From: Steve Oberg <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2013 22:12:16 +0000

> However the case does highlight the way in which bundled pricing no
> longer reflects the financial or academic situation in universities
> today.

One reaction I have to this thread is to suggest that collectively, a
closer examination be given to institutional pay-per-view (PPV) rather
than subscriptions to bundles. My institution began this process more
than two years ago in response to the reality that approximately one
out of every four dollars of our entire acquisitions budget was going
to three large publishers and their bundles/deals. Admittedly we are a
small institution and our budget pales in comparison to many others.
It is very important to judge this option, and others, in the context
of the local environment. But the basic premise is, no more big deals
or packages, period. This is a far more radical and, I suggest,
user-focused demand driven content outlook than most PDA/DDA
discussions, which focus mainly on e-books or print monographs.

We have institutional PPV set up for three major publishers; for two
of them, there is literally no visible difference to our users when
accessing this content vs. journals for which we have subscriptions.
That's by design. As a result, we have seen very strong usage growth
among a greatly expanded universe of available journal articles in
full text than we could ever have afforded to provide previously. Is
this model risky? Are there specific details to flesh out to
understand what exactly this entails? Yes, of course. But we faced
even greater risk by continuing the traditional way. We now have far
more journal content available for less cost. We are in discussions
with other journal publishers to explore expansion of this approach.
The message we convey to publishers is, something is better than
nothing. If an individual journal or a package subscription at a high
price is all they will offer, we are not interested and they will get
nothing. But if they will work with us to enable institutional PPV,
they will get something, a revenue stream.

Steve

Steve Oberg
Assistant Professor
Electronic Resources and Serials
Buswell Memorial Library
Wheaton College
Wheaton, IL  60187