Monday 18 July 2011

Libraries opting out of subscription "packages"

The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article about academic libraries deciding to opt out of "packages" (termed "Big Deals") of journal subscriptions that publishers/vendors customarily offer.  Instead, libraries are going through and making individual decisions about keeping or cancelling journal subscriptions, resulting in overall cost savings.   The article says: "As publishers point out, Big Deals put an abundance of information at researchers' fingertips. More and more, though, librarians respond that a lot of that material doesn't get used. "'We were getting a lot of titles, but a large number of them were getting little or no usage.'" And, according to the article, "the consequences many libraries have feared—loud objections from faculty members and financial penalties from publishers—have not come to pass."

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