RE: Seven ARL Libraries Face Major Planned or Potential Budget Cut=

["Rais, Shirley (LLU)" <srais@llu.edu>]

I have to take issue with this part of Anthony's (or was it
Pieter Bolman's?) comments on the "Big Deal:"

"No-one is now happy with it but at present the new model eludes
publishers or at least some publishers."

Froma bottom line basis, not a theoretical or philosophical one,
big deals can be great deals for smaller academic libraries.
After a major and painful cut in our serials budget in 1995, we
were nowhere near getting back to our former holdings until we
started taking advantage of big deals through consortia purchases
and standalone purchases.

Yes, in our first big deal, we had a large percentage with no
use, but the number of titles with SIGNIFICANT use went far
beyond our original subscribed title list.  So why should we be
bothered by the fact that there still remained many titles with
little or no use?  They are electronic, they aren't harmful to
anything!  We're not wasting them by putting them in landfills
because we don't need them!  In return, we gained access to new
titles that we demonstrably needed based on their use and which
we could never have paid for on a title-by-title subscription
basis either consortially or institutionally.  Our faculty are
happy and comment all the time that they appreciate the
restoration of 1995 cancellations and availability of newer
titles they never had before.  One of our significant researchers
told me just yesterday that his use of other research libraries
and ILL is rare now because of our increased titles through
electronic packages.

If some of our "Big deals" were to go away because the ARLs and
others who are vocally against big deals convince publishers and
others that "No-One" likes them, I think that more than just our
institution would be negatively affected.  Yes, you would restore
my ability to control title by title selection.  Thanks to
Counter, I'd have more reliable usage stats than previously, so I
could actually select titles based on what our USERS are actually
using.  But at what cost?

Sure I'd be rid of package titles that weren't being used, but I
would end up having to cut titles with significant usage because
I couldn't afford them on a title-by-title basis.  I actually
started doing this last year with one package.  Based on usage
and subject matter I determined the titles I should subscribe to
individually and got about 1/3 through my list and was already up
to the total package price.  Rather than deciding what I should
start cutting (remember these are titles that our users selected
& USED), I stopped there and renewed the package!  Let the unused
titles linger in an electronic wasteland doing no harm (at least
from my point of view)!

Opinions are my own--not my institution's!

Shirley Rais, MLS  -  Chair, Serials & Electronic Resources Dept.
Library Liaison to the School of Public Health
LOMA LINDA UNIVERSITY | University Libraries

11072 Anderson Street, Loma Linda, California 92350
office (909) 558-4583 * fax (909) 558-4919 * srais@llu.edu


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Anthony Watkinson
Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 6:20 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Seven ARL Libraries Face Major Planned or Potential Budget Cuts

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