Electronic Journal Dealsconcerns and issues

(or Beware the “Big Deal”)

Linda Norbury

Aston University

USTLG Meeting

12 June 2001, Aston University

The Librarians’ Dilemma: Contemplating the Costs of the “Big Deal”

Kenneth Frazier, Director of Libraries, University of Wisconsin

D-Lib Magazine Volume 7 Number 3, March 2001

http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march01/frazier/03frazier.html

Reference

What is the “Big Deal”?

• An online aggregation of journals • Publishers offer access to all their

publications as a set price package. • Price is often based on the library’s current

payment to that publisher, plus an increment,

• Price increases are capped for a number of years.

Examples of the “Big Deal”

• Science Direct (Elsevier)

• IDEAL (Academic Press)

• InterScience (Wiley)

• Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

• Institute of Physics

• Emerald (MCB)

Disadvantages of the “Big Deal” 1

• Weakening collection development policies• Increasing our dependence on a few big publishers• Small publishers go out of business• Subscription agents are sidelined, (hidden increase

in cost to libraries)• Archiving• Loss of quality which was imposed by selection

process

Disadvantages of the “Big Deal” 2

• Editors and authors are not tied to the publisher in the way that libraries are.

• Publisher can make changes under the license agreement that libraries have no control over, e.g. changing the title of a journal may mean it is no longer included in the deal.

Advantages of the “Big Deal”

• Greatly expanded access

• Desk top access

• Immediacy

• Easier searching than in print version

• Well designed interfaces

• Relatively low initial cost

All of which means that

There are short-term gains to be made, but there is a long-term danger to the academic community

What do Librarians want in terms of electronic journals?

• A clear archiving policy, preferably with access to years during which subscription ran, after cancellation.

• Is the article more important than the journal now?

• Involvement of subscription agents to save us work and therefore save money.

What do Librarians want in terms of electronic journals?

• An electronic journal collection (or an article collection) which serves the needs of their institution’s researchers.

• Affordable journals/articles.• Timing of decision to subscribe – to fit in

with budget cycle and sufficient time for internal consultation

• Easy to understand deals

What do users want?

• Clarity – obvious what they have access to and what not.

• Ease of use

• Easy to understand deals

• One stop shop – linkage

• Affordability

What do publishers want?

• To increase profits:– increased sales– increased market share– reduced production costs– reduced marketing costs

• Customer loyalty

• To be indispensable to their customers

Alternatives to the “Big Deal”

• Changes are occurring in the scholarly communication system

E.g. SPARC partners BioOne, Columbia Earthscape, New Journal of Physics, and others.

Electronic preprint archives e.g. Los Alamos (physics)

PubMed Central and BioMed Central