The Big Deal/Seven ARL Libraries Face Major Planned or Potential Budget Cuts

["Colin Steele" <Colin.Steele@anu.edu.au>]

John Shipp, the Librarian of the University of Sydney, and I, 
obtained Government funds in Australia in 1994 to support 
publisher Big Deals for Australian universities. We were 
following on the initiatives of Lynne Brindley, Derek Law and 
others in the UK.

In one sense, the fact that the Government funded a significant 
portion of the costs over a number of years was a good thing, but 
it did generate an expectation of continuance from the academic 
community, who traditionally are distanced from the realities of 
subscription policies. The process undoubtedly helped the 
transition from print to electronic which occurred far earlier in 
countries like Australia because of currency devaluations, than 
elsewhere, such as the United States. The Big Deals also 
undoubtedly placed more material on the desktop of the university 
researcher than they previously had from the specific publishers 
involved.

The consequences of the Big Deal in terms of the allocations 
within library budgets have been well documented, eg the 
increasing proportion of the total budget taken by them in 
contrast to the output of smaller publishers, learned publishers, 
and especially the scholarly monograph. This, however, should not 
be directly laid at the feet of the publishers, rather librarians 
bowed to the pressure of their academic communities. One 
remembers the efforts of the late Peter Lyman at the University 
of California Berkeley in his efforts to curb Elsevier 
subscriptions there, which foreshadow some of the current debate.

I think there is no doubt that in the 1990s there was little 
combined global resistance to the double digit annual rises 
imposed by some of the major STM publishers. I remember one 
significant UK serial publisher, now absorbed in one of the 
multi-nationals, telling me that he/she simply increased their 
subscriptions significantly because they could undertake that 
within the STM diaspora and no one would notice. This was also a 
time when the US major research libraries were less active in 
this regard, and clearly the US Library downturn in finances, is 
very significant in perhaps triggering changes in scholarly 
publishing practice.

Where we go from here will be assisted by US developments, 
although Gold OA, without dismantling the existing serial 
subscription structure is largely a case of a double-whammy. I 
would agree with Sandy Thatcher that Gold OA in the Humanities is 
a long way off unless the scholarly communication frameworks are 
dramatically changed. One can understand Stevan Harnad's 
frustrations here in terms of Green OA, although the two OAs can 
and will co-exist.

At the ANU, with its restricted subject fields, we once asked our 
subject advisory committees which journals they wanted of the 
major packages, and in the end, only 40-50% of the journals in 
the major packages were deemed essential. The multi-nationals 
pricing, however, of the reduced packages, at that time, was not 
much less than the whole package, which was certainly an 
effective marketing ploy.

In the longer term, to pick up Fred's point, it will be 
interesting to see how long some of the big deals pan out for 
2010, without going into such issues as to whether we really need 
serials in their present form, often simply replicating the 
previous print formats. Branding, reputation and peer review are 
essential, but do we need, in the digital era, articles to be 
amalgamated into a traditional serial format rather than single 
article access under the journal banner?

Colin Steele
Emeritus Fellow
Copland Building 24
Room G037, Division of Information
The Australian National University
Canberra  ACT 0200
Australia

Tel +61 (0)2 612 58983
Email: colin.steele@anu.edu.au
University Librarian, Australian National University (1980-2002)
and Director Scholarly Information Strategies (2002-2003)

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
On Behalf Of "FrederickFriend"
Sent: Thursday, 14 May 2009 11:02 AM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Seven ARL Libraries Face Major Planned or Potential Budget Cuts

I was also one of those who in the late 1990s supported the Big 
Deal development, in the UK through the Pilot Site Licence 
Initiative and its successor NESLI, now NESLi2, and I agree with 
Anthony that at the time it looked like a win/win/win situation.

To many people it looks very different now. I do not want to get 
into a blame situation on the reasons why it looks so different, 
but rather point to the way the WWW and other technical 
developments have transformed the opportunities open to all 
stakeholders since the Big Deal was conceived. Academic research 
is now conducted in ways which are very different from the late 
1990s, libraries are becoming electronic resource centres for far 
more than purchased or licensed content, and reader expectations 
have blossomed into new forms of content use like text-mining or 
data-mining.

So where do we go from here? Any new model has to meet new 
expectations and opportunities, which for librarians and 
publishers means moving away from a silo mentality. It must be 
sustainable and affordable, which means a business model to which 
the world-wide academic community can commit. The best option I 
can see developing to meet opportunities and to be both 
sustainable and affordable is the gold OA publication charge 
model, which through bulk purchase could achieve the economies 
promised (but never fully realised) in the Big Deal model and 
also release the advantages of OA to stakeholders. To some gold 
OA bulk purchase may appear a radical solution, but the way 
academic research is developing that model and certain 
stakeholder roles could soon be by-passed by other more 
fundamental changes.

I shall no doubt be criticised for ignoring the potential of 
self-archiving as the way forward, and by others as ignoring the 
complexities of any fundamental change in the world-wide research 
dissemination model. I am not ignoring those factors - they need 
to be examined carefully - but it seems clear that the Big Deal 
has had its day and we need to explore a viable and affordable 
alternative to meet the opportunities and challenges in the new 
environment.

Fred Friend
JISC Scholarly Communication Consultant
Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL (N.B. The views expressed
are my own and not necessarily those of any organization with which I am
associated.)