Re: Seven ARL Libraries Face Major Planned or Potential Budget Cuts

["Anthony Watkinson" <anthony.watkinson@btinternet.com>]

I thought this was an incredibly thoughtful letter. The Big Deal was
originated as a win/win/win situation for publishers and librarians alike
and was the brainchild of people at Academic Press and OhioLink. It was not
something imposed on librarians by publishers.

At the time I did not believe it would work as I thought that selection was
crucial to the work of librarians and indeed necessary and wrote a piece in
Against-the-Grain along these lines. It did however work for some years to
the satisfaction of most.

I recently spoke to Dr. Pieter Bolman who was at that time CEO of Academic
Press and he told me that no-one believed the actual contractual model would
last for more than a few years. No-one is now happy with it but at present
the new model eludes publishers or at least some publishers. I am sure lots
of people will claim that they know the new model which will satisfy both
parties. I do not believe them. I recommend Gatten, J., & Sanville, T.
(2004). An orderly retreat from the Big Deal: Is it possible for consortia?
D-Lib Magazine, 10(10).

Anthony
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Carlson" <dcarlson@lib.siu.edu>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Thursday, May 07, 2009 9:22 PM
Subject: RE: Seven ARL Libraries Face Major Planned or Potential Budget Cuts


> The discrepancy between Rockefeller and RIN is interesting. I
> cannot account fully for it, but I can report that the usage at
> our library is much more similar to the report from the
> Rockefeller Univ. Library (which reports that the top 10% of
> journals garnered over 85% of the hits and over 40% had no hits
> at all in '08).
>
> As a result of several years of level funding and no other budget
> strategies, the Library at SIUC had to discontinue its
> participation in a bundled package from an important publisher
> this year. The decision prompted us to look carefully and closely
> at the usage stats. I have not looked at these numbers in several
> months but I did a quick recalculation. Over a one-year period,
> there was less than one access per month to apx. 80% of the
> titles in this bundle (total number of journals in the bundle was
> apx. 2040); further, some 55% of the titles were accessed zero or
> one time all year.
>
> Rossner argues librarians are buying "hundreds of journals they
> do not need in order to access the journals their constituents
> actually read." The numbers from SIUC appear to support this but
> I think the conclusion is more nuanced. Since the price we paid
> for this particular package was a negotiated one based in no
> small part on our past record of print-based subscriptions one
> could argue that these 80% were simply a very generous lanyap due
> to the wonders of electronic distribution! Enjoy!! No doubt this
> is an argument publishers would suggest... and I think there is
> some truth to this.
>
> I know what we gained from our decision to withdraw from this
> package: control over our subscriptions with this particular
> publisher. And given our budget situation, this was critically
> important. We also gained a total reduced price because we used
> our new-found control to reduce our total cost.
>
> What did we lose? Well, most obviously, we lost access to a whole
> bunch of journals. However, with the majority of the titles
> seeing minimal or no usage, the loss was not especially damaging,
> in my opinion. Too, with an ARL ranking formula that is now
> focused on expenditures and not on 'da numbas, the loss did not
> hurt there as well. (For any ARL library, this would have been an
> important consideration just a few years ago.) What hurt most was
> the negotiated price caps. As I have reluctantly and sadly
> reported to the Provost, we are now paying less in total cost but
> much more per title had we been able to continue our
> participation.
>
> But it is critically important to note what the publisher lost:
> reduced income. This publisher is now receiving less income from
> us. And it seems to me that this is the real tragedy of bundled
> packages as currently configured. When they become unsustainable,
> the Library has no choice but to withdraw. We must pay less so we
> must withdraw. But the publisher suffers as well because the
> total income stream is reduced. This is a lose/lose situation.
> There has to be a better way. There has to be a way where
> libraries can gain some flexibility and control in managing costs
> within the parameters of an electronic platform. Had we had such
> flexibility across platforms, our options would have increased
> and the reductions to this publisher would surely have been
> reduced.
>
> -- David Carlson
> Morris Library
> SIU Carbondale
>