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Charging for a digital library — The business model and the cost models of the MeDoc digital library

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Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries (ECDL 1997)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 1324))

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Abstract

MeDoc is a German digital library project bringing together 7 developing institutions and 24 pilot user institutions as well as 12 international publishing houses. McDoc provides uniform access to a variety of information sources and an information broker service. McDoc offers a range of billable digital books and journals contributed by the participating publishing houses.

Operating a digital library has not only many technical but also important economical aspects. The contents of a digital library can be regarded as information merchandise just like paper books or journals bought in a book store. In order to encourage publishing houses to contribute their books and journals to digital libraries, suitable business models must be defined. New innovative cost models, like floating licenses or fine grained pay per view, become both necessary and feasible in network based digital libraries.

This paper introduces the McDoc business model and discusses various cost models and their applicability to the services of a digital library. It gives an overview of the McDoc license and pricing policy and the applied cost models.

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Carol Peters Costantino Thanos

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© 1997 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Breu, M., Weber, R. (1997). Charging for a digital library — The business model and the cost models of the MeDoc digital library. In: Peters, C., Thanos, C. (eds) Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries. ECDL 1997. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1324. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0026739

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0026739

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-63554-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-69597-4

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