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Serials Review Projects: National Trends
Monograph and Serial Costs in ARL Libraries 1998-2018
In the past 20 years, libraries in the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) saw their expenditures on ongoing commitments (serials and databases) increase by 166%. During the same time period, the CPI increased 54%.
Background Information
- Big Deal Cancellation Tracking - SPARCThe Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition summarizes academic libraries' decisions to discontinue big deals.
- Costs Outstrip Library Budgets: Periodicals Price Survey 2020The most recent edition of Library Journal's annual price survey finds that spending on serials continues to consume library budgets and that price increases continue to outpace inflation.
- Deal or No Deal: Periodicals Price Survey 2019The most recent installment of Library Journal's annual price survey
- Leaving the “Big Deal” ... Five Years LaterNabe, J. and Fowler, D. (2015). Leaving the "Big Deal" ... Five Years Later. The Serials Librarian, 69(1), 20-28.
Southern Illinois University Carbondale and the University of Oregon discontinued multiple "Big Deals" between 2008 and 2010. This article outlines the consequences of those decisions five years after the fact. - Libraries Abandon Expensive "Big Deal" Subscription Packages to Multiple JournalsArticle from The Chronicle of Higher Education, 2011
- Research Information Costs at the University of VirginiaProvides an overview of information costs and their unsustainable growth. Note slide 4 on publisher profit margins.
- University of Virginia Collections DisclosuresThis page discloses the historical and projected costs of multiple serials packages.
- When the Wolf Finally Arrives: Big Deal Cancellations in North American LibrariesBlog Post from The Scholarly Kitchen.
- The “80/20 Rule” and Core JournalsNisonger, T. E. (2008). The “80/20 Rule” and Core Journals. The Serials Librarian, 55(1–2), 62–84.
Research consistently finds that approximately 20% of the journals in a library's collection accrue 80% of the total usage. Although Big Deals significantly increase the number of journals to which libraries have access, they frequently include many titles that are only minimally used.