Cost Models and Accounting in MeDoc

The German digital library project MeDoc offers a wide range of billable digital books and journals contributed by the part-icipating publishing houses. Operating a digital library has important economical aspects, as the contents of a digital library are information merchandise just as paper books or journals bought in a book store. Therefore suitable business models have to be defined and new innovative cost models, like floating licenses or fine grained usage-based pricing become both necessary and feasible in network based digital libraries. According to the MeDoc business model the user has to pay for services rendered. Initially only registered users are admitted to the MeDoc library, so the users can be charged via accounts. Currently a Clearing Center handles the actual invoice process for the MeDoc service. Cost models offered in MeDoc are various forms of subscription and usage-based pricing. The mechanisms described have been implemented and are being evaluated in the MeDoc prototype.