4 Myths About Hosting & Access Fees — Busted

4 Myths About hosting & Access Fees — Busted!

By Roger Strong (Vice President of Sales – Academic Libraries, Gale, a Cengage company) http://www.gale.com/

Hosting fees, which can also be known as access, platform or maintenance fees, are often attached to the purchase of a digital archive or eBook content. While the actual application of hosting fees can vary from publisher to publisher, in general, hosting fees support the regular maintenance and upkeep of digital content and the platform that hosts it.

While hosting fees are essential for ensuring a positive user experience, they aren’t always clearly defined. To help libraries and other institutions better understand hosting and access fees, this article will bust four common myths.

What is a hosting Fee?

Hosting fees cover annual costs related to data storage, privacy and security, accessibility and improving user experience.

Customers have the option to host the content locally, should they choose to do so. However, by paying the annual hosting fees, customers receive access to a vendor’s user interface and infrastructure, which removes local technical and storage challenges, fixed and ongoing cost challenges and benefits all users through enhancements provided by feedback from a broad and diverse base of users.

Myth #1: hosting fees don’t benefit the end user.

Operating systems, web servers, databases, languages and frameworks need to be kept up-to-date. By paying a hosting fee, libraries don’t have to worry about making these updates on their own, and instead, can rely on a publisher to stay on top of important changes.

Hosting fees help fund a variety of ongoing costs, including: • Accessibility: Digital content must keep up with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act1 and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines2 (WCAG) from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). As a part of this process, there are product updates and ongoing automated and manual testing components that need to be funded. • Data Privacy & Security: Regular updates are required to remain compliant with global data privacy standards, like GDPR3 and CCPA. 4 In addition, steps must be taken to maintain the safety of user data. • Platform Enhancements: Frequent upgrades are essential to keep in line with web browser capabilities, new citation standards, mobile technology and ongoing maintenance to the servers supporting these resources. Staying on top of platform enhancements means that users don’t have to worry about outdated technologies, like the recently retired Adobe Flash. 5 As another example, perpetual access6 databases often sit on platforms that must be migrated and adapted to meet changing integrated library systems and technology requirements.

• Open Web/Discovery: Gale does not operate or maintain a discovery platform, so in order to maximize access to our content, there is a cost associated with sustaining partnerships to integrate archival collections and eBook content into discovery services. Examples include investments in creating metadata that can be optimized within discovery services like Google Scholar and establish LTI integration so that products can be used within learning management systems.

Myth #2: hosting fees generate large amounts of revenue.

In fact, hosting fees are typically a small part of a vendor’s recurring revenue. At Gale, less than 1% of a perpetual archive purchase is accounted for in annual hosting fee cost.

When hosting fees aren’t clearly defined, it can be easy to assume that they are purely for profit. In its guide7 for purchasing digital archives, U.K. nonprofit Jisc recommends that publishers include clear and transparent information about the full cost of purchasing digital archive collections, including hosting fees – we strongly agree with this philosophy. Information regarding the usage of hosting fees should be readily available. For Gale, 8 hosting fees are crucial for maintaining quality user experiences, accessibility and website standards and enhancing platform capabilities. Ensuring quality and convenience for readers is essential, and an annual hosting fee enables us to make continuous updates to improve our platforms.

In addition, Gale also uses hosting fees to pay for services such as PORTICO, 9 which enables libraries who are PORTICO members to access content due to discontinuation or some other trigger event, should the need arise.

“While hosting fees are typically charged on an annual basis, there are options that vendors can take to provide additional flexibility for customers.”

Myth #3: Paying ongoing hosting fees for perpetual access to archive or eBook platforms is not always a good investment.

During lean budget years, libraries may consider cancelling hosting fees and either let content go dark or choose to host the content locally. It is often difficult to measure for a library unfamiliar with the development and digitization of a specific archive or platform the “lifetime cost” to maintain this resource, factoring in people hours, unknown technology costs and other budget priorities.

Much like a cell phone service, the cost of using a digital archive or eBook content changes over time. A cell phone carrier might charge a fee that covers updates like the shift from 4G to 5G, or similar to Wi-Fi charges, upgrades are needed to maintain an expected level of service — hosting fees can be viewed in a similar way.

Web browsers, citation standards, mobile technology and other devices are also constantly being updated. Hosting fees help fund these updates and ensure uninterrupted access to digital content.

While hosting fees are typically charged on an annual basis, there are options that vendors can take to provide additional flexibility for customers. Some of these examples include pre-paying hosting fees, accommodating different billing options and moving individual hosting fees to one platform fee.

One way that we help customers control their hosting fee cost is through a cap program. Through the Gale cap program, customers can avoid incurring hosting fee charges on new archive purchases if they’ve reached a designated cap level for their existing hosting fees.

hosting fees are a necessary but often confusing cost that is essential for maintaining and sustaining eContent investments.

As libraries continue to explore ways to bring to light their own digital special collections, hosting fees are necessary for funding important technology updates and ensuring that digital content is accessible, accurate and secure. Gale is passionate about building and delivering quality research, teaching and learning products to academic libraries, faculty and students. Hosting fees are essential for helping us achieve this mission.

Endnotes

1. https://www.section508.gov/manage/laws-andpolicies?utm_source=agt&utm_medium=pr&utm_ campaign=got221613915 2. https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/ wcag/?utm_source=agt&utm_medium=pr&utm_ campaign=got221613915 3. https://gdpr-info.eu/?utm_source=agt&utm_ medium=pr&utm_campaign=got221613915 4. https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa?utm_source=agt&utm_ medium=pr&utm_campaign=got221613915 5. https://www.forbes.com/sites/barrycollins/2020/06/22/ adobe-flash-cut-off-will-kill-millions-ofwebsites/?utm_source=agt&utm_medium=pr&utm_ campaign=got221613915 6. https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent. cgi?article=1344&context=charleston 7. https://www.jisc.ac.uk/guides/purchasing-digitalarchives?utm_source=agt&utm_medium=pr&utm_ campaign=got221613915 8. https://www.gale.com/?utm_source=agt&utm_ medium=pr&utm_campaign=got221613915 9. https://www.portico.org/publishers/ gale/?utm_source=agt&utm_medium=pr&utm_ campaign=got221613915