Beware publishers bearing gifts : why the "big deal" is a bad deal for universities

Ball, David Beware publishers bearing gifts : why the "big deal" is a bad deal for universities., 2003 . In 24th Annual International Association of Technological University Libraries 2003 Conference, Ankara (Turkey), 2003. [Conference paper]

Preview

PDF IATUL_2003_BALL_fulltext.pdf Download (189kB) | Preview

English abstract

There is a common European folk-tale, often called ‘the little porridge pot’. It tells the story of a family of hungry peasants who are given a magic cooking pot by the usual mysterious outsider. They are told two words of command: one makes the pot produce an endless supply of porridge; the second makes it stop. The pot will obviously change the peasants’ lives: hunger, and the fear of it, will be banished by a ready, endless supply of food: humble, monotonous perhaps in modern eyes, but a nourishing staple. All is well; the peasants no longer go to bed hungry. However, one day the daughter of the family is left alone in the peasants’ cottage. She instructs the pot to cook; unfortunately she has forgotten the word of command to make it stop. When the rest of the family returns that evening, the village and fields are covered in a sea of porridge, which is starting to invade the forest. As with all folk-tales, there are many resonances for the modern world. We live in an information-hungry society. The electronic medium, delivered through the desk-top porridge-pot, offers a means of stilling that hunger. However the message of this paper is that, just like the little porridge pot, electronic information is not an unalloyed good: it has dangers and threats for the continuance of publishing and the library profession. In particular our freedom to choose and shape our collections is being eroded, and the power of the large electronic publishers is growing. This paper discusses: -the information value chain and some of its concepts, paying particular attention to features differentiating electronic from printed information; -money as an indicator of value; -the implications of the publishers’ monopoly for pricing and negotiation; -the implications of the product-to-service shift for archiving and access; -business models for e-resources, particularly the big, or all-you-can-eat, deal; -the loss of control by librarians and strategies to regain control.

Item type:	Conference paper
Keywords:	Big deal e-journals consortia
Subjects:	E. Publishing and legal issues. > EB. Printing, electronic publishing, broadcasting. F. Management. > FA. Co-operation. H. Information sources, supports, channels. > HN. e-journals.
Depositing user:	David Ball
Date deposited:	06 Aug 2006
Last modified:	02 Oct 2014 12:04
URI:	http://hdl.handle.net/10760/7907

References

David Ball, 'The information value chain: emerging models for procuring electronic publications', Online information 2000: 24th International Online Information Meeting: proceedings, conference editor Catherine Graham (Oxford: Learned Information Europe, 2000), pp.213-223

Jean-Claude Guédon, 'In Oldenburg's long shadow: librarians, research scientists, publishers, and the control of scientific publishing', ARL proceedings, 138, May 2001, p.3; available at http://www.arl.org/arl/proceedings/138/guedon.html.

Chuck Hamaker, 'Quantity, quality and the role of consortia', What's the Big Deal? Journal Purchasing – Bulk Buying or Cherry Picking? Strategic issues for librarians, publishers, agents and intermediaries, ASA 2003 conference; available at http://www.subscription-agents.org/conference/200302/chuck.hamaker.pps.

John Houghton, Economics of scholarly communication: a discussion paper prepared for the Coalition for Innovation in Scholarly Communication, Canberra: The Coalition, 2000, p.65; available at: http://www.caul.edu.au/cisc/EconomicsScholarlyCommunication.pdf

Mark J. McCabe, Academic journal pricing and market power: a portfolio approach, 2000, available at: http://www.prism.gatech.edu/%7Emm284/JournPub.PDF

David Nicholas and Paul Huntington, Big deals: results and analysis from a pilot analysis of web log data: report for the Ingenta Institute, in The consortium site licence: is it a sustainable model? Edited proceedings of a meeting held on 24th September 2002 at the Royal Society, London, Oxford: Ingenta, 2002 (Ingenta Institute, 2002), pp121-159, pp149, 151.

Richard Poynder, A true market failure: Professor Mark McCabe talks about problems in the STM publishing industry, Information today, 19 (11), December 2002, available at: http://www.infotoday.com/it/dec02/poynder.htm

Downloads

Actions (login required)

View Item