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Reply to Fred Friend



Fred Friend wrote:

"To answer the point about the effect of "big deals", they harm
NFPs in transferring library money away from individual
subscriptions (often NFPs) into block subscriptions from the
major (usually commercial) publishers. Yes, libraries pushed for
these "big deals" but are now beginning to realise the
disadvantage in locking up a large proportion of their budgets."

Fred, I am not a librarian, but my understanding is that the library community has mixed views of the Big Deal. In any event, I hope we all can agree that no publisher put a gun to a librarian's head to purchase a Big Deal package.

What concerns me is your comment that librarians "are now [!] beginning to realise the disadvantage . . . ." Now? How about some forward thinking, a bit of strategy work? The Big Deal is an inevitable outcome of online material marketed on a subscription basis. While at Encyclopaedia Britannica in 1993, we discussed the inevitability of Big Deal marketing, years before there were Big Deals, nor was there even a Web browser at that time. The emerging Big Deal marketing world was a factor in the decision to sell the company.

I fear that NFP publishers and libraries are continuing to operate with very limited resources going into strategic planning. Today's problem may be the Big Deal, but what is tomorrow's?

Meanwhile, the commercial publishers continue to think big and long-term. Note, for example, the recent announcment from John Wiley about starting a journal on text mining. Wiley is a very smart company. The journal may be successful in itself, but it also provides Wiley with a front seat at the emergence of text mining as an important application for intellectual property. Where are the libraries? Where are the NFPs?

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Joe Esposito