In his article "The Big Deal: Not Price But Cost," Richard Poynder surveys the history of the Big Deal debate, beginning with the first e-journal bundle deal in 1996 and ending with a showdown brewing between Elsevier and RLUK, a consortium of major UK research libraries.
In The Librarians’ Dilemma: Contemplating the Costs of the “Big Deal”, Ken Frazier made a compelling case against package deals of electronic journals. Eighteen years and countless budget crises later, Frazier is looking downright prophetic.
The university administration, LSU Libraries, and the Faculty Senate have been grappling with the high cost of Elsevier’s journals, as have many other universities nationwide...Going forward, the Libraries will subscribe to Elsevier journals on a title-by-title basis, retaining the most highly used journals by the LSU community. The [Faculty Senate] resolution further called for the creation of expedited document delivery to provide fast, unmediated access to articles in journals not on subscription.
a survey of 31 European consortia shows their total costs in 2017–2018 exceeded one billion euros for periodicals, databases, e-books and other resources.
Research is produced for the public good, but it is not always available to the general public who paid for it. Public universities and taxpayers should not have to pay again to have access to that work.
As the nation’s largest four-year public university system, the California State University’s (CSU) Council of Library Deans stand in full support of the University of California (UC) in their decision to not renew its subscriptions with Elsevier after protracted negotiations.
The UMass Amherst Libraries have issued a statement in support of the decision by the University of California system to develop a cost-neutral approach to moving journal licensing to a more sustainable, accessible, and open model.
The University of Virginia’s Alderman Library is headed for a major overhaul.
This week’s weekend Big Deal Long Read is an in-depth analysis of the academic publishing industry, including both research and textbooks/teaching materials. (While not directly relevant to the Big Deal, there is a new urgency in understanding the textbook industry, now that two of the three dominant players are trying to merge.)