<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">I was just at the Charleston Conference where I heard a member of the audience at one session complain about having to pay for unused titles in a Big Deal package.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">I thought it reflected a lack of understanding of what a Big Deal actually is.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">So I want to emphasize something Karen says here: "when we calculated the alternative of subscribing to the most used titles, would be more economical to split up".</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">Whenever I've done an analysis on our Big Deals that are based on historic spend, I find that the titles in our "core" (the basis for our price) are indeed by far the most heavily used. And the smaller price we pay for "'all of the rest" is still very cost effective to have access to that long tail. That is, our cost per full text article used in the long tail is still well within our internal threshold for renewing journals, either in packages or individually.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">The important point here is to actually do that analysis, and don't think of the titles in the package that you don't use as "wasted money". </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">You are paying a pittance per "all the rest" journal relative to their retail cost exactly because your use of them is expected to be very low and take the form of that "long tail" distribution.<br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">Melissa Belvadi</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Nov 9, 2015 at 12:24 PM, Harker, Karen <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:Karen.Harker@unt.edu" target="_blank">Karen.Harker@unt.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calisto MT","serif";color:#44546a">We’ve been going through this process for the last several years. We evaluated every journal package in terms of overall use, overall cost-per-use, cost per
title, CPU for each title, distribution of use across titles (as in 80% of uses were for what % of titles), and the list-price CPU.
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calisto MT","serif";color:#44546a"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calisto MT","serif";color:#44546a">There were some packages which were clearly not good deals. These were packages where the distribution of usage across titles was very limited (80% of uses were
from < 15% of titles), and which, when we calculated the alternative of subscribing to the most used titles, would be more economical to split up.
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calisto MT","serif";color:#44546a"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calisto MT","serif";color:#44546a">There were other packages which clearly
<i>were</i> a good deal – low overall CPU, high distribution of usage across titles, and, most importantly, they were affordable. These we continued.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calisto MT","serif";color:#44546a"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calisto MT","serif";color:#44546a">Then there are those packages which were a good deal, but were unaffordable to continue. These were the biggest of the big deals. These were the hardest to
cut. By any measure, attempting to subscribe to the better-performing titles individually would have exceeded the cost of the package. But, taken as a single source of expenditures, they were unsustainable. It was only after making these cuts (and explaining
our intention to have to cut the biggest of the big deals) that the library was appropriated more funds. But this is only temporary…no more than 3 years. This decision will have to be revisited.
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calisto MT","serif";color:#44546a"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calisto MT","serif";color:#44546a">The point it, breaking up a well-performing package is very, very hard to do. At some point, you have to cut titles that have very low CPU’s or otherwise are
a good value. It’s like getting very heavy mortgage at a very low rate. Yes, it’s a good deal, but if you don’t have the money in the budget, you have to pass on it.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calisto MT","serif";color:#44546a"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calisto MT","serif";color:#44546a">Karen Harker<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calisto MT","serif";color:#44546a">Collection Assessment Librarian<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calisto MT","serif";color:#44546a"><a href="tel:940-565-2688" value="+19405652688" target="_blank">940-565-2688</a><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calisto MT","serif";color:#44546a"><a href="http://librariesareforuse.wordpress.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">Libraries are for Use</span></a><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calisto MT","serif";color:#44546a"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">From:</span></b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif""> Eril-l [mailto:<a href="mailto:eril-l-bounces@lists.eril-l.org" target="_blank">eril-l-bounces@lists.eril-l.org</a>]
<b>On Behalf Of </b>Colleen A McGhee-French<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Monday, November 09, 2015 10:05 AM<span class=""><br>
<b>To:</b> <a href="mailto:eril-l@lists.eril-l.org" target="_blank">eril-l@lists.eril-l.org</a><br>
<b>Subject:</b> [Eril-l] Is Breaking Up THAT Hard to Do?<u></u><u></u></span></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Hi all,<u></u><u></u></p><div><div class="h5">
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<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">I tried searching the archives of this list, but perhaps I am not doing it correctly. I couldn't find any discussion of the idea of/implementation of/success with breaking up journal packages. <u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Yet I would think we all have them - huge, huge journal packages, each containing more than 1200 or so journals, only a fraction of which are important/used - sometimes very important/highly used, each also containing hundreds of journals
that we're paying for that have not been used in the last several years, at least to our knowledge. <u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Has your institution thought about this? Tried it? Succeeded/failed at it, and why? What were the largest obstacles to success?<u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Or has your institution thought about it and figured, Hey - the very important journals are used SO MUCH that the package overall is actually fairly economical and that
<i>those</i> are the journals to concentrate on (rather than the huge number of unused journals)?<u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Thoughts?<u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Colleen<u></u><u></u></p>
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<br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div>Melissa Belvadi</div><div>Collections Librarian</div><div>University of Prince Edward Island</div><div><a href="mailto:mbelvadi@upei.ca" target="_blank">mbelvadi@upei.ca</a> 902-566-0581</div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div></div>
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