Today@Dal

The “big deal” as a model for purchasing scholarly journals is no longer sustainable for mid-sized universities like Dalhousie.

What is a “big deal,” anyway?
It’s when scholarly publishers bundle 100s or 1,000s of journals and sell them for a discounted price. When publishers introduced the big deals, it made economic sense to buy in. As time went on, publishers increased the size of the bundles, adding titles of dubious value while driving up the costs significantly.

The five largest bundles we subscribe to have increased in cost by 78% since 2010. One bundle costs $850,000. In another bundle, fewer than 40% of the titles are being used by Dalhousie researchers, scholars and students. We subscribe to dozens of bundles.

This year, the Dalhousie Libraries are examining over 7,000 titles in six bundles that are up for renewal. We want your input. Select which of these journals are important to you at: https://fairprice.library.dal.ca

You can also view https://vimeo.com/255570271 for more information.