15 institutions or 50% of the membership whichever is less) then the members will continue to receive that discount at the time of renewal.

8. What is the minimum participation level (however you care to define it) that would be needed to allow participating libraries to receive a discount? What is the minimum discount for a group buy? How will you treat existing library customers with regard to a group buy?

The minimum consortial discount is 25% and there is no minimum participation level to receive the 25% discount. Any member of the consortium who subscribes will automatically get that discount. The discount increases to 35% if 15 members or 50% of the membership, whichever is less, subscribe. Members of the consortium who are already subscribers will be eligible to receive the discount at the time of their renewal. They will however be immediately counted toward the 15 members or 50% needed for the higher discount.

9. Please provide the name and contact information (toll-free telephone number, e-mail address, hours, etc.) for libraries to make further inquires. (Sales representatives for our area preferred.)

For further information about the Women Writers Project please contact:

Lisa Vaillancourt
License Coordinator
Women Writers Project
Box 1841, Brown University
Providence, RI 02912
(401) 863-9165
[email protected]