The East Carolina University Libraries recently completed contract negotiations with Elsevier, the largest publisher of scholarly journals in the world, for a customized journal package that includes the titles most critical for ECU faculty and students. For more than a decade, the ECU Libraries licensed Elsevier’s “Big Deal” Freedom Collection, but the cost of that collection was unsustainable in light of budget cuts and price increases.
The new agreement reduces the ECU Libraries’ spend for Elsevier Freedom Collection journals by 75 percent. The savings will first and foremost allow the ECU Libraries to balance their existing state budget. They will also be used to further our commitment to sustainable scholarship by redirecting funds to information vendors that emphasize open access, transparency in pricing, and financially viable business models and by investing in systems that foster open scholarship and information sharing. These efforts will allow the Libraries to build a more tailored collection from diverse vendors that better meets the needs of the university and aligns with its mission.