FSU Libraries participated in the recently published Ithaka S+R report, “What’s the Big Deal? How Researchers Are Navigating Changes to Journal Access.” The article focuses on institutions who have cancelled big deal subscription packages and those who were ready to cancel. For this project, 11 academic libraries were selected to explore faculty research habits, how they obtain research materials, how they view academic publishing models, and how this informs the libraries’ ongoing strategic decision making about Big Deal journal subscriptions.
In 2019, FSU Libraries was among the first to terminate their multi-title subscription package or “big deal” contract with the publisher Elsevier. By opting to subscribe to only the most highly-used Elsevier titles, FSU Libraries greatly reduced annual subscription costs, while providing new options to maintain the same level of access to researchers. In making this decision, FSU Libraries worked closely with faculty to explore big deal subscription models and costs associated with journal subscriptions.
Valerie Boulos, Associate Dean for Resource Management & Discovery Services, Renaine Julian, director of STEM Libraries, and Scott Schmucker, Electronic Resources Librarian, participated in the project. Julian and Schmucker acted as research partners by interviewing FSU faculty, gathering data, and submitting their findings. Interview questions focused on measuring the impact of these decisions, the exploration of open access models, and how research occurs after cancellation.
The team was pleased to see that the experiences of FSU faculty were well represented in the overall results of the study, which gave insight into the discovery habits, publishing preferences, and appreciation of the library as aspects of faculty research.
To learn more about FSU’s Big Deal cancellation, click here.
Read the Big Deal report here: https://sr.ithaka.org/publications/whats-the-big-deal/.
Leave a Reply