Re: Interview with Springer's Derk Haank

["Mittermaier, Bernhard" <B.Mittermaier@fz-juelich.de>]

Dear Syun,

I for one disagree with the statement "The Big Deal is the best
invention since sliced bread."

The Big Deal makes economically sense for the publishers, because
this is extra-money spent for already profitable journals. Yet
the libraries do not have the extra money.

Let's assume we have no Big Deal, 50% of the journals budget is
spent with three large publishers, the rest with 100 smaller
publishers. Now the three big publisher offer a Big Deal at a
price of additional 20% of the already subscribed journals. If
you enter into the Big Deal, you spend 10% of your journal budget
for it and you have to take that from monographs or from the
smaller publishers (or is really someone extending your budget?).

If you do the latter, you swap some journals you once willingly
subscribed to against many journals with disputable value. Some
of them will surely be used, others not. And the problem is: You
can't get rid of the journals which are not used.

BTW: I prefer home slicing. The bread is fresher that way.

Best regards,
Bernhard

Dr. Bernhard Mittermaier
Leiter Zentralbibliothek
Forschungszentrum Julich
D-52425 Juelich
http://www.fz-juelich.de/zb