Levine-Clark, Michael, “Article-Level Acquisition: An Alternative to the Big Deal?,” Invited. Oxford University Press Library Advisory Group, Oxford, May 25, 2012

1. Article-Level Acquisition:
An Alternative
to the Big Deal?
Oxford University Press LAG
Oxford
May 25, 2012
Michael Levine-Clark
University of Denver

2. Journals – Current Landscape
 Big deals
supplemented by
 Single-title subscriptions
supplemented by
 Article-level acquisition
 On the margins
 ILL
 PDF purchase

3. The Big Deal
 Cost effective
 Incredible deals for University of Denver
 Lots of bang for the buck
 Access to many more titles than possible
with title-by-title selection
 Probably not sustainable with current
academic library budgets

4. The Journal Inflation Problem
80.0%
70.0%
60.0%
50.0%
40.0%
30.0% Recurring
Non-Recurring
20.0%
10.0%
0.0%
FY FY FY FY FY FY
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
(est)

5. Journal Costs – University of
Denver
Aggregators ILL
$123,330 $11,402
5% 0%
Journal
Individual Packages
Journals $1,352,598
$1,144,582 51%
44%

6. Titles Available – By Source
ILL Journal
2,902 0 Packages
5% 0% 10,145
16% Individual
Journals
1,542
2%
Aggregators
49,117
77%

7. Cost Per Journal Title
$800.00 $742.27
$700.00
$600.00
$500.00
$400.00
$300.00
$200.00 $133.33
$100.00
$2.51 $3.93
$0.00
Journal Individual Titles Aggregators ILL
Packages

8. Cost Per Use (Article)
$5.00 $4.70
$4.50
$4.00
$3.50
$3.00
$2.50
$2.00 $1.83
$1.50
$1.00
$0.50 $0.26
$0.00
Journal Individual Titles Aggregators ILL
Packages

9. Cost Per Use (Article)
$45.00 $41.54
$40.00
$35.00
$30.00
$25.00
$20.00
$15.00
$10.00
$4.70
$5.00 $1.83
$0.26
$0.00
Journal Individual Aggregators ILL ILL Copyright
Packages Titles

10. How Do You Replace
the Big Deal?

11. Journal vs. Article
 In electronic environment, the article is
what matters
 The unit most people want
 (Relatively) affordable per item
 Easily discoverable

12. Replacing the Big Deal
 Medium or small deals
 More title-by-title selection
 Unmediated article-level purchase

13. Why DDA is Ideal for Books
 High cost per use (but cheap unit cost)
 Low overall use
 As percentage of collection (40% not
used)
 Per item (most only used 1-2 times)
 High publishing output
 ~1 million titles annually (UNESCO)

14. Articles
(Why DDA May Not Be Ideal)
 Low cost per use (but generally
expensive absolutely)
 High overall use
 Smaller publishing universe (but still
impossible to get it all)
 ~350,000 titles (EBSCO)

15. Current Options
 Expensive PDF lease
 $30+ per article
 Print/download
 Given to end user
 Nothing for library
 Nothing for next user
 Works well for marginal material – not
enough demand to warrant a subscription

16. Current Options
 Read-only short-term loan
 Cambridge University Press model
 Low cost ($5.99) in line with normal cost
per use
 24-hour access
 No download/print
 Another use = another payment
 Might work for core material – but limited
utility

17. A Goal: Replace Big Deal –
Similar Access Level for
Similar Spend

18. Replace Big Deal
 Benefit libraries
 Access to wider range of journals/articles
 Greater budgetary flexibility
 Benefit publishers
 Maintain most revenue in face of
stagnant/shrinking library budgets
 Maintain viability of journals
 Increase access to journals (beyond core)
 Benefit both
 Move from journal to article

19. Possible Models
 Expensive PDF purchase
 $30+ per article
 Print/download
 Full-text access on publisher site
 Available to next user
 Potentially lower cost per use

20. Possible Models
 Cheaper short-term loan
 $1.99
 Print/download
 Single user with expiration

21. Possible Models -
Requirements
 Need a sustainable price
 Need a cap
 At some point the library owns the article
(or journal)
 Do publishers need a guarantee, or do
we assume that good content will be
acquired?

22. Thank You