Unwrapping the bundle: An examination of research libraries and the “Big Deal”

Portal

Volumn 14, Issue 4, 2014, Pages 587-615

  Strieb, Karla L ^a   Blixrud, Julia C ^b  

^a OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b Research Libraries   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84907859642     PISSN: 15312542     EISSN: 15307131     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/pla.2014.0027     Document Type: Article

References (48)

1. Richard Poynder, “The Big Deal: Not Price But Cost,” Information Today 28, 8 (September 2011) provides a historical perspective based on interviews with publishers and librarians.
2. The November 2012 STM Report by Mark Ware and Michael Mabe reports on an estimate by the research service Outsell Inc. that the global 2011 annual revenues from science, technology, and medicine (STM) journals were $9.4 billion, with just over half of the revenues coming from the United States. A May 4, 2013, article in The Economist titled “Free-for-All” reported that Elsevier had a margin of 38 percent on revenues of $3.2 billion, with Springer at 36 percent on revenues of $1.1 billion.
3. For a thorough and extensive analysis of the historic pricing dynamics for scientific journals and their deconstruction at the turn of the century
4. Carol Tenopir and Donald W. King, Towards Electronic Journals: Realities for Scientists, Librarians, and Publishers (Washington, DC: Special Libraries Association, 2000).
5. James Q. Arnold, Robert C. Badger, and Richard E. Lucier, Red Sage Final Report (1997), http://www.springer-ny.com/press/redsage/
6. Richard E. Lucier and Robert C. Badger, “Red Sage Project,” Serials Librarian 24, 3-4 (1994): 129-34.
7. Marthyn Borghuis, Hans Brinckman, Albert Fischer, Karen Hunter, Eleonore van der Loo, Robter Mors, Paul Mostert, and Jaco Zijlstra, Tulip Final Report (Elsevier Science, 1996).
8. There is a long-standing and extensive literature on serial pricing trends within the library science literature—far too extensive to cite in detail. The long-running series of annual studies of journal prices published since the 1960s in Library Journal is a product of these concerns. The opening sentence of the 1978 article provides some flavor, saying, “Once again this annual survey of the subscription prices of American periodicals indicates that journal prices have risen alarmingly.” (Norman B. Brown, “Price Indexes for 1978 U.S. Periodicals and Serial Services,” Library Journal 103, 13 [July 1978]: 1356.) Ann Okerson and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), Report of the ARL Serials Prices Project (Washington, DC: ARL, 1989), http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001527850, provide one exemplar of the research library community’s perspective from just prior to the development of e-journals. A historical overview of ARL’s perspective and role in responding to concerns with serial prices is provided in Mary M. Case, “Scholarly Communication: ARL As a Catalyst for Change,” portal: Libraries and the Academy 9, 3 (2009): 381-95.
9. Kenneth Frazier, “The Librarians’ Dilemma: Contemplating the Costs of the Big Deal,” D-Lib Magazine 7, 3 (2001), http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march01/frazier/03frazier.html.
10. Anne R. Kenney, Richard Entlich, Peter B. Hirtle, Nancy Y. McGovern, and Ellie L. Buckley, E-Journal Archiving Metes and Bounds: A Survey of the Landscape (Washington, DC: Council on Library and Information Resources [CLIR], 2006), http://www.clir.org/pubs/abstract/pub138abst.html, provides a thorough analysis of the preservation concerns and situation from roughly midway through the time series covered in this analysis.
11. The large and small studies of institutions’ transition to e-only collecting are too numerous to describe individually
12. Chandra Prabha, “Shifting from Print to Electronic Journals in ARL University Libraries,” Serials Review 33, 1 (March 2007): 4-13, offers a broad community-level study of a key point in the transition. The work of Brian E. C. Schottlaender, Gary S. Lawrence, Cecily Johns, Claire Le Donne, and Laura Fosbender, Collection Management Strategies in a Digital Environment (Berkeley: University of California, Office of the President, January 2004), http://www.ucop.edu/cmi/finalreport/cmireportfinal.pdf, provides another formative, multi-institutional analysis of use and collecting of print and electronic journal formats. A great deal of additional relevant literature is described and discussed in two key literature reviews
13. Daryl R. Bullis and Lorre Smith, “Looking Back, Moving Forward in the Digital Age: A Review of the Collection Management and Development Literature, 2004-2008,” Library Resources & Technical Services 55, 4 (October 1, 2011): 205-20
14. Linda L. Phillips and Sara R. Williams, “Collection Development Embraces the Digital Age: A Review of the Literature, 1997-2003,” Library Resources & Technical Services 48, 4 (October 2004): 273-99.
15. Roger C. Schonfeld, Donald W. King, Ann Okerson, and Eileen Gifford Fenton, “Library Periodicals Expenses: Comparison of Non-Subscription Costs of Print and Electronic Formats on a Life-Cycle Basis,” D-Lib Magazine 10, 1 (2004), http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january04/schonfeld/0shonfeld.html
16. Roger C. Schonfeld, Donald W. King, Ann Okerson, and Eileen Gifford Fenton, The Nonsubscription Side of Periodicals: Changes in Library Operations and Costs Between Print and Electronic Formats (Washington, DC: CLIR, 2004), http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub127/pub127.pdf.
17. Ross Atkinson, “Six Key Challenges for the Future of Collection Development,” Library Resources & Technical Services 50, 4 (October 2006): 244-51.
18. Richard K. Johnson and Judy Luther, The E-Only Tipping Point for Journals: What’s Ahead in the Print-to-Electronic Transition Zone (Washington, DC: ARL, 2007), http://www.arl.org/storage/documents/publications/electronic_transition-2007.pdf.
19. ARL and its partner library associations issued a set of draft “Principles for Licensing Electronic Resources” in 1997 (http://www.arl.org/storage/documents/publications/licensing-principles-1997.pdf) that is still referred to today. The association also developed a series of workshops on licensing to introduce the library community to best practices in contract terms and negotiations. Ann Okerson wrote about the need for the establishment and early growth of the LIBLICENSE project in “The LIBLICENSE Project and How It Grows,” D-Lib Magazine 5, 9 (September 1999), http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september99/okerson/09okerson.html. Negotiating licenses is expensive and time-consuming and, a decade later, an alternative strategy for managing licenses was developed.
20. Karla L. Hahn, “SERU (Shared Electronic Resources Understanding): Opening Up New Possibilities for Electronic Resources Transactions,” D-Lib Magazine 13, 11-12 (December 11, 2007), doi:10.1045/november2007-hahn.
21. The statistics themselves are available at http://www.arl.org/focus-areas/statisticsassessment/arl-statistics-salary-survey
22. Mary M. Case, “A Snapshot in Time: ARL Libraries and Electronic Journal Resources,” ARL Bimonthly Report 235 (2004): 1-10 presents a convenient time series.
23. All three studies have been reported in publications of ARL as follows: Mary M. Case, “A Snapshot in Time”
24. Karla L. Hahn, “The State of the Large Publisher Bundle: Findings from an ARL Member Survey,” ARL Bimonthly Report 245 (2006): 1-6
25. Karla L. Strieb and Julia C. Blixrud, “The State of Large-Publisher Bundles in 2012,” Research Library Issues 282 (Spring 2013), http://publications.arl.org/rli282/1.
26. Jeffrey N. Gatten and Tom Sanville, “An Orderly Retreat from the Big Deal: Is It Possible for Consortia?” D-Lib Magazine 10, 10 (2004), http://www.dlib.org/dlib/october04/gatten/10gatten.html.
27. International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC), “Statement on the Global Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Consortial Licenses” (January 19, 2009), accessed April 25, 2013, http://icolc.net/statement/statement-global-economic-crisis-and-its-impact-consortiallicenses. The persistence of the effects of the recession on libraries and consortia were asserted again in ICOLC, “Revised Statement on the Global Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Consortial Licenses” (June 14, 2010), accessed April 25, 2013, http://icolc.net/statement/revised-statement-global-economic-crisis-and-its-impact-consortial-licenses.
28. Karla Hahn, “ARL Statement to Scholarly Publishers on the Global Economic Crisis,” Research Library Issues: A Bimonthly Report from ARL, CNI [Coalition for Networked Information], and SPARC [Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition] (February 2009).
29. Jonathan Nabe and David C. Fowler, “Leaving the ‘Big Deal’: Consequences and Next Steps,” Serials Librarian 62, 1-4 (June 2012): 59-72, doi:10.1080/0361526X.2012.652524
30. Jennifer Howard, “Libraries Abandon Expensive ‘Big Deal’ Subscription Packages to Multiple Journals,” Chronicle of Higher Education (July 17, 2011), http://chronicle.com/article/Libraries-Abandon-Expensive/128220/; California Digital Library, “Systemwide Library License Reductions in a Time of Fiscal Challenge (Public Letter)” (May 16, 2011), www.cdlib.org/services/collections/current/publicbudgetletter2011.html.
31. Charles B. Lowry, “Three Years and Counting—The Economic Crisis Is Still with Us,” Portal: Libraries and the Academy 11, 3 (July 2011): 757-64
32. Charles B. Lowry, “Year 2 of the ‘Great Recession’: Surviving the Present by Building the Future,” Journal of Library Administration 51, 1 (January 2011): 37-53.
33. Lowry, “Year 2 of the ‘Great Recession,’” 44.
34. Several other surveys have collected data on facets of licensing large publisher bundles, but most have gathered data at a single point in time, or in the case of the ICOLC, “Battlefield Surveys” have not been publicly reported. See the Prabha study cited in note 9, and
35. Emma Cryer and Karen S. Grigg, “Consortia and Journal Package Renewal: Evolving Trends in the ‘Big Package Deal’?” Journal of Electronic Resources in Medical Libraries 8, 1 (January 2011): 22-34
36. Christina Torbert, “Collaborative Journal Purchasing Today: Results of a Survey,” Serials Librarian 55, 1-2 (2008): 168-83, for examples of other broad surveys relating to Big Deals and ARL library practices.
37. All three studies have been reported in publications of ARL as follows: Mary M. Case, “A Snapshot in Time”
38. Karla L. Hahn, “The State of the Large Publisher Bundle”
39. Karla L. Strieb and Julia C. Blixrud, “The State of Large-Publisher Bundles in 2012.”
40. In note 13, see the reference to the 1997 “Principles for Licensing Electronic Resources.”
41. Library Consortia, “Statement on the Global Economic Crisis,” and Library Consortia, “Revised Statement” (see note 17).
42. A careful reading of Deborah D. Blecic, Stephen E. Wiberley Jr., Joan B. Fiscella, Sara Bahnmaier-Blaszczak, and Rebecca Lowery, “Deal or No Deal? Evaluating Big Deals and Their Journals,” College & Research Libraries 74, 2 (March 1, 2013): 178-94
43. Jeffrey N. Gatten and Tom Sanville, “An Orderly Retreat from the Big Deal,” illustrates the dynamic at play.
44. Theodore Bergstrom, “Librarians and the Terrible Fix: Economics of the Big Deal,” Serials: The Journal for the Serials Community 23, 2 (January 1, 2010): 77-82.
45. The growth of open-access journals can be documented through news released from the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) at http://www.doaj.org/.
46. Richard Van Noorden, “Open-Access Deal for Particle Physics: Consortium Brokers Agreement with 12 Journals,” Nature (September 27, 2012); see the project Web site at http://scoap3.org.
47. “ARL Encourages Members to Refrain from Signing Nondisclosure or Confidentiality Clauses,” Research Library Issues: A Bimonthly Report from ARL, CNI, and SPARC 264 (June 2009): 1-2, http://publications.arl.org/rli264/2.
48. The LIBLICENSE site at http://liblicense.crl.edu/licensing-information/model-license/includeslinkstoafewmodellicenses.