The Future of the Big Deal

Big Deal status in 2012

Last year around time I contributed my thoughts to a column in Serials Review (38:1 2012) on the future of the big deal based on Swets’ experience. A summary of my contribution includes the following points:

• The idea of opting out of the big deal is beginning to gain momentum and customers have been strongly considering the possibility of moving beyond the big deal.
• While we have heard a great deal of buzz about this, we have not seen total cancellations of these packages yet.
• As customers renewed large packages we reached out to gauge intentions. The majority of the customers mentioned that they were carefully watching those institutions that have canceled their ‘big deals’ and may consider doing the same in the near future.
• The main consideration for these libraries was ensuring their users have continued access to essential content in their subject areas.
• The ‘big deal’ will survive only if it can evolve and offer choices to libraries. In the end, it will all depend on the libraries’ budget situation and whether the publisher can offer the compelling content libraries require.

Now a year later, I thought it would be interesting to see if anything had changed. I decided to engage members of the Swets Americas Customer Advisory Board by asking the following:

1. Is the idea of opting out of the “big deal” gaining momentum?
2. Is it possible to opt out of the “big deal” and still ensure your users have access to essential content that was part of the deal?
3. What does the future hold and will the “big deal” survive?

Is the idea of opting out of the “big deal” gaining momentum?

The general consensus was that the idea of opting out of the “big deal” is gaining momentum, or, at least, it’s garnering a lot of discussion. In fact, one of our Customer Advisory Board members (one of the largest Academic Research Libraries (ARL)) commented that her institution had been avoiding “big deals” for some time. She noted that instead they prefer the flexibility of subscribing to the exact titles that best benefit the needs of their institution. Another consensus was that as more attention is being paid to cost per use and usage statistics, many are finding that a substantial amount of titles have little or no use, and do not justify the cost. The librarian added that “this amounts to wastages of scarce financial resources which can be channelled elsewhere.”

On the flipside, we heard from another ARL whose campus includes a medical school. Right now, the medical side of the campus drives the decisions regarding the “big deals”.  They do a lot of research and are heavy users of journal content. Additionally, those researchers bring in a substantial amount of money and recognition to the school, so it’s in their best interest to support their needs. The librarian went on to add that if there were an option that could provide the coverage we need, they’d consider abandoning the “big deal”. 

Is it possible to opt out of the “big deal” and still ensure your users have access to essential content that was part of the deal?

All board members responded that it was possible.  However, some questioned whether it would be more cost effective. They proposed that some packages could be more cost effective to opt out of and purchase-only titles needed to support research and instruction.  However, for large institutions with comprehensive programs, one librarian stated that “it could well be more expensive to purchase all the titles needed to support programs than to continue paying for the full package.  The cost for the staff time required to select, acquire, process and make available titles on a one by one basis needs to be considered as well.  The time required for hand-selecting the appropriate titles to add to the collection could make the move away from a big deal unlikely in the immediate future.”

Other responses:

“We’ve seen some possibilities of new kinds of models, but as of right now, we couldn’t do it cost effectively.”

“The option is always there to opt out at the end of the agreement period but, there is always that dance between Faculty and Library where cancellations are concerned. To ensure access to essential content, libraries can increase the marketing of similar content to replace what has been cancelled, and of course there is always the option of ILL.” (See our previous post on SwetsBlog or an update on eBooks ILL).

What does the future hold and will the “big deal” survive?

The overwhelming response from our Customer Advisory Board is that the “big deal” will not survive in its current format. The majority expressed their hopes that the Open Access movement and pay per view will play a significant role in forcing the hand of “big deals.” Here are a few quotes:

“If budgets continue the spiral downwards and demands from the Library community for more affordable pricing models increase, it would not and cannot survive. I’d like to see a future where Libraries can customize their collection to suit their needs thus eliminating wastage and ensuring relevance. I also see a future where the option to purchase an article on demand becomes the norm. I also see more competition from the Open Access movement.”

“If I had to guess right now - ultimately, no, the big deal will not survive.  It was a great way to build collections of electronic material very quickly, but I don't think the structure of the deals will survive for the long term as they are not designed to take into account shrinking library budgets.  Options for paying per view and purchasing articles on demand will become more robust and slowly replace the "buy everything" method that has been prevalent in libraries for a long time.  The purchase on demand method of building e-book collections will become more common for journal/article collecting as well.”