The Elsevier Big Deal

What are “Big Deals” and why have libraries supported them?

Big Deals are multi-year journal contracts sold by major vendors that provide access to all or nearly all of a vendor’s journal content for a bundled price that grows at a preset annual rate for the life of the contract. Predictable annual cost increases, the large number of titles available, relatively low cost per use, and reduced staff costs made these deals attractive. The ECU Libraries’ Elsevier Big Deal began in 2000-2001.

Why are some libraries breaking up Big Deals?

The increase in cost has outpaced the growth of most library budgets. As a result, library collections budgets increasingly and disproportionately go to supporting Big Deals. They have steadily crowded out non-Big Deal journals, books, databases, and other resources. Some of the terms of Big Deal agreements, such as non-disclosure agreements and having to pay for unwanted or unneeded titles, are onerous to academic institutions.

Libraries exit Big Deals for a variety of reasons, but budgetary considerations generally play a large role. In addition to controlling expenditures, institutions are exercising greater control over which titles to include in their collections. Trends favoring open access to scholarship including robust funder policies, OA publishing support funds, the development of subject and institutional repositories, and increasingly powerful tools for finding free legal versions of articles have helped lower perceived barriers to breaking up Big Deals.

LSU, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Temple, UNC Chapel Hill, the University of California system, and Florida State have recently left or announced that they are leaving the Elsevier Big Deal. In most cases, these institutions have placed some individual Elsevier journal subscriptions instead. The University of California system initially decided not to subscribe to any Elsevier titles but to focus its resources on developing a sustainable publishing environment. Within the last month, the UC system renewed negotiations with Elsevier.

How have budget cuts affected the ECU Libraries’ collections budgets?

In FY2007-2008, before the first major round of budget cuts, the ECU Libraries’ collections budgets totaled $6.9 million; the Elsevier Big Deal cost $733,000. In subsequent years, the libraries made significant budget cuts but per guidance from the Academic Council, the Virtual Library budget was not cut. The Virtual Library budget pays for Big Deal journal packages and additional resources needed by both the Academic Affairs and Health Sciences Divisions. Since 2008, when the libraries received enrollment increase funds, the vast majority of these funds went to the Virtual Library budget. Even so, the increases were insufficient to keep up with publisher price increases, much less to meet many faculty requests for new library resources. Budget lines for monographs, print serials, reference materials, and other library materials were not similarly protected, and had to be reduced.  The ECU Libraries’ combined collections budgets have had growing shortfalls for several years. These shortfalls have been covered by a combination of nonrecurring funds provided by the two divisions, library operating budgets, and non-state dollars.

The ECU Libraries’ collections budgets for FY2020-2021 total $5,158,861, down nearly $1.8 million from FY2007-2008. Many vendors have agreed to hold prices stable for this fiscal year in recognition of the budgetary strains caused by the pandemic. Even so, approximately $700,000 is needed to meet existing collections obligations this year. The university does not have one-time funds to help cover the shortfall.

The scheduled payment for the Elsevier Big Deal payment for this fiscal year is $1,380,035, nearly double what we paid in FY2007-2008. Instead of making this payment, ECU decided to exercise the agreement’s early termination clause that can be invoked “due to insufficient budgetary allotment from government.” The library directors prepared a draft termination letter that was reviewed by University Counsel. Provost Hayes, Vice Chancellor Stacy, and library directors Ketterman and Lewis signed the termination letter and sent it to Elsevier in late July.

How are we moving forward?

In April 2019, the directors of the ECU Libraries and the Academic Council reviewed the largest journal contracts, discussed the insufficiency of the libraries’ collections budgets, and began making plans to end the Elsevier Big Deal if recurring funds for the Virtual Library were not available. Subsequently, the ECU Libraries directors shared information with and received feedback from various groups, including the University Research Council, the deans groups in the Academic Affairs and Health Sciences Divisions, the Faculty Senate Libraries Committee, and the Harriot College Dean’s Office and Chairs groups.

The Elsevier Big Deal is the ECU Libraries’ largest license agreement. At nearly $1.4 million, it roughly equals the total cost of the next six-largest Ejournal packages. Thus, the Elsevier Big Deal is the most logical package to cut in order to balance the collections budget. In place of the Big Deal package, we plan to place some individual journal subscriptions. Of critical importance, Laupus Library plans to continue its subscription to Clinical Key, which provides campus-wide access to the latest 10 years of 562 Elsevier’s health sciences journals as well as to ebooks. After the termination of the Elsevier Big Deal, we will also have access to backfiles that we have purchased as well as to content through 2020 for our 250+ “subscribed Elsevier titles.”

We are using a new product called Unsub to predict costs and access/fulfillment in different cancellation scenarios so that we can find the best value for ECU. Unsub can be configured to take into consideration the Elsevier content we own, the Clinical Key subscription, past use and cost per use by journal, number of ECU faculty who published in the journal, and other variables.
We are also reviewing the experiences of other libraries that have cancelled the Elsevier Big Deal. They have consistently found that ILL and document delivery requests and expenditures are well below the amounts they projected. We will send out a survey to faculty and researchers within two weeks asking for input regarding how they use Elsevier journals.

How can I get Elsevier articles I need if they are not in Clinical Key and ECU doesn’t subscribe to that journal or own the backfile?

A growing proportion of Elsevier content is available open access either directly from Elsevier or through PubMed Central or other institutional and subject repositories. Tools and services like the Open Access Button and Unpaywall make it possible to access this content more easily. In some cases, the journal content is included in third-party aggregators. Interlibrary Loan is a great option – articles can often be delivered online within two days. Peer-to-peer requests are another option. Finally, the libraries can purchase individual articles from commercial document delivery services and deliver them seamlessly when this is necessary. The number of individual subscriptions we place and the availability of “instant” document delivery services will depend on the actual amount of funds available, projected budget cuts and other resources needed by faculty, students, and other researchers.

What can faculty and administrators do to help ensure access to research and scholarship?

• Work collaboratively to establish shared values, expectations and goals for journal access and ownership and for sharing ECU’s research and scholarly output. The Libraries Committee expressed a desire to “reclaim scholarship” and support open access publishing and new nonprofit publishing infrastructures.
• When submitting an article for publication, retain rights to the work and deposit the article in ECU’s institutional repository and/or a subject repository.
• Include a line item in all federal grant applications for open access publication costs and, when possible, in other types of grant applications.
• Recognize and encourage open access publication during the faculty evaluation and tenure/promotion processes.
• Consider using F&A funds for open access publishing fees/article processing fees, commercial document delivery for research team members, and/or support for open journal publishing at ECU.
• Reconsider personal involvement in providing unpaid labor for commercial publishers as a peer reviewer or on editorial boards.
• Other ideas welcome!